To say my DN is overweight?

[thedcbrokemybank]

I look after my DN regularly. He is 6. He has a health condition which has the potential to be made worse by being heavier. The other a day I had to weigh and measure one of my DC for a form. All the DC joined in (they like it being plotted on the wall). As DN was here he also joined in. Whenever I weigh and measure them I also put the figures in the NHS BMI calculator. DN is significantly chunkier than my DC but the calculator put him in the overweight category. To me he visually looks overweight too - it's not his build. He is chubby. Obviously this is a sensitive issue but as I said previously he has a health condition which won't be helped by being too heavy (joint based). I haven't said anything to my sil and I won't but I did mention it to my MIL on the premise that as a family we could work together to encourage them to be more active. She was very defensive, suggested that he wasn't overweight at all and just a different build to my DC. I did say to her that I wasn't being personal and it was an objective thing to say but I think I offended her.
WIBU unreasonable to have mentioned this to MIL?

You're a busy body. You didn't need to weigh your child whilst your DN was there. You used it as an excuse to weigh your DN and stick your ore in. Mind your own bloody business.

"I have a lot of experience and am educated to a high level"

Dear god. When you've dug yourself a hole, don't keep digging

I'm not even convinced you're the aunt!

There was no need to do the weighing and measuring you claim was needed for your DC ONLY when this child was in your home. F it WAS a form you would have had it for some time and unless this child lives with you full time you definitely would have had times you could have measured your child when they weren't around - hell even if they DO live with you full time I'm sure there would have been the possibility of a time you could do it without involving them.

There was DEFINITELY no need to calculate their bmi.

No need to talk to mil. IF you were to talk to anyone it should be child's parents but I suspect you didn't do this because you'd have had your arse handed to you.

IF the child is regularly being monitored due to a medical condition the hcps have the knowledge and experience to handle the issue with the child and their parents.

Your attitude to the children's weight is obsessive and unhealthy and imo conducive to contributing to eating disorders you need to adjust your attitude there generally.

"I have an indirect medical background" so you're an occupational therapist and THINK you're an expert on this child's condition and what's needed? That's extremely worrying that someone in your profession THINKS they know better than people better qualified and with more experience. Children's biology, skeletal formation and actions are very different. In addition many joint conditions cause swelling, as can some of the medication used to treat them cause swelling/bloating.

"This child doesn't have arthritis.
He doesn't take any medication." I find it odd that an aunt is so involved in a child they don't have custody of' medical care.

"1 of my DC is a dancer. They like to apply for various programs/shows.Theapplications always require height and weight. I am never very organized and end up leaving it to the last minute." Wow!

1 even more reason not to be obsessive on weight issues, eating disorders rife in the dance world. I also don't think ANY responsible dance company would require a CHILDS bmi calculated.

2 YOU being disorganised is YOUR problem

The more you post the more I wonder if you have an eating disorder yourself. Certainly your thinking around weight is very unhealthy.

The sheer arrogance of your attitude AND actions is SHOCKING!

"(I am fairly sure the forms don't call for that detail)" me too

"I am very interested in that kind of stuff and have done a significant amount of research." The more you post this kind of comment, the more concerned I am that you THINK you are an expert and know better than the ACTUAL experts. To the point I'm concerned this may be bordering on factitious disorder.

At best this is a deeply unhealthy relationship you have with this child that I honestly think you need to distance yourself from.

If I found out you had weighed and measured my child without my consent I would never leave them alone with you again.

You say you want to help, that is definitely not the help they need.

The reason I didn't bring it up directly with her is that I think she would feel incredibly guilty.

So why did you raise it with mil? What action do you think she could take without letting her dd and son in law in on it?

The best thing would probably be to find a way of raising this directly with sil. As many posters have been pointing out, obesity is a huge problem in this country and parents don’t always see it. But, I understand

you not feeling brave enough to do that. If that’s the case and you were never going to raise it with his parents, then you were out of line ‘investigating’ just how overweight your overweight dn is imo, (as you’ve been gracious enough to admit). If you’d just been concerned that he was looking overweight you could either have mentioned it to sil or not. The whole weighing him, finding out bmi, discussing with mil part, never needed to happen and your recent post saying you never planned to raise it with his parents only makes me wonder why you did it even more if it wasn’t just nosiness.

At primary age my dn was regularly taking part in football, kickboxing and swimming. Dsis had a letter from the school saying that he had been assessed as 'obese'. Now in his 20's he is still highly active but also overweight - not massively but 'chunky'.

When you say that the problem is 'easily fixable' you are displaying your total lack of knowledge and understanding in this area. I'm sick to death of hearing the 'eat less, move more' brigade talking about the problem of obesity as if it were just a numbers game.

