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 would definitely describe the dd in the previous pic as slightly overweight but would expect her to grow out of that. The boys are definitely what I would call normal/healthy weight. My eldest dd would be similar in size but less muscular looking as she does minimal exercise due to dyspraxia/ASD and horrible PE teachers shouting at her and turning her off it. My ds is 8 and very muscular with no visible fat at all, he exercises every day. My 4 year old looked a bit chubby to me until last year (though everyone kept saying she was fine and her weight was inline with her height) but I can see she looks more lean now. Still has a slight belly but might be due to her chronic constipation, I don't know.

Op I would say visit the GP and confirm that the school nurse has got this right, or attend the referal appt and see what they say.

hecantbeserious your dd is chubby. Kids that age are supposed to be like skint rabbits. That's what is normal and healthy. I'm sure she's in great nick, but trust me, from my own experience, in a few years she'll be fat and have to deal with the fallout.

The Woodlander, I agree that we've lost sight of normal. Your boys look healthy.

i totally opted out of this.
there is no way ds1 is overweight. i can see his ribs, spine and hips, there is no puppy fat on him, he's 4yo (almost 5) 100cm and 17kg... which according to the nhs website makes him top end of normal range.
the kid is in age 3 school trousers (on the tightest elastic) and they still fall down. i put him in age 4-5 tshirt a as i prefer them a bit baggy, but also 3-4 come up a bit short in the body.
he has to have age 3-4 trousers for length, but can only have adjustable waist as they're still massive on the waist.
he's still in he's stage 1 car seat as he's under 18kg and this up until 4yo, when he's almost 5...
i know parents are notoriously poor judges of their child's weight, but seriously how can it be accurate? he's following his 25th centile line still... so why is he on the 85th centile for this test?
i call bullshit. it cannot possibly be accurate!

I genuinely did not know about the ribs thing and no, I can't see her ribs so I guess that's confirmed it for me. I'm going to keep a food diary like a few PPs have suggested to see if there's anything obvious there. Her build is just so different to her older sister and they both have the same diet!! I am thinking portion control may be a factor though.

Genuine thank you for your replies and glad it's made some of us (me included) think a bit more about what's 'normal' when it comes to a child's weight.

"Ignorance is bliss, eh mini?

You say your kids are "chubby, not dying"...I suggest you research the long-term effects of obesity"

So nasty. . Did you miss the posts where I said that I have taken ds to the doctor about his weight? Or the post where I mentioned that we eat healthily at home and try to encourage the children to be active?

Of course I know that health outcomes are worse for overweight people. But my children are not at deaths door, and I'm not going to view their weight as a tragedy. On the basis of current stats about a third of us posting here on mumsnet are overweight. Would you really say to all of us that our being overweight is 'the end of the world'?

Nobody is in denial about the increased health risks of being overweight, but as a parent I'm trying to deal with things which are currently more taxing - like a teenager who is mentally ill whose safety I worry about every day, and an autistic child who is struggling to cope in the world and whose behaviour impacts on everyone in the family. I'm not going to go around wringing my hands and panicking about their weight. I'm doing my best, as are they, in a food environment which (outside of my home) is absolutely fucking toxic. Show some compassion why don't you.

Hopefully the food diary will give you an idea of how much she is eating. Seeing a dietician would be good too.

The boys pictured earlier look normal, the girl looks a bit overweight. My 5 year old DD is bang on the 50th centile and her ribs, spine, hips etc. are clearly defined.

Checked her red book. The weight and height taken at her school check aged 5 have her on the 56th centile on the online calculator.

Mini I hope you remember how hurtful you are finding this the next time you wade into a thread about someone struggling with having/needing to formula feed, to tell them that they just didn't love their DC enough to try hard enough to put their DC's health first.

The irony is breathtaking.

If anyone is interested for comparison purposes, my 6year old dd is bang on 50th centile for height and weight, despite looking like a skinny thing. She is certainly one of the slimmest in her dance class, but according to guidelines is exactly right....

I'm fascinated by the negative reaction of some people to receiving the letter about being overweight, the binning of he letters, the ignoring and deciding it must be wrong.
Do you people do the same when a school report comes home and says Jonny could improve his spellings, or has not passed the Yr 1 phonics test, or doesn't know their times tables?
Is it that you object to the info or you object to the state telling you the info and think they shouldn't be involved? I really don't get why people react so negatively. The info is intended to be useful and is not a direct attack on you as parents, in the same way school reports are meant to be helpful. The 'ignore and bin it' response seems crazy to me - because it indicates an attitude of a willingness to put your own slightly distorted feelings that this is some kind of personal criticism of you as a parent, above addressing the health or educational best interests of your child. I just don't get why people wouldn't even look into the issue a bit more to clarify if and why there is an issue, instead of having a knee jerk offended reaction and deciding it must be a load of crap.

Fortunately the OP isn't in this category. The letter understandably upset her, she felt that first annoyance with the NHS because it felt like a bit of criticism of her as a parent.....but she has got beyond that and has been willing to consider seriously in her DD might actually be overweight and taking action. It's true that we have lost sight of what healthy weight is and looks like. It's so easy for children to become a bit overweight, with negative future incomes likely unless addressed - surely any attempts to deal with this are good. And yes, the primary weighing programme might be a bit of a blunt instrument and sometimes get it wrong....but it's an affordable starting point to get the information to people which can make a real difference.

