Hundreds of parents from Alba objected to having their children’s weight and height measured as part of the World Health Organization’s National Child Nutrition Survey.

Activities that were carried out in the district as part of the obesity monitoring program in children’s communities were disrupted due to the refusal of parents to give their consent to the relevant activities, the executive director of the Public Health Authority (DSP) Alba Alexandru Sinea, told Agerpres.

“Before the measures conducted by the school health care, the parents of the students were asked to fill out a questionnaire and, implicitly, to express their consent or not to measure their children’s height and weight, respectively. In general, let’s have a frame, body mass index. (…) Well, we encountered a rejection. About 30-40% of parents refused this. They filled out the questionnaire but did not give their consent so that we could measure and weigh the children,” said Alexandrou Sinea.

When asked how parents motivated their refusal, he noted that the vast majority of parents “stated that they do not want the European Union to make statistics or tests based on their children.”

Sinea noted that we are talking about hundreds of parents, including those from the district municipality.

“If in the rural environment, the information was probably more difficult to receive or perceived a little more difficult, it was surprising that in the urban environment, even in the prestigious schools of Alba-Iulia, we faced rejection from the parents,” said the executive director of DSP Alba.

The study tracks trends in overweight and obesity among college students

He explained that this is a routine action that also counts as implementing statistics and, where appropriate, providing guidance to parents on healthy eating in a setting where there are multiple causes of obesity-related morbidity.

The research in question aims to monitor trends in overweight and obesity among students in order to identify actions to address this public health problem. This is done within the framework of the National Health Assessment Program, under the coordination of the National Institute of Public Health (INSP), through the Office of Public Health, with the support of school district inspectorates and schools.

“The research methodology involves informing and obtaining the informed consent of the parents of the children participating in the research. They receive through the children’s schools an informed consent form that includes information about the education and a family registration form, and return them completed without having to mention the child’s name. Procedures are necessary to properly inform parents about the study and to maintain data confidentiality. (…) The data obtained during the study are depersonalized to be processed for statistical purposes to establish the prevalence of overweight and obesity in children,” says the information on the assessment of the nutritional status of children of primary school age, published on the INSP website .(photo source Dreamstime)