To think the 'your child is in the overweight category' letters from the child measurement program are a waste of money?

[Readytomakechanges]

I've had a few friends receive these letters recently and the reaction is broadly the same:
"What a load of bollocks"
"He/she is always moving"
"There's not an ounce of fat on him/her"
I was prompted to start this thread as a friend has recently posted a pic of her DC's letter on Facebook. Cue many comments along the lines of the above statements.
My AIBU is, what's the point spending the money to print and post these letters when most (in my admittedly limited experience as perhaps those that do act on it are less outspoken) parents declare them nonsense anyway.
Would it be better to save the money and spend it on better physical education in schools or something?

Yes op about as helpful as a chocolate teapot.
This illustrates how we have lost track of what a healthy weight looks like.

I didn't give consent for my child to be weighed. I know they are overweight, a letter wasn't going to tell me any new news.

I suspect they are as much use as the standard attendance letters that piss everyone off.

@miloarmadillo1 - they do use BMI but it's not actually as straightforward as that. They look at the BMI and decide on whether or not the child is overweight according to the weight distribution of their peers, not simply as a ratio of weight to height as they do in adults. This means that for children this classification just doesn't work.

My son is 'obese' according to these measures. However, he is 4 and wears 6-7 year old clothes because he is extremely tall - 99.6th centile, exactly as he was from birth. If you put the same weight and height measurements in but put the age as 6 hrs suddenly a healthy weight.

He is not fat at all and that is not me being in denial, the doctor agrees with me and agreed that the methods of weight measurement for kids are nonsense.

It's a fucking stupid way to measure the weight of children.

I'm with @ImFuckingSpartacus apart from there was one child who didn't look overweight but they were unusually muscly for their height (year 6) due to the amount of sport they did, at a very high standard.

I also very strongly agree with "We have completely lost sight of what a healthy weight looks like."

No 4 year old knows about the letter unless their parents show them. So any issues relating from the weigh-in are entirely down to the parents.

The only way a child would be aware is if the parent told them - or posted it all over Facebook

Yup. And you can pretty much guarantee that the parent moaning is overweight.
I do know a couple of parent who have got letters and changed things, so i don't think they are completely useless.

I definitely think people have no idea what a healthy weight looks like these days so you will always get naysayers piping up with "she doesn't LOOK overweight!" or "rubbish! Not an ounce of fat on her" etc. My DS looks skin and bone and is often told he must be starving by overweight strangers. By BMI standards, he's a perfect weight.

Common reaction is to dismiss BMI as a load of rubbish as it doesn't take muscle mass into account. I don't know many primary school aged body builders though.

Oh I did it!

Also from what I remember the letter didn't even state what my DD's BMI was. Just that she was 'overweight'

As the article above states. There are many other factors to consider other than height and weight - one of those being bone density. My DD is of Black/Carribean descent, whose bone density has been proven to be greater than that of caucasians. That could have been a factor I suppose. Either way, I care not, she is happy, healthy, active and eats healthily. The odd treat which I would not deprive her of because life's too short imo, but I cook from scratch etc. So all of the advice offered, which I did read, was useless because we were already doing it all

Let's say a letter costs 5 quid - it won't be that much, but we'll add some extra overheads that you might not need if only collecting statistics. And let's send them out to 1/3rd of the class which is a lot higher than normal. That would give a single form 7 year primary school a whole extra 100 quid a year to spend.

That doesn't buy much PE, or improved open spaces (which are really a subsidy already, it's rarely access to space, it's not using it)

The letters are so cheap, and the cost of a single individuals obesity is large enough that you only need to reach one in a thousand or so to make it worthwhile, once you've already collected the data.

We never got one about the kids but our vet moaned about our young dog as ribs should be visible. They should look skinny. An actual underweight child should look really skinny.

The language changes too. My kids are normal as in average, on or thereabouts 50th percentile for weight and height. But I get told by relatives they're petite and delicate so that other children in the family can be called well built or solid or dense. Anything to avoid the word fat.

Interestingly in my extended family the fat children have an excellent diet just too much of it! My kids barely eat anything by comparison.

I'm not sure how useful the letters are. But its something I suppose.

Cream But they are still weighing them all on mass in school (which DD2 really freaked out about) so whether they know about the letters or not, its still teaching them to be concerned about their weight

That's just one article, I could just as easily find ten to show that its a good tool when used correctly

And most of it didn't apply to children. As a pp says, few of them are elite athletes or body builders.

The other excuse for a child being overweight that I hear is that they're tall.

Interesting study here, that shows a correlation between height and chances of being an overweight adult.

It is only teaching them to be concerned about their weight if that is the message we give them.

