To complain about teacher weight comments

If they're just after data sets for weight, just ask them to bring in their mum's weight, can't see that being an issue.

Eating disorders are highly complicated mental illnesses with a range of causes over a period of time, linked to a need for control, self-image, and holding oneself to unrealistic standards.

They are not caused by being weighed once, or even being called overweight once.

Surely your daughter- like most human beings- is aware of her height and weight and I daresay she is aware of whether that falls into an average category for her age group and whether it is classified as healthy or not. If she doesn't, then a doctor will no doubt clue her in at some point. This biology lesson shouldn't have caused any unpleasant surprises and she was not made to reveal her weight.

We were weighed annually in PE as part of a fitness check-up which also included a range of stamina, speed, and strength exercises and body fat percentages and not one parent made a fuss, and not one child ended up with an eating disorder.

As someone who was slightly above average weight at this age and later developed a debilitating eating disorder, I would seriously discourage anything to do with weight at school - kids remember these things. The comment about 50kg being "normal" , is just bloody destructive to a child who has seen they are over that and who would have a tendency towards overthinking.
Blame the whole exercise in general, for me personally, I would highlight my own issues at that age and emphasise how I would never want another child to go through what I went through.
I don't even think BMI would be an entirely accurate way to measure things either, as I was very sporty and had a fair amount of muscle as a result.

You are absolutely right to complain. The same thing happened when I was at school. As an early developer, in year 6 I was 5 foot 7 and weighed 9 stone which was obviously more than the other, smaller girls but within a healthy range. The public weighing has given me lifelong issues with food and should never have taken place.

Yanbu. I usually stick up for teachers but weighing teens in class is monumentally thoughtless and stupid.

It's off the scale stupid tbh. I'd have complained too. I'll happily weight myself and have never had issues but loads of teens do.

@carrotsandtomatoes

At 5’4” 54kg with a BMI of 20.4 she is at the LOW end of healthy.

If she was an adult white woman. She's not. She's a 12 year old child. Your comment is incorrect.

ETA a just turned 12 yo female of 5'4" weighing 54kg is at 79 percentile. Top end of normal weight. 91 percentile is overweight for a child.

The teachers statistics were one set of data used in comparison to our own data set when I was in S1. Teachers were again used as a data set for S5, along with the current S1s. Their weights weren't announced fgs.

Height, weight, eye colour, shoe size, whether or not they could roll their tongue and how they folded their arms or crossed their legs.

Was no different than using the quadrant squares to compare species present in three fields. @jd88123 teach your child that data is just data. There is a reason for "averages", they wouldn't exist if everyone was the same.
Boys at that age could get triggered about their height. People have eyes, they can see if someone is shorter or bigger than others.

At 5’4” 54kg with a BMI of 20.4 she is at the LOW end of healthy.

you’ve proof of why these numbers are hopelessly unhelpful

Percentile charts for 12 years old are horribly inaccurate as this age group varies enormously in terms if sexual maturation. So an average is meaningless.
you clearly don’t understand BMI, percentile charts or puberty and development in terms of context. The why comments from people like you are unhelpful, incorrect and dangerous

I am freakishly tall. Why are you being so freakishly sensitive?! Drives me nuts.

There is also prepubescent weight and post pubescent weight and they are COMPLETELY different. Suggesting to a 12 year old who has already developed that they are abnormally or unhealthily heavy but telling them what they should be is harmful and has long term consequences

Yes they can. Don’t weigh children?

Weighing kids at school is a dreadful dreadful idea. I can’t believe this is happening in 2025 tbh!
I vividly remember them doing this in my primary school and one girl was very noticeably heavier on the chart THEY STUCK ON THE WALL. The fact she was head and shoulders taller than most of us wasn’t mentioned or the fact she very obviously had been through puberty. Absolutely awful.

id be complaining to the governors, its such a dangerous and unnecessary thing to do.

I remember being a chubby 11 year old and having to weigh myself in front of the class- it was horrible and I also remember we had to measure our height and there was one of the boys really upset about it- it's not very fair on insecure teens.

This.

Are you seriously body shaming a 12 year old girl right now? Have a look at yourself

I think if you wouldn't line a group of adults up at work and publicly display their weight then we absolutely shouldn't be expecting pre teen children to be happy to do it.
They are not babies! They can spot the overweight child in their class and once they hone in on them they have another stick to beat them with....I remember getting weighed in physics when I was about 14, I have never been so ashamed in my life. If I found out my children had been weighed without my consent I would go ballistic (both a healthy weight) sod what the teacher thinks!

So your child is on the 80th centile for BMI, she is technically in the OK weight range, but only just....

You're wrong.

OP already said her daughters BMI is 22 so she's perfectly healthy. She's just developing quicker than average.

Tall girls still can be upset by comments and comparisons about how "big" they are, and how much they weigh vs short girls. Even if they're the perfect weight for their height.

God that annoys me so much. I went down to 8 stone odd in my early 20s at 5'7", I think 57kg was about my lightest. I was a size 6 in clothes in the 2000s so god knows what that would be now - a 4 probably, size 0 in the US. With my build I should be about 65-70kg. I thought my legs were too muscly and was trying to make them thin. Even at 57kg they were still muscly and the rest of me was Ariana Grande thin.

DD2 is 16, 70kg and 5'10" and a size 8 in clothes, and very fit and healthy, and confident in her body. I would go mad at anyone in authority telling her she is too big for a girl.

Having a child go through an eating disorder I find comments like this very triggering. I will always be sensitive to weight and food after what we’ve been through but trying to put my personal feelings aside I feel the teacher has handled this badly and many other items could of been used instead of people. We live in such a body conscious society, muscle weighs more, someone needing the toilet will weigh more but no one wants to be the heaviest. It’s a very sensitive subject and needs to be handled sensitively and a class room setting with lots of pre teens isn’t the place.

I think weight should not be taboo. We are different weights, fact.
However, weighing a group of teens in front of each other, recipe for trouble.

Why say "freakishly tall" vs "short people" 🤨

I am amazed that any teacher would make children weigh themselves in class!
It is a personal matter for individuals, parents and health staff. School involvement should be made in private.
Public weighing (because the children will get peer pressure to tell what they weigh, or another child will look, or if they put the suggested 50kg they will be shamed for that too) is basically an invitation to bullies.
I would be furious.

Exactly - and it could be argued that 50kgs is a good round average number.