to think these children ARE overweight?

[OkMaybeNot]

The schools in my area have just sent out the results of the National Child Measurement Programme.

There are a number of acquaintances/friends on my social media who have posted their child's result online, along with a picture of their child and an angry rant about how their child is as skinny as a rake, not an ounce of fat on them, 'stocky' not 'fat', perfectly healthy etc etc.

But they are. Some of them are very overweight and plainly so. Others may be a little bit chubby and due for a growth spurt or something, but clearly not slim, either.

There are streams of comments underneath these posts agreeing and expressing their disgust and anger. And I'm wondering if everyone's lying, or they genuinely believe that these children are slim?

I know BMI is notoriously squiffy when it comes to kids, and I have seen genuine cases of it being so totally wrong it's laughable, especially when it comes to strong, athletic children. But that isn't the case for these children, at all.

AIBU to think that you owe it to your child to at least consider the results before going on the defensive?

Yeah but did shaming him work @pagan?

George Best I mean.

Children don’t need a diet

My kids are given low fat yogurt for lunch as a ‘healthy alternative to pudding’ Children don’t need low fat anything, they need full fat goodness

Children need plenty of fat and carbs and lots of exercise

I think normalising being fat is more dangerous than fat-shaming

For fucks sake, it doesn't work. No on is saying normalising it, we're saying don't fuck someone up so badly they rely on their addiction to feel good.

Telling an alcoholic who is depressed about their alcoholisom that they're disgusting won't make them give up drink.

All the attempts at tackling the obesity crisis with sugar taxes, low-cost vegetables for poorer families, sports provision etc. are all very well, but as pps have mentioned, the main problem is that children are given too much food far too often. Why do school lunches include a pudding at all?

I find this fascinating. As I said up thread my mum refused to see my brother as fat and yet also decided I WAS fat when with hindsight I was very lean and fit, but much taller and a different build to her. She put me on the Cambridge diet at 15, yet there was no way at all I was overweight. I think she equated a big bust with fat, and wanted me to get rid of that perhaps, I don’t know.

It’s left both me and my brother with eating issues. She would literally feed him all sorts of treats and yet I’d come home from
School and be told “make yourself a sandwich.” He is older than me too!

I wish she had listened to health professionals regarding weight but she didn’t. She also ignored them about a lot of other things - anything that was wrong with us was unacceptable to her so she ignored it. I begged and begged for glasses when I was in high school because I literally couldn’t see and she said no, I didn’t need them, my eyes weren’t as bad as hers etc. Same with my brothers’ hearing, until school and my grandmother got involved and FORCED her to face that he needed an operation.

I’m making it sound like she’s a terrible person. She isn’t, but some stuff is very fucked up.

Sorry, that turned into a ramble.

I know my dd is overweight. Not obese. She seems to put on weight ever so easily and has a very sweet tooth. I’m disabled and chronically ill. I did have her weight a lot more under control a year ago and I thought she’d go down to normal weight by the end of primary. It looks less likely to achieve that now, which is sad. But right now I’m too ill to feed us properly and I need to give dd food of some description. With hardly being able to stand up most days let alone prep a meal, it’s difficult to give her healthier options.

I don't know but I do think BMI is a load of shit. I say that as someone in the so called healthy range at 22 and I am thin, I look thin, I feel thin my legs and arms are skinny, my saving grace is small hips so I don't look so out of proportion.

lots of my friend are slim probably at top of normal bmi an extra lb they would be classed as overweight, yet there are fit healthy mostly vegan.

@itchyknees there is a horrible tendancy to focus on girl's weight. I've seen a million and one threads on MN about how to tell a poster's daughter she is fat or lose get her to exercise.

Not one about a son

When they get it wrong, as PPs have said, by measuring incorrectly or not taking into consideration athleticism (kids can be muscly) it must be a shock to the parents, and must seem like an intrusion and an insult. I get that.

But how many children genuinely fall into the error margin, and how many parents are just in denial? To scrap it would do more harm than good, surely. If just 10% of parents with overweight children look at their lifestyle as a result of the programme, and identify where they can make healthy changes, it's doing good, isn't it?

dona i think so. She fed him at regular intervals but fed him big bowls of cereal because she thought that was normal and healthy because it wasnt sweets.

This doesn't surprise me, all the waist bands for my 7 year olds clothes are too big! He's very tall to so it's a nightmare finding trousers that stay up.

