Mother's nutritional label use and children's body weight

► In spite of a growing body of literature studying the determinants of children's obesity, little is known about the association between parental nutritional label use and children's body weight. ► This study examines the effect of mother's nutritional label use on children's body mass index and overweight using a national representative data in Taiwan. ► Mother's nutritional label use is found to be associated with lower probability of children becoming overweight or obese. ► A non-linear relationship between mother's nutritional label use and children's BMI is also evident. For mothers who are frequent nutritional label users, label use contributes negatively to children's BMI.