to ask you to explain to DD, because I can't get through to her

[RebeccaDuWinter]

that just because she is no longer at the lowest end of a 'healthy' BMI for her height, does not mean she is grossly fat. She is absolutely convinced the higher end of the healthy range is 'fat' because it is 'fatter' than the lower end and restricting her eating to try and change this, and I can't convince her otherwise. She does exercise regularly, but not as regularly as she did as she simply doesn't have time to compete anymore, and reducing hours has meant weight gain, her solution is to starve herself until she loses weight. I will show her this thread.

My body gallery is a good site where you can put in your weight and height and see pix of other ladies of your w and h and they all look different - something that BMI charts don't account for.
BMI is outdated. I'm at the upper end too. My mums side all have heavy bones and we're reasonably muscly. Ethnicity plays a part too-again BMI ignores this.
Imagine the BMI of one of those huge NZ rugby players..probably come in at overweight despite being extremely fit. BMI belongs in the bin!!

Bmi is a load of rubbish and I don.t see why the nhs still use it as a gauge.

I have had a health check in work where an overweight lady told me I needed to watch myself as I was on the cusp of obese. I'm 5ft4 - granted do weigh 10st4/5 but I weight lift and exercise a fair amount and am around a size ten. So I hope she doesn't take this to heart... Xx

Be worth pointing out that Arnold swarzenegger at his peak would have been morbidly obese according to his bmi.. Clearly he really wasn't with sub 4% body fat.

There's a lovely charity called Elephant in the Room which is geared up to help people at this point, their feeling is that early prevention is key. I suggest you get in touch with them, they should be able to provide you with support.

Bmi charts are misleading and dangerous. They come with no disclaimers or grey areas or wiggly lines - just telling people 'you are obese', wtaf??

It is the body fat measurement that matters in health terms and this can only be measured by machine. Bmi "calculations" are bollocks.

Too many people, particularly young people, taking the charts too literally and it's frightening.

I think you need some sensible discussions about how to be healthy and finding what feels right for you. I am a similar height and it is easy to feel too big at a relatively low weight. Maybe if you support her to feel comfortable (which may include losing a few lbs) but in a sensible, healthy way she'll be more receptive. I gained weight in the first year of uni, I was still healthy bmi but I felt disgusting. My Dm didn't take me seriously at all and it made me more desperate and adopt less healthy habits. Once she started helping me I lost all the weight I wanted to which was still well within the healthy BMI range.

It's great you have a gp appointment. Although tbh she might not have an eating disorder just being a bit obsessive as a teenager. I was a bit like that at her age. Lost loads of weight just before uni.

Why don't you sit with her and work out her basal metabolic rate, get across the idea that even if she lies in bed all day her body still needs x number of calories. I remember getting a shock when I learnt about what happens when your body goes into starvation mode at uni - understanding the science behind it really snapped me out of some unhealthy eating habits. If you want more info pm me

This possibly warrants a separate thread but posting here for now. Just spoken to a friend whose daughter is in DD's year at school, they're not close friends but they've gotten on well together in the past. The friend checks her DD's facebook regularly and has found messages on there today suggesting her DD has been involved in a group of girls in their year bullying my DD over putting on weight. Her DD is away for the weekend but she is planning on confronting her about it when she gets home tomorrow. No idea whether to say anything to DD about it or not but it does explain why she's been so fixated on losing weight :(

How appalling, I'm glad you've got the gp appt and your friend is going to have a word with her dd. I'd also seek advice from a wider audience - my first instinct would be to get the school to do a focus on body image in whatever they call personal social education now but it's hard to see whether for teenagers that wouldn't make things worse. I'd be inclined to think about discussing peer pressure with your dd, it's such a small but damaging window.

This is my dilemma, I don't know if I'm going to make it worse by telling DD that I know. She might well think I've gone behind her back if I talk to school- absolutely no way she'll agree to letting me talk to the school if I ask her first. I also don't know how much of what's on the friend's DD's facebook has been said to my DD's face so don't want to put my foot in it. It's such a difficult age.

So tricky isn't it, I've got 2 dd's and I'm dreading the unkindness of other insecure teenagers...fwiw, what you're already doing should help, and you can reinforce that you think she's beautiful and that pressure to look a certain way at this age is a very trivial part of a successful life.