Parents’ knowledge of child obesity in Kinondoni municipality, Dar es salaam, Tanzania

Background: Childhood obesity is a complex disease resulting from genetic, metabolic, and behavioral factors. It is a condition where excess body fat negatively affects child’s health or well-being. It is also considered as a medical condition because it has an adverse effect on human health such as hypertension, respiratory disorders, glucose intolerance and type 2 diabetes mellitus, depression and low self-esteem to social discrimination. The aim of this study is to fill the gap of published report on parents’ knowledge on the causes of child obesity; adverse health effects of obesity in a child, causes of child obesity, and how to control obesity in Tanzania. Methodology: A descriptive cross-sectional survey that employed a quantitative method for data collection and a multistage sampling method which employed a simple random sampling and systematic sampling was adopted. The key respondents were parents /guardians who had at least one biological/adopted child. Findings: Overall less than half of respondents 41.8%, 36.0%, and 22.3% had high, medium, and low knowledge of childhood obesity respectively. These proportions varied significantly by some background characteristics of the respondents. Sex was significantly associated with parents’ knowledge of childhood obesity (p=0.006). However Parents’ perceived knowledge of other factors Associated with child obesity was similar between male and female respondents (p>0.05). A contributory factor to child obesity with the highest (83.2%) proportion of the parents was life styles have increased children’s access to junk foods which consequently transforms into child obesity. Furthermore the findings show that the beneficial practices for controlling weight gain in children. Results were similar between male and female parents (p=0.312). A practice that most of the parents (41.3%) reported was feeding the children with healthy foods prepared at home. Conclusion: There is still limited knowledge of childhood obesity among parents/guardians. As a public health matter, there is a great need for public awareness on the types of foods in order to empower parents with knowledge of which proper foods to feed their children. However the results show that lifestyle, junk foods, increasing of junk foods outlet and luck of exercise are still a problem which contributes much on child obesity. Therefore this is a very important area to work with when thinking of child obesity prevention. On the other hand parents presented that home nutritious foods, regular exercise like swimming, jumping, playing with their peers as well as reducing their time for watching TV games, and internet games are important measures followed by parents for reducing obesity, but also there is still a need for the government to have more open spaces for the children to play. Further more parents mentioned measures to be taken by the government were community awareness on the child obesity government facilitation and the provision of enough health skills in the community. Moreover an advertisement on the cause, effects, and prevention of child obesity on the radio and television is also highly prioritize. The mentioned strategies are very important and they may help in increasing parent’s awareness on child obesity. Therefore it is very important for the Government or Public health officers to consider these comments in their planning