Your child may look thinner to you than he actually is.

Dutch researchers say parents often see their children as leaner than their child’s actual measurements would indicate. I think this is significant for parents to think about, considering the rise in obesity among our kids. Not to encourage anorexia here, but you might want to take an honest look at your child to asses if you should be serving him healthier food.

Researchers at the University Medical Centre in Groningen, the Netherlands, asked parents to choose their child’s body shape from seven different sketches.

Among the parents with normal weight children, 97 percent chose a “lighter” sketch than the data provided indicated. The same was true of 95 percent of the parents of overweight children and 62 percent of the parents of obese children.

Parents of normal weight children tended to think their child was one sketch slimmer than the child’s measurements indicated and parents of obese children often chose sketches that were three sketches slimmer.

Half of the mothers of the obese children in the study said their obese child was normal weight as did 39 percent of the fathers.

“Our findings point to the need for health education programs that encourage parents to recognize what is a normal healthy weight for their children and work with health professionals to tackle any weight problems,” study researcher Pieter Sauer said in a statement.

The study, published in Acta Paediatrica, involved 800 parents of 439 children. Five percent of the children were overweight, 4 percent were obese and the rest were normal weight.

If you think your child may be overweight, ask your pediatrician for an opinion. Even typically tubby toddlers can tip the scales to make an impact on their health. Weight is not — or should not be — just a vanity issue. It’s all about setting up your child for a life of healthy living.

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