the relationship between the awareness and performance of parents regarding food security with anthropometric indices among school-age children in bushehr, iran, during 2017

Parents' awareness and performance plays a key role in food safety of the children. this study aimed to investigate the relationship between parents’ awareness and performance regarding food security with anthropometric indices in school-age children from bushehr, iran, during 2017. data in this descriptive-analytical study was collected from 402 parents using questionnaires on awareness and performance as well as an anthropometric indices. according to the results, 313 parents had a good level of food security awareness. cereal consumption was insufficient in 70.4% of the children. 37.4% of the children were overweight or severely obese. parents awareness and their performance revealed no significant relationship with children height and weight indices (p<0.05). however, there was a significant relationship between awareness level and bmi-for-age index (or=0.44; p=0.02). the overconsumption of dairy in overweight children (or=0.51; p=0.03) and insufficient consumption of vegetables in obese or severe obese children were significant (or=1.04; p=0.03). the over- or insufficient consumption of food raises the probability of parents’ unawareness about the standards of food serving for children.