Agreement between the nutritional status of schoolchildren and the perception of their guardians

ABSTRACT Objective Assess the correlation between classification of nutritional status of schoolchildren and the perception of their guardians. Methods A cross-sectional study with children aged 6-10 years from a public school in the South of Brazil. Weight and height of the schoolchildren were collected, and the guardians answered a questionnaire containing the range of silhouettes of Brazilian children. The perception through the scale of silhouettes was compared with the actual nutritional status. Kappa coefficient was used to check the consistency of actual and perceived perception. The prevalence ratio was calculated between perceived overweight and well-nourished children. Results A total of 236 guardians of schoolchildren were interviewed. The level of agreement between the nutritional status assessment of actual and perceived perception was weak (Kappa=0.32, p