To think we have lost sight of what teh correct weight for a child is

[sassysally]

All these parents have gone, outraged to the mostly national press because they don't think their child has an ounce of fat on them, and the newspapers have published them,but to me are all clearly too heavy

1

2
3

interestingly. dh was a proper chubber as a baby - cankles and the wrist equivalent and everything.
when he was 2, he became skinny. he is still skinny now despite eating like a horse. he has the frame of rodney trotter.
byt shorter.

dd has always been skinny. even when everyone shows off about weight gain as a baby, she's been skinny. the only wrist canklets she had were the swelling from the excema.
okay she's only 28mo, but she is s-k-i-n-n-y

The charts don't take race into account which makes them fairly useless.

DS1 and DD1 have DH's stocky build. It's not that they are fat but they have so much muscle on them. Weirdly DS2 is the one who loves chocolate and sweets but he is skinny as a rake.

So two are overweight and one is underweight. They are all active and eat fine but it's just genetics. What can you do?

The kids in the pictures look fine to me.

Good point boffin. My Nigerian friend's 2yo weighs considerably more than my 5yo! My kids are three quarters Asian and they are teeny. It does play a part. Nurses and hv's should be able to take other factors into account and assess using their own wisdom and experience not a chart.

This is an important subject and of course well worth discussion.

But to post links to photographs of young children for people to pick at and call overweight/podgy whatever, is bloody awful. We all know children like this, we don't need targets.

You see both those kids in 1 and 3 look overweight to me. Kids are meant to be skinny and you should be able to see a child's ribs. If not then they're probably overweight.

The one in the second pic is 5 and weighs over 4st already which does seem on the heavy side. Both of them have double chins too.

70hours - if leaving parents to their own devices has landed us in a situation where 1 in 3 toddlers is overweight then maybe we need a 'nanny state'.

The charts don't take race into account which makes them fairly useless.

Because "race" is a useless measure. It means nothing in human populations.

Bmi calculations are simplistic. There has been a recent revision for children, as they are different from adults.
In any case to determine if someone is overweight or not properly, it should be measured the skin fold, bone and muscle density and size.
For adults, the risk for diseases is actually better measured trough waist size, because fat in hips and breasts is not as much a health problem.

Are children really supposed to be skinny? There's a reason for the expression puppy fat. It made sense for children to have some fat reserves to survive childhood diseases.
My DS and I lost weight when ill as children and never went back.

I think health workers should look instead at the whole family. If the adults are overweight, then it's likely that thr children will be too, particularly if already showing signs, and should be monitored closely.
If the adults are skinny or normal weight, then some fat (if really fat) on the child is not likely to be a problem in adulthood.
But it may be too late by childhood, as pregnancy may be a huge factor too.

I think puppy fat is normal on little children, but not past maybe six or seven. A 10yo with "puppy fat" is probably just fat.

Lweij, some good questions.

My borderline underweight son has been in hospital 3 times after a tummy bug as he has no reserves (fat) and needed to be put on drips.

The times I have wishes to be able to put some fat on him! But oddly, it is very difficult to make a child fatter if they are not wired to overeat. If I put cream in his mash, he just eats less of it.

I wonder if it is equally difficult to make a child eat less, if they are "wired" to overeat.( and society has changed and food is cheap now. In the 50s I think households spent 30% of their income on food, now it is less than 10%)

Maybe most people are simply wired to overeat when they can, an ancient survival mechanism, and the tide is unstoppable.

yanbu op. I get sick and tired of dd being called 'skinny' when her recent school letter clearly states get bmi is 27th percentile. The third girl is about 3cm taller than my daughter but a stone heavier! Have the pictures been airbrushed or something? Her far from skinny friend is 3kg more and is 10cm taller! !!!

Proportions don't work at the top because of overweight children distorting the figures. I think there is an issue with tall children though, I don't think the charts work that we'll for them. People grow at different rates you can't put it all down to overfeeding.

I think health workers should look instead at the whole family.

um, sorry, bad idea, maybe okay for GPs in individual consultations, but that really would be nanny state at its worst if done in a mass screening way.

I've noticed that some plump kids are over-tall. They also have enormous feet & maybe hands, too. I wondered what happened when they got to puberty. The short kids with small feet are never plump. I think diet must play some part in final height, or average adult heights wouldn't have soared in Japan/Far East in last 60 yrs.

