Differences in parental perceptions of the socio-emotional development of underweight, overweight, and typically weighted children in a low-income sample.

Overweight during early childhood has become a major concern in the US, especially as there has been an increase across races, socioeconomic class, and ages. Negative effects on children's mental, physical, social, and emotional development related to overweight in childhood and adolescence have been identified. In addition, worldwide there are a significant number of children who are underweight. Underweight in childhood has been linked to mental, physical, social, and emotional deficits. This study compared caregivers' ratings of their child's socio-emotional development with children's weight status (underweight, overweight, typically weighted). Data from the Early Head Start Research and Evaluation Project (EHSRE) pre-kindergarten follow-up study were used. Few differences were found for the weight groups; but one notable difference was with underweight children who showed negative socio-emotional outcomes for the following variables: answering people, having trouble sleeping, getting hurt often, and restlessness. In addition, caregivers of underweight children reported greater rates of depressive symptoms than caregivers of typically weighted children.