To bin this letter and not ring them about DS?

[Oddthomas]

Got a letter about 4yo DS today. He was weighed and measured last month at school (yes, it's one of those threads). The letter says he is overweight :( It lists the dangers of being overweight with the line "you are putting your child at risk of..." and finishes with the sentence "to obtain support on what to feed your child please contact..." and the phone number for the nurse who visited the school. Also enclosed was a change 4 life leaflet.

I sat and I read the leaflet and there is nothing in there that we don't already do. He gets at least five portions of fruit and veg a day. He has at least 60 minutes of exercise (usually more as school alone is a 20-30 minute walk each way and he's always in the garden on his trampoline or scooter, rain or shine). He doesn't have fizzy drinks (despite his best efforts to persuade me that all of his friends do) and I don't keep sweets in the house, gets them now and then as a treat, generally when we visit grandparents.

He's always been on the high end of the charts, 95th percentile at birth and stayed there right through his baby and toddlerhood. He's a solid little thing but when he's got his top off I can see ribs and the knobs of his spine, he doesn't have any rolls, has just the one chin, and he's in the appropriate clothing sizes (a mix of 3-4 and 4-5).

Yesterday he ate:

• breakfast: blueberry wheats (like shredded wheat with blueberry filling) in one of the kids bowls with semi-skimmed milk. A banana.
• lunch: cheese and tomato sandwich (one slice of bread, folded over and then cut in two), sliced apple, sliced red and yellow pepper. A seafood stick. Three pieces of tuna and vegetable sushi.
• dinner: chicken and mushroom tagliatelle with broccoli and sweetcorn in a homemade garlic cream sauce (garlic, herbs, low fat creme fraiche).

Drinks: glass of milk with lunch, the rest of the day either plain water or very weak sugar free squash. He has a drinks bottle that we top up as needed so he always has a drink available. We went to the park in the morning, walked there and back, and to a softplay after dinner.

Today, so far, he has had marmite on toast (two slices from one of those mini-sized 400g loaves), a satsuma, an apple and tuna pinwheels for lunch (tuna in a flour tortilla with mixed leaves, rolled up and sliced). Dinner tonight is going to be Spag Bol, lean steak mince with homemade sauce and hidden veg. We're about to head to the adventure playground for the afternoon.

This is all pretty typical fare. At school he has school dinners. Typical menus include pizza and wedges with carrot sticks followed by cake and custard or breaded chicken pieces (nuggets then?) with potatoes and seasonal vegetables followed by cake and custard. I'm now considering putting him on packed lunch instead!

He seems healthy enough to me, I'm not filling him full of shit and he never sits still and I mean never, he's a fidgeter. My siblings and I were all solid children, when I compared DS to photos of me and my siblings at the same age we all have a similar build, and we all stretched out around about when puberty hit.

AIBU to just bin this letter? Or should I be paying attention to their chart rather than the child in front of me?

I'd also be inclined to call the school nurse to discuss it; just in case I was missing something.

But, I have a friend who is in complete denial about her DDs weight, and has had run ins with the school nurse about it!! I would say her DD is verging on obese at the age of 6 . I think that has made me a bit paranoid that I might miss something with my own DDs that others can see... so feel free to ignore my advice

Oops premature post
....because they're obese themselves and have lost a sense of what's normal. Parents do sometimes need telling, though even if they're told they might not listen.

OP I'd do a watchful wait. Are you and all your siblings now a healthy BMI? DS was a very chubby toddler but I looked at pictures of both DH and DB at the same age and they were clearly the same shape although they turned into very skinny children and young adults, so I watched and waited and kept half an eye on his diet until he lengthened out and slimmed down as I was expecting.

ImAThrillseekerHoney

Yes,.. Point taken - However, I think in many cases those parents are also overweight and in denial about their own weight too.

Its worrying when you see comments from parents who cannot imagine it being workable to NOT let your children have snacks. A parent should be in control of what a child eats. If you don't buy in crap they can't eat crap - although they could get hold of junk stuff away from the house - Then it is about teaching them about healthy eating and setting an example yourself with your own eating habits.

