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?

its a stupid scheme as its not followed up with any actual support. I spent weeks trying to track down the 'help' and it was a cooking class in a school about 3 bus rides away at a time that meant i'd have to take unpaid leave and he'd have to leave school early.

the leaflet of diet advice was poor and inaccurate IMO it focused on not having sugary drinks (we don't drink them anyway) and swapping sugary snacks for low fat snacks which contained more sugar than full fat snacks. ie it assumed you just ate crap rather than a bit too much and was based on low fat not low sugar.

I know it should be as simple as feed them less - but actually there was little guidance as to appropriate calorie intake for a child of that age, sex, height and activity level and there is lots of research about dieting leading to weight gain so I didn't want to get it wrong.

anway, he shot up about over the two months and was no longer overwieghtobese when I saw the doctor to get advice as a last resort.

YANBU

Acquaintance of mine used to insist her DD were "big boned". They had breasts at 6 & 8 ffs. Did she think they were boob bones?
People just don't see it.

My third child DS, became quite podgy very quickly after his dad died when he was eight. No one actually said to me that he was fat, but I knew he was. Can’t really understand these parents who can’t see it.

I just stopped buying crisps and biscuits (bit of a shame doe the other 3 skinny ones!) and giving him smaller portions. Within 18 months he’d grown into that excess weight.

But on the other side, my elder daughter, the junk food consumer extraordinaire, could not put weight on. I will never forget standing and watching her (aged 14/15) modelling on a cat walk in a bridesmaid dress. Ther were two women in front of me and on seeing my dd, tutted at each other and one said ‘there’s anorexia for you’. ARRRGGGGHHH! To be fair I look at the photos now and wince. Such thin arms,

I think it’s because we’ve got so much fatter as a society. Our perception of ‘normal’ has changed completely, so we struggle to recognise fat people, as it’s so common it just seems ‘normal’. Only obese people are seen as overweight, normal weight people are seen as ‘skinny’ or too thin.

It’s deeply concerning. Plus the whole body positivity movement (the malignant part of it that promotes obesity) has clouded the matter, lots of voices saying that a certain build is ‘normal’ and you can be healthy at any size (including morbidly obese), calling doctors who speak to a patient about their weight and the health risks ‘fat shamers’. We’ve completely lost sight of a normal healthy weight and are quickly getting to a stage where it’s taboo to suggest that being fat is unhealthy.

People are definitely in denial. DS1 is overweight (just off green on bmi chart). DS2 is in perfect weight/height proportion and bang down the middle of the chart. People are constantly telling me how 'skinny' he is, he's not, he's normal, but skinnier than people think normal should be.

Our local soft play centre sell a wide range of typical kids food and snacks. I was chatting with the owner today and she told me she gets constant questions from people wondering why she doesn’t have a vending machine selling chocolate

Babynut1
If it is beyond you to understand why parents let their children get overweight, you should read my first post. I’m disabled. It’s not a choice to feed my dd easy to prepare or ready made food.

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.

If you read the sugar content I've noticed recently that the crappy kids choco cereal often have less sugar than the "healthy" musli granola type things. Loads of dried food isn't really great for kids either though.

It’s so worrying that parents, schools, doctors are afraid to tackle a child being overweight for fear of creating an eating disorder, they don’t seem to realise that enabling a child to continue being overweight, growing up, perhaps being obese if they continue with their eating patterns, could also be an eating disorder. EDs aren’t just anorexia and bulimia, they are binge eating disorder too, and someone who consistently eats so much extra food their body doesn’t need (to the extent where they are literally harming themselves with their weight and food choices and sedentary lifestyles) could be argued to have disordered eating too!

I was a fat child and I was told about it by every second person. Including my family. It just made me eat in private and feel bad about myself. Now I’m a fat adult. Fat shaming is pretty much as useless as denial tbh.

My ds got one of those letters. He has hydrocephalus so his head is big and probably weighs a lot. When he was born he weighed 7lb 2oz but he wore up to 5lb clothes (and 3-6 month hats!) for the first 6 weeks. He is 5 and was wearing age 6 clothes but he stopped wearing nappies recently so he is back in age 5 again.

DD is a young adult now, and recently she was looking at old photos with a schoolfriend she's known from toddlerhood (who has always been on the well-built side). Her friend was quite shocked by her own appearance in the old photos and said "Oh my God - why did my mum let me get so fat?"

The difference between added sugar and natural occurring sugar is what explains the sugar contents between chocolate type and muesli type cereals and is really important

I think some people genuinely don't realise that not all young children are growing (taller) constantly and need to eat lots all the time.

