to not want my child weighed

[moogster1a]

My ds has received a leaflet about the weighing of reception age kids in order to ascertain just how many Greggs sausage rolls are eaten in the neighbourhood. ( healthy child programme)
I didn't object too much to this although I think it's a huge waste of money and time as fat kids' parents will get a letter telling them their kid is fat and I fail to see where they will go from there. but, thats by the by.
the consent form states " If you do not return a completed consent form your child's vision and hearing will not be checked but we will still weigh and measure your child".
Does this mean there is no opt out?
Do all schools do this? It's getting me more and more annoyed that we are living in such a nany state. I would rather schools cocentrated on teaching my child how to read ad write rather than attempting to do the full pareting job icludig deciding how fat he can be. ( by the way, he's a skiny runt so I'm ot objecting because I think we'll be haued in frot of the lard police and told to empty our cupboards of everything but rye bread).
in fact, I lied earlier, I do object in principle to the whole scheme. What a waste of money.

Eye test etc I'm ok with. If a child is overweight or very thin then a teacher can see that surley and report to ss or whoever? I don't want weight to be an issue with my children as they are perfectly fine. Well dd2 might be classed as thin but she eats like a horse.

As long as the children aren't told what they weighed at the time; because that would be likely to create some sort of competition about who was lightest/heaviest and possibly lead to bullying.

Boot, a teacher is not qualified to judge weight and nor should they have o take that on along wth their other tasks.

And why would weighing a child make it an "issue"?

Meh each to their own and all that. I'm off to get a bath.

I know mumbling
I am not expressing myself very well.

The process of weighing every child is such a blunt instrument and it is just an excuse to initiate conversations with the kids who, truthfully, most of us could name off the top of our heads.

Weighing children against a standard norm is just a way of saying ' ooh look - obese , we can send a letter' but the kids that need help will have parents who possibly won't care or won't believe it.
Plus weight only testing excludes kids who eat total shit but are still skinny.

If you want to test kids make it about fitness. That at least makes sense. Then actually do something about it rather than diets and nutritional advice.

But won't it be better to see which kids need support and then check if they are recieving it?

Weren't we all weighed at school? I'm thirty one and I remember being weighed at least twice in primary school. The nit nurse used to do it.

Seeker, if that was aimed at me it was spectacularly unpleasant.

I am not in the slightest 'i'm alright jack'.
I am just not sure that it is beyond the wit of man to come up with a method of determining which children have their eyes tested already so that the test is not pointlessly repeated just to make sure no one gets missed - what with money being a bit of an issue right now. I would be happy to send a copy of something from my opticians if that is not too radical a suggestion.
Those children who haven't evidence of a test in the last year get tested doesn't sound terribly awful.

And mumbling, is that what happens? Do we spend money testing every child and then follow up that testing rigourously with stuff that actually helps.
When it is weight based it excludes skinny unfit kids and includes weighty yet fit kids. It is just so broad brush - ' we are raising a generation of kids, what shall we do? I know - let's weigh them all and send out some letters'

I just want the money and time spent on the children who need it.

Under the Children Act (ECM) , Local Authorities have a duty to plan around a childs needs. If there are found to be pockets of overweight children, the surrounding area will be looked at and provision planned for if there is a lack of leisure activities or if the ones available are overpriced, that is why under some L.A's children get free swims etc.

Under the Education Acts, ECM, integrated working, codes of conduct for teachers etc, schools now have to be involved with the 'whole child', the easiest and cheapest way to implement plans are to have them carried out in schools. Parents work on weekends, after school, you would have to run clinics 24/7 to accomodate everyone if it wasn't happening in schools.

This comes from a EU strategy on health/wellbeing etc, this is were ECM came from.

Re. the 'wouldn't it be better for all parents to take their dc to the opticians' - surely its a far more efficient use of resources to check all the children in one place at one time?

I didn't take dd to the optician in that year, because I knew she would have a routine check at school - result; one 14 mile round trip and one afternoon of my time saved (and presumably ditto for 14 other parents).

But I'm clearly just strange - I found the routine appointments with the health visitor helpful, too.

I just see these checks as a bit like the regular optician visit and dental check-up (and I'd be extremely grateful please politicians if there was an option for a 6 monthly visit to the school by a dentist so it was routine and all dd's friends were going in at the same time).

I completely appreciate that it is different if your dc have health problems and therefore you are regularly in contact with doctors/other health professionals.