Children are often bored when they say they are hungry, so they need to be encouraged to have hobbies and activities that interest them

My dd had the same letter about her then 4 year old. She took him and the letter to the Gp who weighed and measured him again and got a very different weight. it was repeated on the other set of surgery scales [old type with slider] and got the same result. Dgs was exactly on the 50th centile for weight/height ratio!
This is a slight 4 year old who is hardly ever still, cycling, running, climbing etc.He has a small appetite, isn't given unhealthy food and takes a clothes size 4-5 .
She was advised to bin the letter.

Anyone with common sense can see by looking whether a child is overweight or not.

That's just it though. Unless someone is morbidly obese it actually isn't always easy to tell whether someone is overweight just by looking at them. This goes for both children and adults.

People are getting bigger which means our perception of what a healthy weight actually looks like is changing. People always call me "too skinny" and are always trying to get me to eat more. I've even had the accusations of an eating disorder thrown at me a couple of times. Please, I'm 5'1 and weigh 8 and a half stone. I'm not skinny people have just got so used to seeing overweight people that they've lost track of what healthy looks like, thus making me look skinny in comparison. Funnily enough when I go to France and other European countries nobody there thinks I'm too skinny.

This isn't aimed at anyone in this thread, but I honestly think that some people genuinely just can't see that they're child is overweight.

I would make an appointment with the GP and get his opinion then you can let the school nurse know what has been said. If the GP finds that he is overweight then you may need to look at his portion sizes or at least get his weight checked in 6 months time to be sure he is not getting proportionally heavier.

If you go on the NHS website, there is a calculator for Kids BMI.
Try making DS a year older, and see what that does for his BMI.

IME, some very tall kids are identified as overweight, when they are actually very tall (and hence heavy) for their age.

I think there are some indications that SOME tall kids are tall due to over feeding, hence over growing, but it might just be your son is tall.

My DS is 4 and wouldn't manage all the food on the list. It does sound quite a lot so maybe it could be portion sizes?

It might be worth talking to the school nurse anyway and getting the findings double checked.

Oh, and yes to the grey ladies point - are you sure they have the weight and height right?

"My dd had the same letter about her then 4 year old. She took him and the letter to the Gp who weighed and measured him again and got a very different weight. it was repeated on the other set of surgery scales [old type with slider] and got the same result. Dgs was exactly on the 50th centile for weight/height ratio!
This is a slight 4 year old who is hardly ever still, cycling, running, climbing etc.He has a small appetite, isn't given unhealthy food and takes a clothes size 4-5 .
She was advised to bin the letter."

Because it was proved to be wrong. Not because you should ignore signs that your child's diet needs thinking about.

OP- don't bin it. Go and talk to someone about it first. You said "he's a solid little chap" which is a bit of a red flag to me- people often say things like that when they are avoiding the issue- consciously or unconsciously. Get it checked. And if everything's 0K then bin the letter.

First I'd check they're basing it on BMI not on weight - yes some medical professionals can be that daft.

But even on BMI, he sounds like an active child, he may just be muscular. The things you're saying - clothes size, being able to see ribs etc - sounds like he's fine.

DS's cousin weighs several kilos more than him at a similar height, she's skinny as a rake - visibly skinnier than DS - she is just very sporty so has a lot of muscle mass. Many professional sports people are "overweight" on the BMI measure.

Hmm difficult one. His diet sounds lovely maybe keep an eye on portion size I think we have a very skewed perception of portion size these days. We were in a cafe the other day and I ordered the dc's a cupcake they were and couldn't understand why it was so small. It was actually the size of what I would call a traditional fairy cake which is how they should be IMO "normal" cupcakes are about 500 calories which I think is obscene.

He's midway between the 50th and 75th lines for height (60th? 65th?) and he is one who tends to go outwards before sprouting upwards.