Op well done for taking action. Please look at Woodlanders photo. We are all so out of touch with healthy size that to many of us these two boys look skinny, but actually they are exactly as children should be to be healthy at 50 centile.

hecantbeserious Doing a fair amount of swimming and gymnastics is great and will help your dd stay lean and fit and build more muscle. However, it is highly unlikely to skew the BMI calculations as it is normal and recommended for children to be very active at that age. The charts are based on the recommended weight for normal active children, not sedentary ones.

""Her build is just so different to her older sister and they both have the same diet!! I am thinking portion control may be a factor though.""

Children are individuals, I don't lose weight, healthily through portion control. Some people just can't eat what others can and not be overweight.

She's too young to be fed differently from her sibling, but different levels or types of exercise might be the difference. Is she interested in martial arts etc?

I was an obese child and anyone who was will tell you that it takes years to undo the damage of a bad relationship with food and exercise.

The research is showing us that the way high fat/sugar foods "comfort" our brains, isn't something that we want to start in children, because the need for this comfort, stays with us and who wants to give their children daily battles (even as adults)?

For me and two of my DDs, weights are the only exercise that has made a dramatic difference. Which is more suitable, later on.

It's interesting that when you start to eat as we should be eating, there's a lot of shops that you'd only go in to buy toilet rolls, or frozen spinach, Iceland, Farmfoods etc. As for Tesco/Asda, even Aldi/Lidl, you only shop in a third of the store.

I live in a disadvantaged area, my Tesco is stocked differently than one in a more wealthy/better educated area, because they stock what sells.

OP, you've been given an opportunity that I wish my Parents were forced to take. Find with your DD what works for her body.

Most of the 'food' sold and advertised doesn't work for anyone's body. Coupled with the lack of exercise, we are facing the issues that we are, as a society.

I think if she was just a little overweight, I could understand you missing her weight problems. But she's on the 99th percentile and obese, so that would surely be obvious to everyone. If she really is obese, I'd be very surprised if it wasn't picked up earlier by health checks, rude comments observations from family/friends etc. I wonder if it is possible they made a mistake, as they did for your other daughter.

I weigh my dds once a year every summer holidays. Obviously you don't want to risk giving them a complex/causing eating disorders but as long as you are low key about it and don't do it too often i don't see how you can know, as they say we don't see when our kids are overweight.
I weigh and measure myself and ask if they want a go. Make a mental note and then enter it into the nhs bmi calculator later on. One of my dds is obviously very slim, one looks slightly chunkier but has always been in the upper end of the healthy weight range. DH and I are obese so have an 80% chance of having an overweight child. So it needs keeping an eye on as long as we don't go overboard. (I'm taking steps to lose weight myself on SW.)

How else you can know i mean

"Mini I hope you remember how hurtful you are finding this the next time you wade into a thread about someone struggling with having/needing to formula feed, to tell them that they just didn't love their DC enough to try hard enough to put their DC's health first."

How UTTERLY bizarre.

I have never ever told anyone 'that they just didn't love their dc enough'.

I just haven't.

Bizarre.

Please don't lie about me on mumsnet and make things up. Shame on you.

I'm reporting your post Aye. Of such lies are witch hunts made.

mini whether you see it or not, how you feel now, is you make every mother feel when they can't breastfeed.

And actually Aye if you want to accuse me or irony, what would be ironic is if I was saying "all the evidence on obesity leading to poorer health outcomes in children is bollocks. Because I know lots of obese people and their health is fine. The only thing that matters is that you feed your children in a way which is acceptable and manageable for you as an adult. " I'm saying none of those things. I acknowledge that how children and babies are fed is important and has long term consequences for their well being. It matters. Parents need to try to do the best they can to optimise their children's diet and general health'.

I have always been consistent.

I have never told ANYONE they 'don't love their child' on the basis of what they feed them. I have always acknowledged people's struggles and the fact that breastfeeding just isn't possible for some . My beef has been with the long term insistence by many on this board that how a baby is fed is irrelevant to their health and development. I don't agree with that because I feel the evidence suggests otherwise. It matters. It matters for older children too, mine included. That's what I've always argued here in mumsnet. And you have characterised this stance as "you say people who don't breastfeed don't love their children".

Anyway, sorry op I will get off this thread now to stop the witch hunt taking over what is actually a very important and useful discussion.

I totally opted out of this. But if your ds is a normal weight; that's what they would have told you, Tata
You make it sound like they could have made him overweight just by saying so, which is just a little bit stupid...

My oldest child is 'overweight' according to the nhs. She is 13, 5ft2 and weighs 8st8lbs. She wears a dress size 6, with 28E breasts, she has defined muscle in her arms and legs and a six pack. If she were an adult with those stats she'd have a perfectly normal bmi. But because she is 13 she is overweight. How do I explain that to a kid who is already hugely conscious of her body and thinks she's fat???

Greatfuckability, I just put that height and weight into the NHS bmi calculator with a birthday of 1/9/2003 and it is in the healthy range.

Sorry mistyped..5ft1/2inch