To be upset with NHS over DDs weight?

[Fudgefudgefudge]

DD is 4 and is in reception. Recently she had her vision, hearing, weight etc measured at school and yesterday I received a letter from the NHS saying that they are referring her to Morelife. Having googled it I'm mortified, I had no idea my child was that overweight! I checked the NHS site which measures their BMI and using the measurements they provided it shows DD being obese and on the 99th percentile

Now I breastfed DD up until her 1st birthday and she was a big baby back then but over the years she's slimmed up if you know what I mean and to me she just doesn't look overweight. She has a healthy appetite and I am well aware of how to eat a healthy balanced diet etc but I do allow a treat for good behaviour. And DD is a very active, she would rather run than walk and I don't drive so she's used to walking places.

AIBU to be upset about this? What do I do? Ask the GP their opinion? It's made me doubt my abilities as a mother as I never even considered she could be obese.

I must add one thing - the amount of crap people feed their kids is shocking. Crisps, chocolate, biscuits, fizzy drinks.. even if they weren't overweight it's so bad for them and offers no nutritional value whatsoever.

Schools should offer some educational lessons for kids and parents.

Given the crap the authorities see fit to feed to primary school kids, I'm not sure their advice would be worth listening to!

I agree with hecantbeserious. At my dc's primary at least four senior staff and three dinner ladies were obese, some morbidly obese. And the school had a policy of making children eat up everything in their lunch boxes or clear their plates rather than stop when full.

Schools nerd to provide a lunchbreak and healthy food. Once done focus on teaching and learning.

My ds who is 4has always been tall and heavy. I just checked the charts and he on 98th centile for his weight and 96th for height. Seems proportion - ish to me? Can someone with insight shed some light on this for us?
I am very careful with what type of food that he eats and we are a very very active family but he is hungry ALL the time and perhaps I am giving him too much (even if it is healthy)

One other thing I'd say is that dd had a serious infection when she was five. She was ill for about two weeks and on iv fluids in hospital for a Cpl of days. She was well covered. She lost 12lb and looked thin like all the other girls in her class. The hospital paediatrician did outcomes for dc who carried a little weight were much more positive than for those with no reserves. She also said dd would have been in hospital faster, longer and would have taken longer to recover otherwise.

I also believe that school lunches are not providing the most healthy food for our children, I am pretty appalled by what they are given. Pizza, chips and "pudding" every single day. They are 4!!
Noone needs to eat pudding every single day, a one course meal is perfectly fine for lunch unless there is a treat day like somone's birthday. All these puddings are really not great for teaching children healthy eating habits.

I am new to school life but I am pretty close to start doing packed lunches.

Said not did.

Lndnmummy - You can enter the measurements into the nhs bmi calculator and it will tell you if your ds is in the healthy weight range.

Both of the NHS health visitors I had a meeting with DD's weight were overweight..

I totally agree on not needing pudding every day... but that's the British way apparently.. also my school sends me a letter saying my child is overweight - but feeds her smiley potatoes etc for lunch.. 🙄

but that's 5 meals in a week. As parents you make sure what you give them is good stuff/normal portion sizes surely?

Of course. But there isn't really any excuse for the poor quality of the school meals - which for many children are the only hot meal of the day. Our school cooks don't cook. They take overly-processed food out of the freezer and put it in the oven. But the local authority claims they're highly nutritional.

Yes absolutely agree hoddtastic - but would be nice if the schools would also offer healthy nutritious meals. What's wrong with just normal boiled potatoes for example?

lndnmummy i put ds on packed lunch. he school meals are just poor. every week there is pizza and chips, as well as fish gingers and chips every friday. pudding is things like 'chocolate ice cream cake' or iced fairy cake or choc ice, with yogurt or fruit offered just once each a week.

i send him with a sandwich, fresh fruit, a dried fruit like raisins or cranberries, some cheese and a yoghurt. the schools logic is flawed, they know kids are obese but they're feeding them junk and cutting break times and PE

is there only one choice on the menu- and it's all stodge? At our school there is a variety of stuff, hot and cold, salad bar inc jacket potatoes/fruit/yoghurt etc.

DD takes a packed lunch, DS has school lunch (while it's still free)

Just because school serve up something you don't see as being brilliant surely you need to redress that at home, rather than take the view that if school give them a pudding or chips every day you must too?

School dinners were compulsory in my DC's nursery year (even though we had to pay for them ). The children had their food out down in front of them and they had no choice. Neither of them ate anything because it was always covered in sauce/gravy and the school couldn't deal with serving sauceless food.

Took them off school dinners as soon as they got into reception. I pay a lot less than £2.50 a day (no universal free school dinners in Wales) . Their lunch boxes are very varied but always include fresh veg and fruit, high quality protein and moderate amounts of bread/pasta etc. Twice a week they get a treat like a small cake or biscuit (usually homemade).

Ldnmummy
Use on the nhs childrens bmi calculator.

School dinners are compulsory for every child where I live (from daycare/nursery and all through school) and there's no choices but they're healthy and the menus carefully planned to make sure there's a proper variety of everything. Definitely no pizza, chips, fish fingers or anything like that. DD eats everything there that she won't touch at home - everyone eating the same is brilliant for fussy eaters as the peer pressure gets them trying new things.