My neighbours youngest was fat. I was a close friend and managed to bring myself to ask if she had had letters from school about his weight. She wasn't offended (luckily) but incredibly dismissive.. 'yes I've had lots of them but they don't understand that all our family are big. He's not fat he just has big bones like me' .. all said , standing in the kitchen whilst her DS climbed on the worktops to access the 'goodies' cupboard and help himself to his 3rd (that I'd seen) packet of crisps.
Sometimes parents can't or don't want to see what's in front of them. To acknowledge it is to admit you have made a mistake in your parenting.
My dear neighbour and her husband were both morbidly obese. So perhaps they felt acknowledgment would mean looking at themselves too.
He is now 17. Quite depressed and has type 2 diabetes. I think he also has sleep apnoea. Both are life threatening.

So your interfence didn't help did it? In fact things got worse so quite possibly did harm

The more you post, the more I cringe!

I doubt she even wants you to attend appointments, and is too nice to tell you.

Your attitude of being well educated and in a similar field, is probably the reason you're over invested and why she could feel intimidated by you. When realistically, based on your replies here, you're very ignorant to his difficulties.

If you were so genuine, and as experienced as you make out, you'd know exactly how to bring it up with his Mum.

You need to mind your own business and make an excuse to stay away from future appointments.

No . 5plusmeandhimI didn't interfere in anyway. I asked if she had ever been contacted by the school . ! Which she had. So they were already interfering as you put it and the child was a fat toddler , a fat child and an obese teenager. Nothing that the school or neighbours said 'caused this' . He was fat and remains fat and dreadfully unhappy because of no one but his parents inability to not feed him crap from the moment he could eat. And like many many parents - refused to accept he was fat even when told point blank by the doctor. Even then both mum and dad were in full on denial.
Buts let's look to blame everyone but the people responsible. They love their children immensely and are kind and generous parents but this behaviour was child abuse and my neighbours son will bear the consequences . Until he had a gastric bypass when he is 20 (the earliest the NHS will do it).
No child should have to have major surgery to be able to live a normal life just because his parents couldn't stop buying crap and letting their child stuff them self stupid with it.
This is going in all over the country. Listen to the news. It's an epidemic. The time for 'myob' and 'don't offend anyone' is long past.

OP - I think you have had a very hard time on here. Far too many apologists for child obesity from the 'its no ones fault' brigade.

Sorry- IT IS SOMEONES FAULT ! Toddlers and young children do not by their own crap. Their parents buy it. The whole mindset of high fat high sugar foods as 'treat' or 'reward' comes from them.

My neighbours child developed an unstoppable hunger for crisps. 6-7 packets a day. (On top of the HUGE plates of food. Pudding and cake. This was his 'norm' . His parents would say 'no'.. he would whine and they would give in.

Would all you MYOB and 'if you weighed my child I'd never speak to you again' feel the same if you saw your neighbours child being deliberately starved ? Or would you step in with your sticky beaks and alert every authority you could find. - I would hope so. !!
This is no different.

@kittens

I agree with you re childhood obesity. What has annoyed me about this thread is that the op has no intention (and never did, as sil “doesn’t need that right now” ). FanTAStic. So you were just weighing him and finding out his bmi for yourself? Op said she would “never share that information with anyone else”, so I am guessing it’s for her eyes only. Which is a little creepy to me (sorry).

Telling the mil isn’t much help, unless op expects mil to tell bil and sil, but the op has specifically said she doesn’t want to mention it to sil as sil will feel guilty. So presumably she wouldn’t want mil to tell her either. If it’s all about soaring sil’s feelings of guilt.

*sparing

*has no intention of raising this with dn’s parents

kittensinmydinner

There are no "apologists for childhood obesity" on the thread. The OP is getting a hard time because she weighed, measured and BMI checked a child that is not hers, and then talked about the results behind his parents' back.

She is shit stirring. If she cared she'd talk to the child's parents, with whom he lives, not declare that she would never mention it to them but instead talk to the child's grandmother. If the subject is not addressed with his parents no big change to diet or exercise will happen, she isn't interested in that really though she pretends that is her motivation. She just wants to compare grandchildren with MIL and get a gold star for being the mother of the thin grandchildren. Her last post shows that she clearly has an ego the size of a planet and enjoys putting her nephew's mother firmly in her place as inferior.

The child's grandmother put her in her place because she was in the wrong to go behind his parents' back with no intention of talking to his parents.

I agree with PP that no one is saying it's ok for the child to be overweight. How on earth is the OP helping this boy if she wasn't ever planning on mentioning it to his parents? The only motivation I can think the OP had was curiosity.

If she wants to genuinely help the child then she has to stop sneakily weighing him and speak to his mum and dad about it.

