To think its unnecessary to send child measurements out to everyone

[needsomesunshine]

I posted about my ds obsessing over his child measurement results that were done in school.The result letter was posted out to all parents & he got to the post before me. A couple of posters have insinuated it's my fault for letting him see the letter & I feel crap now. It has clearly revealed some issues he has with his body image & the results said he is 76th percentile which is healthy. The booklet that comes with it is meant to be child friendly but still made him think we are not healthy enough which isn't true.
Was I unreasonable to discuss it with him or are they unreasonable to send these out to parents with healthy children?

Ds's letter came home with him in his book bag. I didn't mention it to him and he told me about a week later that he had been weighed and measured at school. There was no booklet with it.

I don't see much point in it but neither am I bothered by it.

Just because a child is a "healthy" weight, doesn't mean they eat healthily. I think the accompanying booklet talked about the need for a balanced diet, plenty of exercise - just the usual stuff.

To answer your questions TABR to send this stuff out to everybody. If they just sent it to the kids not in the healthy weight range, that would probably cause much offence to them. Of course YANBU to discuss this with him. Who else us going to allay his fears?

I don't really get them and DS is too little fo me to have experienced this, but I have seen from other threads that you can opt out of them being measured.

Anything that gets people thinking aobut health is a positive but these measurements seem to have the focus all wrong.

I didn't allow my DS to have this done at school.

I think if you allow your child to take part in this, then you have to accept it is reasonable for you to have the results posted out, regardless of whether there is an issue or not.

I went for the simple solution of taking my child out of school on the day that these tests were being carried out. IMO the unreasonableness comes in having these surveys in the first place.

How old is your ds? My ds is 7 and understands healthy eating. He also understands that some children are bigger than him and some are smaller than him. He also knows that he can choose to eat healthily or not (ie school meals). I have no concerns with him knowing which centile he is on although I have no idea as he hasn't been measured at his current school. He was measured at his new school when he spent the day there recently but I didn't get the results.

He is in yr6. I have another in reception who was also measured. Maybe it depends on the area.
He is very healthy and goes to sports club 3 times a week. He has a balanced diet bug I have noticed he has got more & more picky over food so the booklet however well meaning didn't help.

yr 6 is 10-11? So certainly old enough to understand healthy eating. If you were hitherto unaware he had body image problems then surely identifying this now is a very good thing indeed?

How can you possibly be unreasonable to discuss health issues with your child?

And why would they be unreasonable to send booklets to parents about their children's health?

DD has just received her letter. She is in reception and- as we knew already- is perfectly healthy and in proportion. I didn't object to them doing it as dd was excited about it and I just told her it was an interesting exercise in acknowledging how we all come in different shapes and sizes.

I do think the school give out some very strange info to such small children. DD has just turned 5 and has started saying some foods are 'bad' and she 'must not' have certain things. At the same time the school dinners have chips, cakes, custard etc on occasion but packed lunches must never contain these sorts of things. I work really hard to teach dd about a healthy lifestyle, pleasure, exercise, moderation etc but she does come home with tales about 'cake makes you fat'. She isn't really affected by the school's weird dichotomies atm, but I do worry about how this will develop over time.

I think putting a lot of focus on this letter home is the wrong thing for you atm. If you are noticing problems with body image and food atm, then getting specific support and help to manage this NOW is very important indeed.

The reason they're not allowed in lunch boxes is because a school can control its menu and plan these things...they can't control how often these things are given in a packed lunch.

It's fair enough and I understand the basic principles behind lunchbox rules but we're not allowed to give wholemeal muffins (they have nothing unhealthy in them), granola, flapjack, rice pudding etc. In fact there's very little on the allowed list. And what they're doing is promoting a very strange dichotomy. School lunches have a pudding every day. 4 times out of 5 they involve cake or custard. Custard is a banned substance in lunchboxes.

I agree and some take it way OTT.

I'm a firm believer in moderation in everything and I think some schools don't bother to promote that.

ummmm a slight tangent here but why are you allowing a child to open YOUR post?

