year 6 were weighed and measured this week. two of the children had parents who refused to allow this. AIBU this draws morea ttention to it

[slartybartfast]

one of them is definately over weight.
i assume her mum didnt want a lecture or advice.
one looks big built, not necessarily over weight,

but only these 2 in the whole class of 30 were singled out as not being weighed.

my dd nor her friends know their weight and height, it will be sent to parents in a letter.

but why on earth wouldnt you want your child to be weighed in this case?????

I wouldn't allow it either and I don't have overweight kids but I think it is a bad generic programme and I'm not interested in my children taking part thank you very much

Really the school should have done this in a discreet way. im sure those parets thought it would be.

Why are the school wasting time weighing pupils?

i would not allow it for my son, but i would for my daughter.

the reason is because my ds is under a dietican and requalrly get weighed ect at his appoinment

When we received our letter about weighing, it was written in such a way as to suggest it was just for the collection of statistics about child health. We had NO mention of it being a screening programme.

lofty It will be nurses who come in and do it, I think it's a nationwide scheme.

oh its for the school nursing service.

now when i was in year 6, we were weighed, measured, had a hearing test, colour blindness test,.. all with my dm in the room. but now, just a cursory measuring service.

if you have a large child, you already know it. For all you know they may already be on dietary advice from doctors or have some other medical condition. Probably not, but hardly worth mentioning on here is it?

Not sure how I feel about the school doing these checks in the first place to be honest..... I can see both sides...

Most of us have bathroom scales these days. We know what our children weigh or have a rough idea. We don't want busybody's passing comments or suggesting our children are overweight because they have a certain BMI, even though they have many years of growing taller ahead of them. It isn't the school's business at all. Schools are to educate. I appreciate there may be children who have parents that don't understand nutrition or aren't remotely interested, but on the whole parents who opt out of this service are the ones who really don't want school / education authority involvement because it isn't right.

I think it would be detrimental to a child's psyche and particularly for girls is a risky programme

children compare their levels - who wants their kids talking about how much they weigh?

ah supadupa... it is annoymous so i am safe. i wouldnt dream of bitching mentioning in rl.

You can't discreetly weigh 11 year olds.

did those who refuse, also refuse school nurse checks in reception, or health visitor checks.

why not take advice

Its not in order to tell us our kids are fat though, its for the collection of government stats on child health/weights.

because I don't want all this information collected about my dd2 and kept on file for the furture. It is well within my rights to refuse to have have dd weighed and measured.

Why do you want your dc weighed and measured at school? Does it help your dc? Does it make your dc healthy?

boys IME also tank up and then shoot up in height

my girl seems to have a different growth pattern - she is tall for her age and so hits 99th centile for all kids - kids are needlessly cruel - I remember being conscious of my height - is lighter better? this is what our societal magazines make out - who wants 5 and 11 year olds this self-conscious?

Some kids arent on the school health scheme or whatever it is , mine werent and therefore were never involved with the school nurse .

Plus im capable of weighing them myself.

yes I refused HV checks after my 1st child - no point in it

The school should carry it out in a way which doesn't single out any children whose parents have not given permission. There may be good or bad reasons why they don't want their children weighed in school, but you are right that "singling them out" draws more attention to it.

They could call out each child to the nurse, have a chat about some health issues or ask if they have anything they'd like to talk about, then weigh and measure those who have given permission but not those who haven't. Then no child is singled out.

YABU. I withdrew my daughter from this programme. At 11 she was tall and very well built. She also developed early and started her periods at 10-1/2. If I put in her height/weight for a child of 11 it came out as obese; if I put in the same height/weight and for a 13 year old, she came out as not overweight. The figures have no allowance for development and there is no way I would have allowed my daughter's medical records to note that she was obese at 11 when the measurements are taken on the basis of "one size fits all" and without any intellectual interpretation. Notwithstanding the fact that when the UK is almost bankrupt and when people with serious medical conditions cannot get the help and support they need (ie, alzheimers, hepb patients, etc) I am not prepared, as a matter of principle, to support a programme that is worthless due to the simplicity of its assumptions. If nothing else, the money should be invested in paediatric dental services across the country.

The government can not tackle the child obesity problem without these statistics. With them, they can work out what to do about it and roughly estimate how much will need to spend on tackling the cause and effect.

actually in dd's class No child was cruel about it. just curious i spose.
and my dd wouldnt comment on someone's weight maliciously, i dont think they would at that age.

I didnt allow my daughters to be weighed - neither of them are overweight. The reason why was because I grew up with a weight obsessed mum (hers - not mine). By the age of 10 I knew the calories of most food items and regularly weighed myself. I still have that mindset.

I didn't want my daughters to ever have weight issues - I never openly diet infront of them and now they're both in their teens im pretty sure neither of them has a clue how much they weigh, its never been an issue. They eat healthy and occasionally have crap like every other teenager and will happily eat anything without questioning the calorific content - something I'm quite proud of to be honest considering my own upbringing.

If they were overweight I would be aware of that myself without the school nurse informing me and would make the necessary diet changes without bringing it up to them. I just didn't feel getting weighed at school was necessary - its not a big deal. Neither of them were bothered that the majority got weighed and they didn't, it wasn't commented on by anyone so don't think they felt 'singled out'. My eldest (15) is surrounded by friends obsessed by their weight (none of them are remotely fat) - I'm glad its never been on my daughters radar.