Ds is 7 and has been weighed about every 6 weeks since birth at various clinics (including dietician as he is underweight) but has no idea what the numbers mean other than that they are showing us he is growing.

Most of the time issues come about because of how parents handle things rather than the weighing itself.

I could also find more. That was just the first one of a very long list

one of those being bone density

Your skeleton is 15% of your weight, the density differences are 10%, so you're looking at the most a 1.5% increase in weight from bone density, that is not enough to turn someone from healthy correct weight to overweight. It might be enough for someone who is pretty unhealthy but not enough to generate a letter to get a letter when their similarly unhealthy peer doesn't.

But it's all part of the normal differences in BMI which is why there's such a huge range of normal weight and it's only the extremely over or underweight that are flagged by it. BMI only really fails with significant muscle mass, something which cannot really happen pre-puberty in all but very rare cases.

You can take a horse to water but you can't make it drink. That doesn't mean you shouldn't offer it water, though.

It is only teaching them to be concerned about their weight if that is the message we give them

Exactly. One of my DC is weighed and measured every month, without fail, for medical reasons. She does not by any stretch get from this that she should be concerned about her weight or have any negative feelings about it.
I'm sure you can manage your child being measured in school twice in 10 years?

I'm overweight, very much so. This is an ongoing issue that I'm dealing with.

My DS is ideal weight, despite having me as a terrible role model. He doesn't do a massive amount of exercise as far as I'm concerned, swimming, gymnastics, cycling and the usual running about. I see parents talking about lots of exercise but I think they are kidding myself. Most Saturdays my DP takes DS swimming and soft play, probably 40 mins each, then we all go on a dog walk which is usually 2 hours. DS is is quite happy to go for film night as his cousins afterwards. So I'd say he's fit but if I was less lazy there's definitely room for more exercise.

Hes always hungry and can help himself to food, but he has to eat meals. If he didn't fancy he's breakfast there's no snacks till lunch. And I rarely let him drink milk as this fills him up.

I don't think people are intentionally harming their children (obviously!) but it is what's happening.

I don't think the answers is letters giving you a telling off. In the same way that post war when children were found to be neutritionally starved rose hyp syrup and whole milk were distributed to all I think there needs to be a whole society approach.

Plenty of countries having daily exercise at school. Exercise that makes your sweat and pant not standing in lines waiting for a turn of hitting a ball.

I won't happen though. Too expensive and no immediate results. 50 years down the line though people will wish it had happened.

SirFred But if for example an overweight BMI is 25-30 and your child has a BMI of 25.2, they would get a letter. A letter that doesn't state what their BMI actually is, just that they're overweight. In those cases bone density would be enough to push them over the threshold no?

Just barely though, and they would still be borderline.

If thats actually how its done, as blunt as that, you've just proved my point. Nothing wrong with BMI itself, everything wrong with how its being used. It's supposed to be applied in conjunction with other methods and using judgement and discretion, not automatic letters with no info the minute you hit a point on a scale!

I don't really get the way the length weight growth charts morph to BMI.

DD was 98st centile for both weight and height from birth until 4.5 yo. This was considered 'fine' and 'in proportion' etc.

Suddenly you are on the BMI chart and 98 for both translates to Overweight - take immediate action.

Seems like BS to me. Also the rib test is apparently BS too as you can see her ribs easily, but she clearly has fat on her tummy, legs, arms and face.

Anyway a year later (with very little action on our part) and she has stretched out and now resides solidly in the green (still has chubby legs and tummy though...)

AndKnowItsSeven

exactly!

I also don't see the point of the letters when the schools can't come up with a healthy school diner in the first place! My foreign friends are shocked when they see the menus of our local schools. If other countries manage, why can't we?

I would rather schools asking for a few pounds from all the parents to help serve a decent meal than serving a "free" meal that is unhealthy. Around here it's free until they are 7, not sure if it's a national thing.

StandAndBeCounted Yes, but for it to actually matter, they would also need to be someone with the large muscle mass, short legs/large torso, extremely fit so large glycogen reserves etc. to make it appropriate that they should be healthy at 24.9. It's unlikely that all the things that mean the range is so wide are present in the one individual.

Those combinations are more likely in some fit adult males like rugby players (large muscle mass, large glycogen reserves etc.) but they're unlikely in children.

It's a wide range to account for things like bone density difference, and there is a very small chance you'll be mislabelled because the limits are not really a hard cut off, it's just the numbers where we can be very sure.

Couldn't agree more Spartacus

And Abs exactly! There was nothing wrong with DD's weight in reception, but she did start to put on when she moved into juniors whose dinners calorific content is shockinh! Even though my cheesburger and chips at school lunch today was delicious