The health issue of overweight and obesity are a worldwide epidemic. Many
relationships among the cause and effect factors on this issue are well established. However,
people are still getting overweight and obesity around the world. Therefore, it is worth to
consider other factors that may affect on people’s behaviors to avoid overweight and obesity.
One possible reason is that many people have wrong image about their weight status, so some
overweight and obesity people may feel that they are fit.
This article review recent literature about people’s self-perception of their body weight
status. However, it is found that there are not many studies about this issue. Among recent
literature, the perception of weight status has focused more on adolescents, and people are not
perceptive in recognizing their body weight status.
The factors that may affect people to have stricter normal weight standards are younger
people, female, non-African people, and people who have higher SES. Therefore, it is also
found that people who are older, male, African Americans, and in a lower SES are more likely
to underestimate their body weight status. Furthermore, people who self-perceive themselves
as overweight and obesity may have more active to diet. The proportions of people who
underestimated themselves body weight status are in a very wide range among different
populations. Moreover, people who have higher levels of physical active are more likely
incorrect self-perception of body weight status. Further research studies can focus on this
issue to figure out the cause and effect factors on the self-perception of body weight status.

Keywords：overweight, obesity, self-perception of body weight

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