The dominant public health narrative equates excess weight with poor health, and previous research has demonstrated that people judge adults with higher body weights as being in poor health, even when they engage in healthy lifestyles. The present study investigated whether the same pattern of beliefs holds for perceptions of children’s health. Participants (n = 445) viewed the health profile of a female child that varied in terms of weight status (normal weight, obese), health behaviors (good, poor), and age (younger, older), and then rated the child’s overall health and indicated their agreement with suggested behavior recommendations. For older children, targets with obesity were perceived as less healthy and were recommended to engage in more healthy and weight control behaviors than were the targets with normal weight. Health behaviors did influence perceptions of health and behavioral recommendations, but much less so for the target with obesity than for the target with normal weight. For younger children, participants placed a greater emphasis on health behaviors than on weight in their perceptions of the target’s health and healthy behavior recommendations, but the target’s weight did play a greater role in weight-control behavior recommendations. Overall, perceptions of older children reflect the mainstream weight-centric health beliefs that are perpetuated in public health messaging, whereas perceptions of younger children seem to be more aligned with the scientific evidence supporting the importance of health behaviors to overall health. Public health messaging, particularly messaging targeting parents, should be reframed to focus on the importance of engagement with health behaviors without reference to weight.