Having said which, I will send in a letter in yr 6 if they have an eye test then withdrawing dd, as she unfortunately now sees the optician every 3 months, so it would clearly be a waste of time.

I really can't remember if I took my kids for eye tests, probably not. Why would you if you know that they will be done in school, i guess i always accepted that, as the normal way it was done. What is the difference of making sure that every child gets one in school routinely or a parent taking them to an opticians - wouldn't the cost be roughly the same and no-one would fall through the net. Did everyone else take their young children to opticians?

Just to add statisics cross over into research, as in "has health in the area changed since phone masts went up" or we created a landfill site".

I don't know whether you have heared of the bio bank? but they are now doing longitude studies which gives answers towards cancer research, genetic conditions etc, data gathered in schools is useful, for example, there has been recent findings on yo-yo dieting v long term obesity (with yo-yo dieting found to carry greater health risks).

We don't find cures by accident, we need data and studies.

For some children the only static place they attend is school, it is the cheapest choice.
Parents coming from other countries don't know about the availability of health provision and wouldn't know how to access it, whereas every child has to attend an education establishment. Interpreters are provided in school already, so that wouldn't need extra funding, as one example, but it would be a nightmare to organise a interpriter to arrange an appointment with the parents and co-ordinate it at a center.

The same with disabled children, once again the easiest way is through the school, the children especially ASD etc are not upset by the process.

Pagwatch They have to monitor the rise in obesity otherwise they're going to get bitten on the arse big time in future years and realise they haven't set aside nearly enough money to cope with the pandemic.

It's no use getting to 2030 for example and the Government saying "We had no idea how many overweight people there would be, therefore we simply can't cope with the strain on services."

Equally, while they're gathering these statistics it would be staggeringly incompetant of them not to warn parents of overweight children that they are possibly heading down that road.

Ok, so they're not going to get it 100% right all the time because out of all the children monitored, some will be slim and tall with a large BMI but that's because the scheme is no tailor made to suit every individual...it's a gathering of statistics mainly to give the Government some foresight.

All my DC were weighed and measured but I suppose that it is a personal thing and you can choose whether to opt out. However, for all those people who said that their child is a healthy weight/height? How did you know? I expect a number of you chose to plot your child's weight on the charts in the red books we were given when our DC were born. Those charts are compiled as a result of children over time being weighed and measured - you can't have it both ways!!

Fair enough worraliberty and birdsgottafly

The statistical info gathering makes sense to me. The " method of combating individual children with weight problems' doesn't.

But I appreciate your explanations re financial planning and regional need etc

jesus christ. i am with takver.

i am 38, we were weighed and measured at school. HTH

Its alright saying get more playing fields/PE teachers/swimming pools but why should the government fund them if they don't know if they are needed? How do they know where to target them and how will they know if the investment is paying off or if they need to change tactics? There is a finite pot of money to spend and the government need to know which initiatives are paying off so they can either shut them down or roll them out in another targeted area.

Not aimed at anyone in particular, Pagwatch. And actually, not at all at you, even though disagree fundamentally with you on this one. Just aimed at the growing feeling in the country of " looking after number one." As the comedian Mark Steel puts it, soon we'll have meters on street lights so that nobody has to pay for for anyone else's light - just enough for them to walk to the next lamp post and put another 50p in.

You really really should pick and choose what you want to fight about, otherwise you are going to end up a very stressed and pissed off person who no one wants to be around.

So they want to weigh them? So what? How is that wasting money? They are obviously trying to promote healthy eating from a young age to prevent obesity and all the problems that come with it later in life. I cant see the big deal you are making out of this.

If your feeding your child chips every day whats the issue, I would think those who deep down know their child is fat would have a issue also it's not for children who are fat this alerted my sister to the fact my niece is under weight and she took her the doctor the next day

determining which children have already had eye tests would cost more time and therefore money than just testing them all at once, so your idea is flawed already.

It seems very much that everyone wants to take all they can get from the schools and the government but only on their own terms. Gimme gimme gimme on the one hand and how very dare you interfere with my parenting on the other. It is incredibly selfish, I agree.

seeker Of course all good mumsnetters take their children for eye tests and so on. But lots of parents don't. And surely it's worth a mumsnetters child having an "unnecessary" health check so that another child's need for glasses is picked up? - Well said

Bootcamp So you think SS have time to deal with every overweight (or under) child!? Do you not think they have better things to do?

Pagwatch That is time consuming and inpractical. Really why are you so against your child having an extra eye test? Why is it such a big deal?