to think these people are in denial about their children's weight?

[Sops]

Our childrens' reception class has just been weighed and measured and we have had letters home telling us the results.
Yesterday two other mums asked me where how my ds scored (81st percentile) saying that of their two, one was 'on the top percentile of overweight' and the other obese. I made non-committal noises at this, and just said that they both looked pretty average to me, and in the end both mothers agreed that really it meant absolutely nothing and neither of the children really had a weight problem and they weren't 'going to take any notice of it'.
Is it just me, but if my children were assessed as overweight/obese at five I would be taking a long hard look at our lifestyle and making some significant changes.
Are they right to ignore it or should they take action?

Just to quote 'consultant paediatrician Professor Mary Rudolf, who advises the government on obesity, asks why it is so difficult to recognise when children are overweight.....Did you know that a healthy 10-year-old's ribs should be clearly visible?'

Worraliberty - I have just commented on that link :)

Bit of cross posting there. Sorry, Manatee, that's the paediatrician's words.

The whole article is by the paediatrician.

Sorry - just realised that. I am now looking at her other abstracts and excerpts online sigh. I am interested to read her reasoning for such a vile, blinkered statement. Am yet to find any corroborating evidence. I'm sure I could find a badly put together argument in her literature somewhere and unpick it, I have every confidence that I could do just that, but I really haven't the time.
However I will just say - please do not think your child needs to lose weight if you can't see their ribs!!!

I think I'd rather stick to advice by medical experts if it's all the same thanks

Fine - in that case the work of the following small selection of relevant medical experts may interest you: (also - the book I linked before is an academic text which includes chapters from medical professionals as well as social scientists)

www.lindabacon.org/

www.dimensionsmagazine.com/dimtext/lerner/

www.guardian.co.uk/profile/lucy-aphramor

www.case.edu/med/nutrition/fac/primary/ernsberger.html

Blimey, Manatee, are you some sort of 'Big is Beautiful' campaigner? That's a scary set of links you've got going on there.

Actually - no, not at all. I have had eating disorders for a long time and used to be entirely fat phobic, until my dissertation proposal about pro-ana sites was turned down as it would be unethical for someone in recovery from an eating disorder to undertake that kind of research. Therefore I heard about pro-obesity. I thought it was a bit of a joke at first, and a lot of what I researched was very extreme and very unhealthy - stuffing sessions etc.
However there is a lot of academic research that goes against what is being pushed in media and policy, that does not get a look in. It deserves attention, it is not a group of loonies, but as I said before, academics from varying disciplines.

I'm sorry, but it seems to be a bit extreme to me. Very interesting, though.

This happened to me too. My friend's son is the same age as my middle son. He is quite overweight and def. bordering on obese. She got a letter home in reception saying he (and she) needed to see a nurse to discuss it.

She asked me and I bottled it totally. I said that he was a little plump and not to worry too much.

What I find interesting is that my friend has a little girl (1 year younger) who eats the same food and does the same activity, but she is a normal girl, neither skinny nor overweight. It makes me wonder why he is so different.

It seemed extreme to me too until I spent ages researching it.

Must go to bed now - but again - I recommend the book I linked to earlier. Night all. :)

my nephew got oneof these letters after all the dire warnings right at the botom it said he was 125grammes overweight that is a whole yoghurt!!!!

Yes but the point is, the letter is a heads up telling the parent that if the son continues at that pace in his weight gain, he'll be obese.

If his weight was less, she wouldn't have to watch it as much if that makes sense? Kind of like an early warning.

There's no point in waiting til he's fat to warn her he's possibly heading into being overweight.

There's a difference between being 'solid' and being obese. My other half played rugby for our country, and was (and still is) measured as obese, but only had 14% body fat! Our daughter is tall and apparently overweight, but has no hips/waist to keep trousers up! I'm not worried, as, at 6, she's doing sports and activities practically every night, and eats a very good diet. There's being sensible, and being obtuse. You need to strike a balance.

You're so right Jenstar but the problem seems to be that many parents are unable to either spot or admit their children are actually overweight even when it's pointed out to them.

Sops: Healthy is between 2nd and 90th, overweight 90-97th and obese 98+.

Sorry, Sops, I think you've misunderstood what a centile chart is.
They don't just take the top 2% and say they are overweight, the bottom 2% and say they are underweight. That's not how the charts work.
Otherwise, if you were measuring the centiles a classful of starving Ethiopians, you would have to say the top 2% are obese, which clearly they wouldn't be.