Indeed. But I've no desire for my kids to get used to eating packet gravy and custard (neither like sauce in any form) or "minted lamb grills" (whatever the fuck they are).

I'm not paying for food they won't eat (and that I wouldn't eat for that matter).

The online menu for our area has now expired, but as an example of what the children are served:

Chicken pasta with garlic bread, chocolate sponge and custard
Chicken pie, mash, peas and gravy, chocolate orange cake and custard
Sausage, mash, carrots and gravy, cookie
Sausage roll, chips and baked beans, Arctic roll
Pizza, potato smiles, baked beans, jelly
Hotdog, potato smiles, peas, jam tart and custard.

I can never fathom why some people feel the need to be so harsh on threads about children's weight.

DD was deemed 'very overweight' earlier in the year. She's 2. The HV was astounded that she was going to have to refer us to a dietician as DD had been wandering around starkers, ribs very clearly visible, no protruding tummy, just a whirlwind ball of muscle. DD has now grown 1cm and is just 'overweight'. And if she loses just 200g she'd be a 'healthy' weight. As she's shat out far more than that in one go, I refuse to be concerned. Neither are the doctors she's seen. She's in age 2-3 clothes and will be for ages yet. BMI is a tool that shouldn't be used without applying common sense. It's a good tool to give an idea of what to consider normal but without having health knowledge and seeing the child, none of us can say whether OP'saw DD is actually getting a weight problem.

Just looked at our local primary. No chips, desserts but only one that looks High cal. Baked potatoes, salad bar and fruit and yoghurt available every day. Shame there's such a disparity

It's just rubbish. Too much sugar/starch, poor quality protein, and poor veg choices. Mine love broccoli, cauliflower, green beans, salad, real meat and fish. They like their puds, but not smothered in custard but prefer a dish of fresh fruit to packet sponge and Arctic roll. And somehow these meals meet the "national nutrition standards". Blow me.

I actually fancy this! Herby roast chicken, boiled potatoes, curly kale, swede, frozen fruit smoothie

I can never fathom why some people feel the need to be so harsh on threads about children's weight. hmm\

Because some people think that being overweight is a moral failing and utterly despicable. They look at BMI as some kind of holy grail of health when it's simply a population based measurement that breaks down at the individual level.

It's entirely possible to be overweight and very healthy. Especially if you have a large frame and are athletic. My brother, my son and all of my male cousins and uncles (not to mention my aunts and myself as well) rarely manage to get into a healthy BMI, and even then we are starving ourselves to do it. We are all athletic (my mother and two of my cousins competed on the national level in several sports when they were in their twenties), we all exercise intensely 5+ hours a week, we eat healthy (actually we aren't what you would describe as big eaters), We all have wide shoulders, wide hips and an torsos's and a lot of muscle in our arms and legs. My uncles and male cousins are all 6 ft 4 and up. My son is 125 cms at 4 years old. My mom is 5'10 as are her sisters. I'm the shorty of the family at 5'6 (thanks Dad) and have inherited my paternal grandmothers hourglass figure and D boobs as opposed to my mothers families B cups and rectangular figure. But I'm still athletic and gain muscle easily.

When I was in my late teens and early twenties I did not eat. For days the most I would have was a bit of white rices and water. My GP was very worried because he knew I wasn't eating and that I was overexercising, but my BMI never got low enough to qualify for help or ED counseling. The lowest I was after puberty was 9 stone 3, which is a BMI of 21. I felt horrid, tired, cold, I was missing periods, my joints hurt, etc etc. Alas, BMI of 21 was the lowest I could go.

I'm now a BMI of 27 and I feel great (except my B12 and iron were low lately, but I'm taking supplements now), I'm strong, fit and I eat healthy. I'm sure everyone on here would call me chubby, although I don't have a tummy or any cellulite, but my GP says I'm the epitome of health.

My DS waffles in and out of overweight on the child's BMI. He gets chubby, has a growth spurt and slims right out, and the cycle continues. His GP is thrilled with his health, and says he'll be a rugby player someday. LOL. When I expressed concern about his BMI she laughed and told me to ignore it.

Threads like this drive me nuts. BMI is a population measure. If you receive one of the letters home and you don't think it applies to your DC, then go talk to a GP and get an individual opinion. BMI is not a measure of health.

"DD at 10 was the second tallest and well developed. She reached the menarch at 10.5. That was when the nurse gave her a slip of paper for me with obese on it. The slip of paper another girl snatched and passed round the class."

That should never have happened.

Patents have only been informed since the mid-00s (though children measured in a national program he since end of WW2) and it was set up always that parents were informed by letter to home address. There should never, ever have been slips handed out at school.

Also, aren't results reported as BMI centile ( not weight centile)?

If BMI centile, then for over 91 is overweight and over 98 obese.

Yes, BMI has a few outliers, but as reception age children (indeed anyone pre-puberty) will not have the ability to develop dense, heavy muscle mass of a body with a full adult hormone profile and significant physical activity (eg athlete, builder, some but far from all armed forces).