Is he 75 percentile for height and weight OP?

Dropdeadfred it gives it as one measurement against a line. In his thinking he is closer to the overweight marker then then the middle ifyswim.
I don't allow them to open my post. They get home before me sometimes & pick it up off the mat. It is addressed to parent/guardian of.
I'm glad it's been raised now. I don't think I was unreasonable for discussing it with him. At least we can have a chat about what's worrying him.

I also believe in moderation. I have tried to make sure they don't have issues with food & they do have a balanced diet. But like others say, school have their own ideas & so do the government. The booklet said that they should have semi skimmed milk but I have always been told this doesn't have enough nutrients for children. they have full fat organic milk, dont have squash & i use children's size plates as recommended. He does alot of sport but I suppose as he does alot of swimming he's more conscious of other boys bodies.

when my dd was weighted and measured at school they gave us a form to fill out in advance.

When my DD was 5 she was still wearing 18 month old clothes. In fact the trousers she has on today are age 3 to 4 ( ok they are jeans and she is wearing them like clam diggers, but other than that they fit lovely). she is 8 now.

anyway i put a message on the form that i was worried about her eating, because she eats like a sparrow, and is OBVIOUSLY small for her age.

when i went to the meeting (i had asked to be present becuase i had conserns)
i was totally humiliated. they said that she was too heavy, and that if i wasnt careful she would end up like me. ( basically stopped short of saying short and fat but only just), and just to feed her small amounts of what she liked.

ok so a mars bar for breakfast, a diarylee slice for dinner and a greggs sausage roll for tea then? belive me that would be her daily food intake of choice. BUT i'm her mum and i will continue to feed her healthy food becuase its good for her and i want the stuff she does eat to be healthy.

But i think of my DD healthy and lovely against her classmates, and she is skin and bone. but then i think of my DD against some of the 3rd world children, who are walking skeletons and suddenly she looks like a lardylump

Persepectives

OK. DD (and DS) are big boned (like their parents). DD developed very early starting her periods at 10yrs 5mths. In Y6 she had physically developed a lot very quickly. I can't remember her weight at the time but she when the weighing and measuring was done she came home very very upset because she was over the obese line and some of the girls had said she was fat. Actually if one inputted her height and weight and put in age 13 on the internet bmi sites she did not come out as obese. Regrettably the measurements taken in schools take no account of individual development and the fact that there is huge variation.

Fast forward 12 months to age 11 and first year of secondary school and several months of internalisation. Fortunately we picked up very quickly that she had stopped eating and had lost 16lb. Fortunately, we are well off enough not to have to wait for an nhs referral to camhs and had her referred to a specialist anorexia counsellor straight away. Crisis was avoided - it possibly helped that I lived on the edge of an eating disorder in my 20s.

The way in which this is done and the manner in which children are told do not bear close scrutiny and potentially the project has very serious consequences. The money needs to be diverted into education about healthy eating and huge improvements in what is served up as a school meal. Weighing and measuring in schools is entirely punitive and will not help children or parents in the long run.

DD is now 14 and absolutely fine.

Thanks marriedinwhite. That is sad but I'm glad your dd got through it. I'm glad we are an open family which does mean you have to have some tough discussions but like you've illustrated with your story it makes your relationships better in the end. Thankyou

Lardylump that's horrible. What is the point if their not going to be constructive with their feedback. I'm not going to bother asking them for advice

by all means ask... but if they say that 'normal' is x then they have to give more aid to the starving massess to ensure the kids get to x.

when you are looking at the percentiles... are they of the WHOLE world?

thier advice is never going to be impartial

Have you had the results already?

lardylump

When you say 'she is obviously small for her age'...are you talking in terms of height?

If so, that might explain why they think she's too heavy and you don't?

Ds school hasn't done this, but there would be no way I would allow them to do it.

I have been to hell and back to get ds to eat normally, with referrals to dietician and paediatrician. I wouldn't do any thing to rock the boat on this issue