What the charts mean is that if you take 100 children, and your child falls on the 81st centile, there are 19 other children out of that 100 who are bigger than him.

It shows where he comes in the line-up of kids across the UK. Just because he is in the 80's, that doesn't necessarily mean he is bordering on obese.
Sorry - I don't want to sound patronising, but there seem to be a few people unsure of how to read a centile chart.

Morbid obesity is not the way all who are overweight are heading though. Being 'overweight' by 125 g is not the start of some perilous slippery slope! He may have just had a drink, in which case if he hadn't then no 'warning' would have been issued.
Being slightly overweight by BMI standards has no bearing on future health or size.

I'm in two minds here. I know several children who are 'solid' (ie built like a brick shithouse) and much taller than the average (which I have read is another sign of over-eating - the energy has to go somewhere and while they're growing it often 'funds' their height) who are CONSTANTLY eating and not necessarily the good stuff either (although their 3 meals a day are 'good' food, they have huge portions and are constantly asking for snacks and treats in between), and their parents are in utter denial about it.

However, my (much older) cousin's child was identical at the age of 7, she was a little tank, and my mother was very judgey about it all... she's now a tall, slim, 20 something with no weight issues... so it may well be the way they grow. The trouble is, you can't tell the future so it's hard NOT to think they're overweight/heading for obesity in the present. And what's going on inside their bodies is another matter.... so I just don't know!

Penny is right, sops. You've nothing to worry about.

DS was put down as a healthy centile when I thought he was clearly a bit too pudgy for his own good, though. So I always imagine that for a child to get the label "obese", they must be right obvious porkers; which would make me worried sick if it were my DC. So probably yanbu on the original question, OP.

I don't have any problem with the weighing programme; seems to me that the real value/potential for offence comes from the quality of the conversation that the nurse then has with the parent. We got the letter, too: they were concerned that dd might be underweight because of the disparity between her height (98th centile) and weight (75th). But the nurse handled the conversation well, mainly just asked me what I thought, checked if dd had lost weight recently or whether this was normal for her. When I assured her that dd is a very healthy weight, just has ludicrously long legs, she was fine.

BMI cannot tell you definitively whether someone is overweight or not; it does, though, raise the question. Given the tendency many of us have to be in denial about our weight issues (or those of our dc) it's probably a question worth hearing.

My son is the opposite. According to centile charts he is 50th centile for height and 17th centile for weight.

He is slim, but there is no way I am going to worry about him being underweight. He eats a ridiculous amount of food (often 4 meals a day, huge portions and snacks in between, a lot of healthy stuff, but some 'treats' too) but is very active. He is also very healthy and at 15 has only ever been to the GP once, for a mild chest infection age 2. He just never gets ill. So I don't see any need to worry, he's just naturally very slim IMO, just as I was at his age.

Weight means nothing on its own. Surely you have to look at height too.

When ds was wieghed and measured he came back with 99+ for height and weight. At the same time, a locum GP speculated he might be under-weight and 2 weeks later a consultant laughed at the suggestion, described him as "robust" and told me to make my own judgments. I do.

My children will never be the whippets of the playground. They are more the fit and well exercised labradors. I am fine with that.

Penny, thanks for the clarification, I think I do understand that (although I am a bit maths-blind tbh!)
The reason I got confused was because about a year ago I put ds' stats into the nhs BMI calculator and he came out at the low end of normal. As he is still wearing the very same age 3 shorts/trousers as he was back then (although several inches taller) and you can see all his ribs I just assumed he would still be down there.
He has not a scrap of fat on him. A couple of weeks ago someone commented that his legs looked like 'knots on a piece of string'!

Hi Penny, yes of course you are right about how the centile charts work. Trouble is the charts used by the NHS are from a population of a few years ago, so 50th centile then is not an average child today. An average child today is heavier! The NHS looked at the centile charts and placed slightly arbitrary 'underweight, normal, overweight and very overweight markers on particular centiles, just as Sops says. So less than the 2nd centile (from 1990 whatever) they are classing as underweight. A child who is measured on the 90th centile today actually has more than 10 children in 100 heavier than him because the average has increased. They should really redo the centile charts every year, but that would put the underweight children off the bottom centile!