Warschburger and Kröller BMC Public Health 2012, 12:295 http://www.biomedcentral.com/1471-2458/12/295 R E S E A R C H A R T I C L E Open Access “Childhood overweight and obesity: maternal perceptions of the time for engaging in child weight management” Petra Warschburger* and Katja Kröller Abstract Background: There is an increasing awareness of the impact of parental risk perception on the weight course of the child and the parent’s readiness to engage in preventive efforts, but only less is known about factors related to the parental perception of the right time for the implementation of preventive activities. The aim of this study was to examine parental perceptions of the appropriate time to engage in child weight management strategies, and the factors associated with different weight points at which mothers recognize the need for preventive actions. Methods: 352 mothers with children aged 2–10 years took part in the study. We assessed mothers’ perceptions of the actual and preferred weight status of their child, their ability to identify overweight and knowledge of its associated health risks, as well as perceptions of the right time for action to prevent overweight in their child. A regression analysis was conducted to examine whether demographic and weight related factors as well as the maternal general risk perception were associated with recognizing the need to implement prevention strategies. Results: Although most of the parents considered a BMI in the 75th to 90th percentile a valid reason to engage in the prevention of overweight, 19% of the mothers were not willing to engage in prevention until their child reached the 97th percentile. Whereas the child’s sex and the identification of an elevated BMI were significant predictors for parents’ recognition of the 75th percentile as right point to engage in prevention efforts, an inability to recognize physical health risks associated with overweight silhouettes emerged as a significant factor predicting which parents would delay prevention efforts until a child’s BMI reached the 97th percentile. Conclusion: Parental misperceptions of overweight and associated health risks constitute unfavorable conditions for preventive actions. Feedback on the health risks associated with overweight could help increase maternal readiness for change. Keywords: Maternal perception, Need for action, Prevention, Obesity, Overweight, Children Background The prevention of overweight is a high-priority public health task. According to a recent epidemiological survey in Germany (2003 – 2006), 3% of 3- to 6-year-old children and even 6.4% of 7- to 10-year-olds qualify as obese, while 6% and 9% of these groups, respectively, are overweight [1]. Childhood obesity is associated not only with an increased risk of several physical morbidities, but can also lead to serious psychological problems [2]. Moreover, un- usual weight gain in early infancy has been identified as * Correspondence: warschb@uni-potsdam.de Department of Psychology, University of Potsdam, Karl-Liebknecht-Str. 24/25, 14476, Potsdam, Germany the main risk factor for the development of later over- weight [3,4]. Parents control many aspects of their child’s environ- ment, and are therefore vital to the implementation of recommended prevention strategies. The majority of research on this topic has been conducted to explore how parents can support their child’s weight loss or mainten- ance of a healthy weight. However, parents frequently do not perceive the need for preventive actions. According to psychological health theories, the perception of risks is an essential requirement for health behavior change. As nu- merous studies have shown, many parents often fail to recognize the overweight or at-risk status of their child © 2012 Warschburger and Kröller; licensee BioMed Central Ltd. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.