He's never had mid-morning/mid-afternoon snack because when he was little we were usually always out and about so it was a faff to keep stopping to have a snack plus I prefer the three meals a day format. He has one on a school day since he started school because they give them a mid-morning snack.

If anyone wants dessert after a meal it's normally fruit or yoghurt, pudding in the traditional sense (cake, ice cream, etc) is an occasional thing, usually birthdays, Christmas, etc. Again, its only since starting school dinners that he has a dessert five days a week.

Looking at the date on the letter he was weighed towards the back end of February, at which point we had a newborn, between that and the back end of my pregnancy things probably weren't as tight as they normally are (god, how joyless do I sound? "Tight"). He wasn't shovelling shite into his mouth but there were a few more freezer meals and days out with the grandparents to give me a rest than normal. Could that be it? But then could he have really piled on so much weight in a period of say four or five weeks?

I know he's 106cm tall because there's a measuring stick in the park and he loves getting measured on it. I need to weigh him when I get home.

I Agree with those saying don't ignore it get a second opinion.

I'm pretty sure that this has been posted on another thread on a similar issue but I'm going to post it here again. Just to expand on my previous point on how children (adults too) are getting bigger and our perceptions of what a normal weight looks like is being skewed because of this.

Childhood obesity 1971 vs Childhood obesity 2005

I re-watched the original chocolate factory film just a week ago for the first time in years and tbh I was surprised at how not-fat Augustus Gloop actually looked. If anything he looks maybe slightly chubby but not fat. That made me realize really just how much our perceptions have changed. 1971 Augustus would likely be considered to be normal now even though he would have been considered fat in the 70's

I think his diet sounds great. I would bin the letter and pay no more attention to it! If he has always been high up in the charts then it sounds to me like he's following his curve. And he's in the right sized clothes. And you can see ribs an he doesn't look overweight. Take it from me, the WORST thing you can do to a child is to make a big deal over their weight. I say this as somebody who was a genuinely overweight child who was taken to doctors and dieticians and put on special diets. It ruined my childhood, I never really lost any weight (used to steal food when no-one was looking), felt hugely self conscious, became extremely anxious and then naturally thinned out as a teenager (around the time I discovered boys!). If you don't think your child is overweight don't put them through this. If you think he is putting on too much weight then lower his portion size without even mentioning it/up his exercise even more. You sound like a great mum to me!!

They also don't account for race or muscle density

Bin it your child you parent how you like

Honestly, OP- if he's 60th for height and 95th for weight, you do need to have a look at upping his activity or cutting back on his food a bit.

Perceptions may have changed and that is the worrying thing.
Take a look at films or pictures of children playing in the 1950s. You would be hard pushed to find a child who is 'chubby'

It is scary to think that a child could be fat and the parents 'unaware' and then that same child, when they reach their teens gets caught up in 'images' of celebrities who are skinny and then go over the top to try to look like them.
No wonder obsessions kick in.

Probably time for parents to pay attention to their childrens eating habits
( and their own)

"it sounds to me like he's following his curve."

No- if he was following his curve he would be on the 95th percentile for height and weight.

No martorana, if he's always been 60th for weight and always been 95th for height that is following his curve(s). Whether it's an issue or not would depend on how he carries that extra weight. If it's all muscle it's no problem at all. If it's tummy then it could be.

My 3 year old is 98th for weight and just under for height.

Ive been sent the portion size sheet out by the hv and have no idea where I could cut down on food! Ive upped exercise a bit but he is already very active.

I have a feeling he is ready for a growth spurt so when we go back in 2 months time he will probably be on the same centile.

I got one of those letters. I like you didn't think ds was overweight. But he's 4.5 and hasn't lost the chub of a toddler. He eats a lot of carbs (he wants bread, biscuits, bread sticks for snacks).

So I'm working on him getting more exercise and more protein in his diet.

I will add I'm not overweight (size 10) nor is DH (10 stone) so it is is anethema the idea of a fst child. But clearly we've got something wrong. He had antibiotics as a newborn baby which I've read is linked to obesity.

This is why I didn't let dd be part of this.