Nurses assist parents of overweight children

According to experts from the School of Nursing, parents often fail to recognize when their children are overweight or obese.

The project was awarded the UANL 2023 Research Award.

Yolanda Flores Peña, a researcher at the UANL School of Nursing, highlights this in her study titled “Impacts of Healthy Change: Intervention on Maternal Perception of Preschool Child Weight in Cohorts of Hispanic Mothers.”

The researcher found that parents of overweight and obese children often perceived their kids as having a normal weight. Consequently, she initiated an intervention specifically targeting parents of preschool-age children to address this issue.

The primary goal of the intervention is to foster an accurate perception of the child’s weight. The second objective involves addressing parenting styles, whether they tend to be authoritarian or indulgent. Additionally, the intervention aims to enhance feeding practices and promote physical activity. Key topics covered include emphasizing the significance of breakfast, ensuring sufficient sleep hours, recognizing the importance of rest, and encouraging regular physical activity.

Yolanda Flores Peña
Researcher at UANL School of Nursing

Successful intervention

According to Flores Peña, the intervention has proven highly successful, showcasing significant positive impacts observed among both mothers and schools where it has been implemented, both in the country and in the United States.

The researcher from the UANL School of Nursing expanded the impact of this project with the support of Perla María Trejo Ortiz, from the Universidad Autónoma de Zacatecas; Hermelinda Ávila Alpirez, from the Universidad Autónoma de Tamaulipas, and Meizi He and Érica Sosa, from the University of Texas at San Antonio.