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?????

Why don't the nurses obscure the child's vision of their weight on the scales? It's very easily done and that way nobody could discuss their weight afterwards as they simply wouldn't know it and it would be a non-issue. The letters would go directly to the parents.

I wonder if the government will attempt to make 'weighing' mandatory as they do for the census?

I didn't get my son weighed (Y6) as he is weighed once every three months anyway by his consultant, and not being blind, I can see for myself he is slim.

I asked dd how she felt, she didnt want to be weighed and so I denied permission for her to be weighed. She has the sort of perfectionist personality that could lead to her obsessing on it. She at the moment has a healthy attitude to food - if she is hungry she eats, if she is not she doesnt. I want it to stay like that.

It is a horrible thing for yr 6 children to experience, and quite unnecessary as the BMI is totally flawed for adults and even more so for children. The parents of the children who opted out did quite the right thing.

I didn't allow my two to be weighed as I know their weight so do not need to be told.

Also with the permission slip was a leaflet explaining how ALL children should eat only low fat yogs, low fat spread and low fat cheese. I don't believe any children should be on low fat substitutes (unless clinically necessary) as a balanced diet should do it. Also I don't eat low fat cheese (as it vile) so why should my children. They were 5 and 10 when this was requested - DD about right weight for height (getting thinner though) and DS probably a bit skinny.

Personally I let DS get weighed and measured.

I know his weight and height though as it gets done at Cons Pead yearly/ 6 monthly. He is 51st percentile so I know he won't feel bad iyswim.

DS gets told his height and weight by nurse at appointments so its no shock to him - this sin't for any reason he's told but need weight for andrenoline dose.

It depends why these parents don't want the child weighed. Is it to spare the childrens feelings or their own - or both??

oh and agree with kitkat. DS 6yo has full fat everything. He is 'average' weight/ height ration with this so I think a low fat alternative diet could put him underweight??

I went to a full time ballet school and when I first joined we got weighed and measured termly. Due to so many cases of anorexia and other eating disorders the school changed the policy and stopped weighing us and just measured. I don't know what evidence they had that there was a link between weighing us and eating disorders but interesting nevertheless!!

In my opinion, and I have known many people with eating disorders and weighing a group of kids one after another even if they don't know the results can do nothing to help people lose weight.

We should never underestimate how self conscious and aware children are about their appearance and the ones that already know they are over weight will not change their life style because they were weighed at school. If anything it can make matters worse.

The ones that are so self unaware that they don't realise they are over weight will in general not care.

my kids are thin but not being weighed

toughasoldboots that is disgusting.

Why not go the whole hog and do a graph containing details about who's parents are married and still together.

Ask all the kids:
Do you live at home with Both your real parents?

Then draw a graph to see who lives in a broken home.

then the school can correlative this information with weather or not a child is fat.

Graph to show:
Who lives in a broken home and is fat

Ta Da!!!!!!!!!!!!

Being weighed in year 7 at boarding school starterd my anorexia, fast forward over a decade and I go to the gym every day and still am never as happy as when the scales read 7 stone. It's depressing.

@happiestblonde

Sorry to hear that, I hope you have it under control.

I withheld permission for both of mine when they were in Yr 6 (too old for Reception weighing). It wasn't because they are overweight (one was, but now at 13 she is 5ft 4 and 10st and size 10) but because the programme is purely about collecting statistics for the government. The government can mind its own business.

I let DD get weighed - not a big issue for us.

But when the paperwork came in the Summer hols, I didn't realise what it was, and we binned it thinking it was yet more advertising about exercise, and she does loads. S

So I don't know what she weighed

Thing is I remember us weighing, measuring comparing shoe sizes, no of bedrooms in house etc all for maths at school. (yr 6/7)

Funnily enough myself and my friends are not emotionally scarred by this.

So why 20 years later is it a horrific thing?

I believe its the 'you can't tell me off', no boundaries culture etc. that has left children with low self esteem - not a maths lesson!!!

mumbar

You may and your friends may not have been scarred by this but many people have been even longer ago than 20 years.

And someone on here just said that weighing her in year 7 triggered her anorexia.

Most won't be mentally scarred but some will you experience doesn't mean it's everyone else's experience

No it doesn't I agree totally. But there are people who become anorexic/ buleamic for different reasons.

I was very ill and always underweight. When I started to put on weight I became buleamic. I couldn't cope. This would have happened having been weighed or not.

Its a horrible overwhelming illness. I would be interested to know how many people have been helped through weighing compared to those hindered.

What ever you ask people for a graph lesson in school its going to alienate at least one person. Sweets/ crisp/ choc choices can be accused of promoting poor eating, asking children their favourite fruit will show up those who don't like it/ eat it. Favuorite animals - there is usually 1 child who has a random favourite animal etc etc.

Surely we should be teaching our children acceptance of others regardless of height/ weight without trying to hide these figures? It would be better to give our children boundaries, teach them how to repsect others, teach them true beauty is on the inside etc.

I am commenting mainly on the posts re maths lessons.

mumbar

I am sorry to hear you were bulemic. I have a few friends who have suffered with this.

You are absolutely right that many people develop eating disorders for a variety of reasons, however, making a graph of 11 year old girls for comparison in class is just wrong. The argument that you're going to alienate at least one person what ever you ask just doesn't make any sense to me.

I don't think you can put asking favourite animals to asking girls weight! I definitely don't think that "I believe its the 'you can't tell me off', no boundaries culture etc. that has left children with low self esteem - not a maths lesson!!!" is true at all.

I would definitely not let a potentially vulnerable girl be weighed in front of the class, especially if she is taller or bigger built than some of the others. There may be nothing to indicate to the OP that these girls are vulnerable, but maybe their mothers know something the OP doesn't - especially if they think weighing the girls like this will lead to unsavoury comments from other class members.

In year 6 girls are 10/11 and becoming very aware of their bodies, and if their mothers felt the process would humiliate them, then I can understand why the mothers refused to let the girls be weighed. We all know that cases of young primary aged girls getting eating disorders is increasing, so how is publicly weighing them going to help? Especially when the weights are just going to be a statistic for the school.

FWIW DS got weighed when we asked for him not to be. The school 'forgot' that we withdrew consent. We already know DS is classed as malnourished as he isn't on the centime charts for his age, but that is our issue, and isn't anything to do with how he is performing educationally.

Sorry not to read all the thread, but I agreed for my DD to take part precisely because I felt it would make more of an issue of it if she was one of the few NOT taking part.

I was quite cross tbh - felt caught between a rock and a hard place. I wasn't worried about the data, just about DD feeling so monitored. But then I just shrugged it off and figured it was probably something she would find mildly diverting whenever it happened, much as I did when the school dentist came to visit.

Perhaps we have a tendency to build these things up more significantly in our own heads, and the more we do, the more our children pick up on our anxiety?

Ifishwife I agree they will be segregated if weighed or not. And I think your right. We worry more now than we use to about it. I don't think anyone thought much about it when I was that age.

I was tiny and underweight and my sister 3 yrs younger was taller and 'big' as such. Mum never stopped either of us being weighed.

It is a no win situation. I wonder what the child whoes parents refused them to be weighed thinks? Do they get a self conscious body image without physically being weighed??

You can't win.

Reindeerbollocks: where has this been done, as part of the community paediatrics surveillance, in front of the class?

(Mumbar's post was about one maths project).