Got a letter about 4yo DS today. He was weighed and measured last month at school (yes, it's one of those threads). The letter says he is overweight :( It lists the dangers of being overweight with the line "you are putting your child at risk of..." and finishes with the sentence "to obtain support on what to feed your child please contact..." and the phone number for the nurse who visited the school. Also enclosed was a change 4 life leaflet.
I sat and I read the leaflet and there is nothing in there that we don't already do. He gets at least five portions of fruit and veg a day. He has at least 60 minutes of exercise (usually more as school alone is a 20-30 minute walk each way and he's always in the garden on his trampoline or scooter, rain or shine). He doesn't have fizzy drinks (despite his best efforts to persuade me that all of his friends do) and I don't keep sweets in the house, gets them now and then as a treat, generally when we visit grandparents.
He's always been on the high end of the charts, 95th percentile at birth and stayed there right through his baby and toddlerhood. He's a solid little thing but when he's got his top off I can see ribs and the knobs of his spine, he doesn't have any rolls, has just the one chin, and he's in the appropriate clothing sizes (a mix of 3-4 and 4-5).
Yesterday he ate:
- breakfast: blueberry wheats (like shredded wheat with blueberry filling) in one of the kids bowls with semi-skimmed milk. A banana.
- lunch: cheese and tomato sandwich (one slice of bread, folded over and then cut in two), sliced apple, sliced red and yellow pepper. A seafood stick. Three pieces of tuna and vegetable sushi.
- dinner: chicken and mushroom tagliatelle with broccoli and sweetcorn in a homemade garlic cream sauce (garlic, herbs, low fat creme fraiche).
Drinks: glass of milk with lunch, the rest of the day either plain water or very weak sugar free squash. He has a drinks bottle that we top up as needed so he always has a drink available.
We went to the park in the morning, walked there and back, and to a softplay after dinner.
Today, so far, he has had marmite on toast (two slices from one of those mini-sized 400g loaves), a satsuma, an apple and tuna pinwheels for lunch (tuna in a flour tortilla with mixed leaves, rolled up and sliced). Dinner tonight is going to be Spag Bol, lean steak mince with homemade sauce and hidden veg. We're about to head to the adventure playground for the afternoon.
This is all pretty typical fare. At school he has school dinners. Typical menus include pizza and wedges with carrot sticks followed by cake and custard or breaded chicken pieces (nuggets then?) with potatoes and seasonal vegetables followed by cake and custard. I'm now considering putting him on packed lunch instead!
He seems healthy enough to me, I'm not filling him full of shit and he never sits still and I mean never, he's a fidgeter. My siblings and I were all solid children, when I compared DS to photos of me and my siblings at the same age we all have a similar build, and we all stretched out around about when puberty hit.
AIBU to just bin this letter? Or should I be paying attention to their chart rather than the child in front of me?