Basically you thought your DN was overweight so weighed and measured him then tracked his BMI. Presumably your perfect kids are the perfect bmi as a result of your support parenting? Adult bmi calculators are useless for kids btw. Leave it to the professionals. You say he goes to medical appointments? They are the right people to be picking this up. They will guide his parents on this. Inc any improvements which could be made. You sound a bit obsessed about weight and controlling tbh!

Going off on a tangent here, but not sure how old your children are, but why on earth are you regularly weighing and calculating children’s BMI. It is a false reading for adults, and for children, well I never did!

You weighed him, measured him and then put it into a BMI (which is inaccurate as fuck anyway) calculator. Of course you didn’t deliberately do it.

FWIW, I’d be furious if someone decided to poke their oar in about my young child’s weight.

Have you had the presence of mind to think that perhaps his condition doesn’t help his weight? I’m sure they’re getting advice from actual professionals too so they won’t need any intererance from an auntie on her high horse with her perfect DC’s.

I hate, loathe and detest what you did.

Evelyn has a fairly accurate understanding of what's gone on here I think.

I'd say Evelyn has covered it well.

ah yes.. apologies vipers. You are indeed correct. Somehow I missed the bit about having no intention of telling parents. That'll teach me for projecting my anger over neighbours child all over this thread and not reading updates !

As you were ladies .. as you were. ...

and agree with EVELYN. With this added knowledge it does rather smack of a contrast and compare competition for MIL

Actually, we need more mocking and criticizing of idiots who whine about children being overweight, not less. I was beginning to wonder if OP was a professional dietary scammer of some sort (anyone who peddles diet advice, apart from a properly qualified dietitican, is by definition a scammer and the advice given will be either useless or dangerous).
Pestering people you have decided are overweight is harmful. Diets do not work, and the diet industry is actually one of the biggest causes of severe obesity, because people who started out comfortably chubby but were harassed by idiots into losing weight end up regaining the weight, dieting again, gaining more weight... and this is what damages their health far, far more than staying chubby and telling the diet peddlers to fuck off would have done.

Actually I can state that both Graphista and Evelyn are categorically wrong:
Graphista
Your attitude to the children's weight is obsessive and unhealthy and imo conducive to contributing to eating disorders you need to adjust your attitude there generally
So because I weigh and measure my children once in a while (and you will see I have stated elsewhere that this is possibly once a year) I am obsessive? We do it if I think one of them appears to have grown and generally they all pile in. We have a height chart on the wall but I have never "tracked","plotted" or even recorded their weight. I have simply used a universal calculator to check they are within normal parameters. I really don't understand why this makes me obsessive.
so you're an occupational therapist and THINK you're an expert on this child's condition and what's needed?
Another assumption spat with vitriol. No I'm not. I have left out my profession as it is quite outing. I was trying to highlight that I do have some expertise in this field.
"(I am fairly sure the forms don't call for that detail)" me too
Then you clearly have no idea and it wouldn't take you very long to check your facts.
I'm not even convinced you're the aunt!
I literally have no idea why you would doubt this. SIL works full time. I look after DN every morning before school. I also have him twice per week after school and generally a couple days in the holidays. We also spend lots of time together as families. In this instance I needed to get the form off that day and had to do it before school (there is a glut of forms at a particular time of year for auditions and summer schools). DN was there because DN is always there at that time. DN loves having his height measurements on the doorway with his cousins. It was really no big deal. As I have said previously I should not have put it into the BMI calculator but the weighing and measuring was entirely innocent. You can doubt it all you like but that is the truth.
She is shit stirring. If she cared she'd talk to the child's parents, with whom he lives, not declare that she would never mention it to them but instead talk to the child's grandmother. If the subject is not addressed with his parents no big change to diet or exercise will happen, she isn't interested in that really though she pretends that is her motivation. She just wants to compare grandchildren with MIL and get a gold star for being the mother of the thin grandchildren. Her last post shows that she clearly has an ego the size of a planet and enjoys putting her nephew's mother firmly in her place as inferior.

This is just vile. I am very close to both my MIL and SIL. I wanted my MIL's advice on how to approach the whole issue. When I say I had no intention of sharing with SIL I meant the BMI calculation, the issue itself I would broach if I felt I could and it was the right thing to do. I did not mention BMI to MIL either just that I though DN was overweight. To suggest I want to compare grandchildren is just revolting. I asked if I was unreasonable to mention this to MIL. Clearly I was but the aspersions and assumptions from some of the posters on this thread are just downright nasty and not reflective of the situation at all.

The assumptions and aspersions are directly based on what you've written - we've nothing else to go on.

I may have your exact occupation wrong and I worded that as a guess (based on what you'd said about what you do) but I stand by everything else I said.