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?????

:o Pancake!

That'll teach me to read a thread properly wont it?! :o

pmsl!!

bogey's post sums up the weight obsession in this country really. It's automatically assumed that everyone needs to eat less. Not much attention is paid to how many calories they NEED, merely how many calories they consume.

pancake - more fibre (veg, fruit, whole grains, juice) might help the constipation. If you're really worried about him being underweight, you can add cream to his milk or get jersey milk which is much higher in fat than normal milk.

You could also up the protein - more cheese/peanut butter (a saviour in our house).

But I'm not a dietician either

If there are overweight children in primary school with parents refusing to acknowledge or accept it, they will probably still be overweight in senior school. I imagine that puts them at a higher risk of an eating disorder than if their parents had accepted they were overweight and tackled it in primary.

that wasn't a dig, by the way, Bogey

I wouldn;t allow it.

mine are not big- heck they get weighed at a PAed's office and she commented how healthy their weights were- but I well remember a single comment that spurred me into a decade of eating disorders at 11 and would naver contemplate having the boys weighed at school. DS1 at ten has already had ED treatment (can be linked to ASD0 which scared me enough.

Anyway IME the peopel who know their kids are big know it, and those that get told don;t acccept even when theya re told (friend who ahs a very alrge 5 year old fell into thatc ategory- was a cultural thing in part for them).

And I don't make decision just to give the state statistics. They ignore anything that doesn't fit their planss anyway.

"I don't understand why people get so het up about this. If you don't like what the letter says then bin it.

People get het up about it because whilst some parents will sensibly look at their child and ignore the letter I'm sure there are others who will take the letter at face value and possibly set their children up for a lifetime of food related issues.

I also dislike the emphasis on eating less/changing eating habits to tackle these problems, the focus should be on increasing activity.

Bogey's post was a simple mistake on a fast moving thread and sums up nothing about 'weight obsession in this country'

It's the weight denial in this country that's causing a problem imo. Otherwise obesity would not be climbing higher and higher every year.

I know that. That's why I clearly and concisely said I wasnt having a dig.

But I have a point.

People hear "Weight problem" they assume "too fat". nobody has many suggestions for an underweight child. The 'feed more cake' angle may not be healthy but when ds2 was 3.5, that's exactly what I did because he was a bag of bones.

I think everything should be made with Whimsical flour

Well Colditz - if we got the kids classified as overweight weighing less - our skinny ones would look less skinny... Everyone happy?

Once in secondary school though all pupils are publicly weighed and their weights recorded during a science lesson. My older ones were all very grateful they were on the light end of the scale rather than the poor kids up the other end who were ridiculed and humiliated as the results were put on the board.Parents aren't asked permission then and children don't get the option to opt out either.Pretty sure this is unnecessary and cruel IMO and far more damaging than an anonymous weigh in by health workers.

Colditz all mine bar ds3 have had underweight stages- ds1 still is borderline.

I fed more cake, but goo dquality cake; nuts, olive oild added to everything savoury...... dietician seemed to think we were bang on the way we did it.

It worked; ds1 is now 11 and 4.5 stones which was a big jump for him- 3 at 10. MIL was 6 as an adult so I assume he ie following her toute (but she has OCD and describes half a tomato and a lettuce leaf as ' a lady's meal'- no exaggeration either).

This is only the latest round of child health surveillance in schools - I've found references to it online back to 1980 (Royal College of GPs website), can personally remember being done in the 1970s, and think (but cannot yet find a reference) that it began in the 1940s with the roll out of NHS, and that in those days it was very much concerned with underweight and malnourishment issues.

Over the years, it has been very important in establishing population-based trends and, as mentioned by posters above, it is very important in planning health policy.

I don't think it should be abandoned.

The parental opt out should however exist; it will be up to parents to decide whether to exercise it and to assess the consequences of so doing.

I really didn't want DS weighing and measuring (he's in reception) but agreed to it as I didn't want him singled out.

He's not overweight btw - perfectly within normal ranges and you can see his ribs. I just agree with them doing it.

All four of mine have been though in three different secondary schools so assumed it was part of the curriculum.

Op I think yABU.

It is no concern of yours.

Why is the counrty obsessed with peopl's weight???

Of course if an11yr old is 15st then everyone can see they are overweight, they don't need a nurse to come into school and let the whole bloody class know.

Not eveyone who weighs "above average" is overweight. BMI is a far more accurate indicator of obesity but you don't get this from simply weighing anyone.

Fwiw there are also seceral "body types" and this too has a bearing on weight.

Can't be bothered to go into more detail but once again I see why parents opt out of this often very unaccurate process.

The coutry is obsessed with weight as obesity is costing us £4.6 billion each year

If it was being done with other measures, like height, colour blindness etc, then i think it would be ok.

Otherwise it think it could lead to children asking questions about weight, and worrying about their weight.

From the title of the thread, this child was weighed and measured; I've only ever come across weighing and measuring together, as the one data set is useless without the other. Sometimes other tests were done at the same time; I don't know if they still are.

they do measure the height too
I am not a dietitian and have no idea how relevant BMI is for children, but the height is definitely recorded

My son said he did not want measuring in year 6. He is not overweight and weighs himself at home. He just didn't agree with records being kept and of people receiving letters telling them that their children are underweight/overweight.

I was so impressed with his argument and standing up for his rights that I was quite happy to send the form into school saying he was not to be mesuared

Can anyone confirm that they do measure height as well please? I am concerned now - both that weight is useless on its own and that my DS would probably be seen as overweight if you didnt take into account his height!