Do people really clue in that much to growth spurts? I never notice until after the fact and even then I've only noticed 2 or 3, only for DC1 now a teen as big as me, none from other 3 DC. No plumpness ever observed before I realised DC1 had sprouted.

the fattest child in dd's class is short. The previous fattest who has just left was average height.

My 3 year old ds is 75th for height and 91st for weight, he has always followed that line for weight and until recently for height too. From birth he has been chunky, ebf, never lost any weight despite severe reflux, which he still has.

I have always been commended by health professionals for his good weight gain, despite health issues and now suddenly at 3 he is classed as overweight. I'm not sure at which point it changed.

He is in age appropriate clothes, can see ribs, no belly etc so not massively overweight, I just feel a bit crap that after trying so hard for good weight gains, he is now classed as overweight.

its odd isn't it miss magnum? My dd was always a funny, scrawny looking little baby and the other mums used to look at me sympathetically as she rigidly stuck to the 25th centile line. Then bam, the goal posts are moved.

Different children are different builds though and all you can do is make sure he eats healthily, be strict with food, make sure he has plenty of exercise.

I can only see the photo of the girl in her mum's arms, but yes I definitely see an overweight child. I'm quite sure a very lovely child, but an overweight child. It shows on her face and torso.

I can understand why people get defensive, there are so many connotations with being fat, but ultimately obesity needs tackling. But then it gets my back up that children who are identified as being overweight are maybe being given the utterly rubbish change for life info which will direct them to low fat products. I think that is a very dangerous route to go down and actually exacerbates the problems. We are in an utter mess with this obesity thing, aren't we?

Can we mention greed? All this looking for scientific explanations doesn't account for the simple fact that some people, including children, are greedy.

I'm banging on about DS1 on this thread precisely because he falls into the tall, fat, growing before puberty category and this seems to be a result of over feeding. However, he was very greedy. He gained a massive amount of weight in the first 12 weeks despite being EBF - are HVs really going to suggest that mothers deprive their tiny new babies of the breast if they appear to be growing too fast?

Sorry, but my big fat greedy baby and big fat greedy kid grew up to be a sensible adult without a weight problem. Doesn't mean he isn't greedy now, it just means he knows he can't constantly indulge himself.

I think it is a shame that parents view 'overweight letters' qs a judgment on their parenting or their child.It is supposed to help parents by giving them a heads up that their might be a problem and an opportunity to make a few changes

Great thread by the way, very thought provoking.

I'm similar, missmagnum.
If I'm looking at the charts right my DS (2.8) is 50th centile for height and 75th for weight.

If I put his stats in the NHS calculator he comes out at 83rd percentile so 'healthy', albeit towards the top end of healthy which is exactly what I would expect as he's still a bit chunky but not majorly so.

His predicted height on that little chart thingy at the side comes out at just under 5'10". His dad and I are both 5'8". So I'm tall for a woman but he is short for a man iyswim. I don't know how to interpret that.

Or course the school isn't going to look at the whole family. The letters are indicative, and the parents should follow it up with a visit to the GP if they think it's necessary.

My point about looking at the whole family is about how irrelevant the letters are to be based simply on weight, even on BMI alone.

I also agree that past 6 or so, puppy fat should start to disappear, but until puberty it may not so much. But puppy fat should't mean massive overweight. It may simply mean that ribs are not sticking out and arms and legs are well covered. The weight should not be on the belly.

The child in pic 1's face is the same size as her mothers, with a double chin to boot. She looks a bit chunky to me. 3 is fine!

I think it's usually clear when a child is unhealthily overweight.

What I don't think is helpful is scrutinising a child and saying 'Oh well, her cheeks are round', 'I can see that her tummy's not flat, she's plump' and the like.

Children aren't 'supposed' to be skinny at all times. I have 2 ds's - ds2 (4) is what I would call 'skinny' - he's the 50th centile for height and weight.

Ds2 is what I would call a 'stocky' build. He's officially overweight according to NHS BMI. He's 6, a head taller than any other child in his class. He goes through spurts - he will start eating (noticibly) more, seem to put on a couple of pounds, then have a growth spurt and stretch out so that he looks a bit too thin. It's how he grows...his last growth spurt, he grew a clear two inches in height in 3 weeks.

Children's weight does/can fluctuate. As long as they're eating good food, getting plenty of exercise, there's no need to pick to pieces any child that's not like a rake - children also have different body shapes, as do adults.

DS1 is a stocky build.

50th centile for both is not skinny it is average.