I am sure kids clothes are massive these days and that's why the parents don't think they are overweight, these kids just fit into the normal clothes so they assume they are fine. It't not like they have to buy 'plus size kids clothes' (which obviously don't exist ... yet)

YANBU! People are in denial and that’s why we have an obesity crisis.
Call me extreme but I weigh my kids weekly. I don’t make a fuss or tell them what I’m doing. But I monitor their weight closely.
My son has an awful appetite so I started weighing to make sure his weight was ok as he looked so skinny. (He’s 4)
DD (2.5) loves her food and would eat all day if I let her. There’s about 5lbs between them but both are within healthy ranges.

I will never let them get obese. I’ve been overweight and it’s awful. How people can let their kids get so overweight is beyond me.

pbjs my partners daughter is overweight. Its taken years for them to address the issue. They don't want to 'risk an eating disorder' she already has one!
My son who is almost 13 and has started to put on a bit of chub (own money from Disney Dad) I feel quite confident to say he's getting a pot should we reign in the snacks?
I'm wondering do we as a society tip-toe around girls more so than boys?

My DS comes out as slightly underweight. He was born on the 9th percentile so he's naturally small and he's now on the 2nd percentile at 10. He's not bony and eats 3 meals and his fair share of crap. I asked the nurse if I should be worried and she said there was nothing wrong with him. I do wonder whether as percentile is an average that because kids are generally getting fatter, kids that used to be a normal weight are dropping off the other end.

One of DDs friends is very overweight now. Her mum says she’s ‘developing early’ or ‘about to have a growth spurt’.
She’s 9 and she’s been saying this for 3 years. She struggles with any any exercise.
She eats far far too much. Her mum seems proud she can eat so much in one sitting and has been ordering her adult meals for years. She makes no limits on crisps/sweets..

I think she knows she’s overweight but won’t tackle it. She’s very lazy with parenting and basically wants the kids on IPads and not to bother her. It’s heartbreaking.

YANBU, I take a big step back and though and don't comment, they're posting because they desperately want their denial to be fed and others are only too happy to oblige.

Everyone is so easy to offend now, body positive no longer means healthy and happy it means be overweight and be at best indifferent. I'm sure quite a lot of those parents will go on about fat shaming, seems to be the trendy new phrase, I wonder if they think diabetes and other problems down the line are a figment of imagination too.

I am overweight myself, thankfully I kept my shitty habits to myself as everyone else in my house eats healthily, I'm slowly losing the weight and I've had many comments from relatives saying oh you should stop losing weight now, I bet you're not as happy now, I should just learn to love myself etc etc (I actually still have 2 stone to lose btw so not a boast or brag.)

Yes, I have a friend who is obese and her daughter is 8 and looks to be following in her footsteps. She had a letter like this last year and posted on FB to say "the persecution has started" about her DD's weight. It's so sad. Her whole family is obese but I just don't think she sees it. She refers to slim people as 'skinny minnies' and tries to get her daughter to do lots of activity instead of controlling her diet. It's so sad to see the years of misery stretching ahead of her daughter.

Oh, and chocolate in every flipping breakfast cereal (yes I know not literally, but in my local Morrisons I'd say over half of them contain chocolate). Even chocolatey versions of muesli and granola.

i'vecworked in the are - as parents we are really, really bad in seeing if our own children are overweight. we are also very likely to misjudged their diet ("all heathy food" is not great if it is too much - 4 weetabix in yoghurt is not a good breakfast for a 2 year old).
unfortunately many parents choose to ignore professionals because "parents can see if a child is overweight". unfortunately we generally can't (record: normal height 2 year old, weight of 5 year old - parents and family genuinely did not see it)

@DaysLikeThese123 plus size kids uniforms do exist, I ordered school trousers at M&S last week in the promotion and they do 'plus fit' which is essentially plus size.

Sainsburys also sell plus-fit uniform. I'm assuming they make it the same length but 'rounder', so parents aren't having to go up in sizes.

i agree with a previous poster - children's clothes waists are vanity sized - if a child outgrows clothes from more than one retailer in waist before length, it means the child is seriously overweight. waistbands are made to accomodate slightly overweight children, and are huge on slim children

Someone commented on MN a few days ago that 3 weetabix with milk was a normal breakfast for a young child. I think it is far too much. A normal portion for an adult is two weetabix.

vanity sizes in children: accommodating overweight, leaving parents in the believe everything is ok