Comparison of teachers and parents perception towards childhood obesity

Parents and teachers play an essential part in children's life as it relates to role modeling and educating. Linking nutrition and health education from home to school remains a challenge. With the high prevalence of obesity in children, teachers and parents are critical to the assessment and evaluation for possible solutions to eliminate childhood obesity. This study compared teachers' and parents' perception towards childhood obesity. Thirty nine school stakeholders and 100 parents with children in the fourth grade were selected to participate in a structured interviews or focus group. The research questions for the parents and school stakeholders were developed and validated by the research team based on previous focus group sessions. The questions were formulated to obtain information on the awareness of childhood obesity, overall knowledge, contributors to the obesity problem, possible barriers to alleviating the problem, individuals' responsibility, and to get the parents and stakeholders perspectives on what can or should be done to alleviate the problem. Responses for the interviews and focus group were recorded, transcribed, and analyzed using Atlas Ti. Both groups of participants acknowledged obesity as a major problem among young children. The consensus among the teachers was that there are inconsistencies in the messages transmitted by the schools and in the home. The findings also revealed that a deficiency of nutrition education in the schools and the home, coupled with a lack of parental involvement, low-income status, and most of all parents in denial all contribute to children being overweight or obese.