Most parents perceive their overweight children to be ‘about the right weight', a new study has found.

This week, new figures from the World Health Organization predicted that if things do not change, Ireland is on course to become the fattest country in Europe, with almost all adults being overweight or obese by 2030.

An issue that has come up again and again is the ‘normalisation' of excess weight, with many people now unable to recognise weight problems. Research in the last few years suggests that even parents cannot tell if their child has a weight problem.

Only last year, a European study found that at least half of parents with overweight children believed that their child's weight was normal. While an Irish study carried out by Safefood in 2013 found that at least half of parents of overweight primary school children felt that their children's weight was ‘about right'.

This latest study involved US and Chinese researchers. They looked at two groups of children over two different time periods - 3,839 children between 1988 and 1994 and 3,141 children between 2007 and 2012.

All of the children were aged between two and five years and their parents were asked whether they considered them to be underweight, overweight or about the right weight.

The study found that 97% of parents with overweight boys in the first group, and 95% of parents with overweight boys in the second group, believed their sons to be ‘about the right weight'.

When it came to overweight girls, 88% of parents from the first group and 93% of parents from the second group, felt that their daughters were ‘about the right weight'.

The researchers noted that the children in the second group were much more overweight than the children in the first group, yet the parents' perception of their children's weight had not really changed.

"The results are consistent with past studies in which a considerably high number of parents incorrectly perceived their overweight/obese preschool child as being 'just about the right weight'," noted the study's lead author, Dr Dustin Duncan, of the NYU Langone Medical Center.

The study found that as family income increased, parents were more likely to correctly perceive that their child had a weight problem. This is in line with other studies which have found that obesity rates are rising more rapidly in lower socioeconomic groups.

The researchers suggested that there needs to be better communication between parents and healthcare professionals on this topic. This is backed up by research carried out in Ireland last year, which found that most GPs find it difficult to bring up the topic of child overweight and obesity during consultations.

That study by Trinity College Dublin and Tallaght Hospital, which was published in the journal, Forum, revealed that less than 4% of GPs consistently check the weight of children during consultations and almost 90% admitted to finding it difficult to discuss the topic with parents. (See more here)

Details of this latest study are published in the journal, Childhood Obesity.