The snacking habit starts with toddlers (who often tend to graze and not eat proper full meals so fine and sensible to snack) but then continues with older children who are eating full meals but continuing to snack on increasingly unhealthy food.

I have a lot of sympathy with school caterers (and they do offer some veg and fruit) but school meals are in my view too heavily biased to pasta, red meat, pastry, cheese and puddings.
This is nothing like the food we eat/cook at home so for us, seems really unhealthy.

I think its got to be more about mental health and food education rather than weight.with kids especially.becasue you will get some kids that just will be a podgy one.they can eat the same as a skinny,they can eat the same as a larger and weight distributes at that age so randomly its so hard to judge.
so to make sure it does level out.to make sure they are health we need to be doing everything else right.to make sure there diet is balanced and to make sure we know and teach how to cook good meals.with it all.fat and carbs and sugars but in portioned balance
to teach the kids no food is bad or good that food is food and how to eat well
also how to have fun with exercise and feeling good being outdoors burning it all off being children.
focusing in on their weight at that age I think is far too dangerous and the line of different body types and how they absorb their calories is too wide.
we saw many a child who ate as there friends and the difference in how they looked was ridiculous.
of course there are some families who are feeidn their children rubbishly.but again they need help to cook.to feel good and eat good healthy and balanced.
if you tell a child their weight or eating is wrong at that age they take that on as they are wrong im bad.and the food issue wont improve.we need to get that education into great food.all food can be great food.if done well.
some of my brother and his mates woul eat packet and packt of bicuits or pizzas when they came round.but you could tell that they were going home to parents that were good with food and their relationship to it.and those that weren't.and those that were grew out of it.and becem to like veg.came to try out new food and learnt to cook.those with unhealthy guidance on food would grow up eating worse.
weight though focusing on that.and the vunerability it brings to a child is gonna make them feel bad.hep them want to look after themselves and their bodies.

It’s not a choice to feed my dd easy to prepare or ready made food

But not all easy to prepare or ready made food is high in fat/calories though. Nutritional information is freely available on supermarket websites. How much preparation does a jacket spud need?

@twinnywinny dried fruit usually has added sugar and people tend to over eat it compared to regular fruit, because it's easy. If you read the ingredient though you will see that most "healthy" cereals are full of sugar or alternatives that do the same thing to your blood sugar.

I have a lot of sympathy with school caterers (and they do offer some veg and fruit) but school meals are in my view too heavily biased to pasta, red meat, pastry, cheese and puddings.
This is nothing like the food we eat/cook at home so for us, seems really unhealthy.

And then someone like Jamie Oliver tries to do something about it, and parents are up in arms, feeding their kids chips through the school gates and whinging ‘my child won’t eat that fancy muck’. They can’t win!

fresta same here sadly.

DD Isn’t overweight at all (I do know this as she saw a consultant last week) however she is nowhere near as skinny as I was at her age. This does concern me, I’m not sure if that’s her body shape and she is certainly much taller than I was.
When I see my primary school pics we were all very skinny.

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

I can remember when plus size children's uniforms started to come into the shops. in many retailers it was to accommodate the SEN children who were being forced into mainstream, because they were closing many SEN Schools.

There are children with SEN who are overweight and until they get a bit older, nothing can be done about that, if anything at all, that is.

I say that as someone who was forced to be Obese as a child and was miserable because of it. My Mother seemed to like to have the power to fuck someone up. She moved my children away from porridge and on to Coco Pops, she would feed my youngest chocolate and crisps constantly, we had stand up arguments about it.

My teeth are destroyed because of my childhood diet.

I say it on every thread, but Countries/regions were relative poverty is the worst, are getting fatter. That isn't a coincidence.

Organisations, that know what they are talking about, offer solutions, but they suggest, raising living standards, including income. Investment in deprived areas, for outdoor hobbies and getting natural exercise. Investment in Employment. Strategies to encourage Self Esteem and feeling like a worthwhile valued citizen. they suggest staring it from Birth, like Sure Start did. Have policies like the "Every Child Matters" one.

So what does our government do? Bring in policies that go against all that, make people homeless/overcrowded and put up the cost of fizzy drinks. Yes, that will solve it.

What was suggested links in with solving lots of issues, radicalisation, drug use and now the growing violence.

I do the NCMP as part of my job. It's so sad to see the very overweight children when their parents won't do anything about it.

I recently saw a picture on fb of a Mum with her two young children, and they were enormous. Incredibly overweight, and I just thought, how could you not notice? How can you think it’s ok?

I also have a fb friend who regularly posts about how upset she is because her DD gets teased due to her weight. Followed by a ton of ‘she’s beautiful, don’t take any notice hun’ type of comments. But the truth is her DD is overweight! In photos of her and her friends she stands out. It’s awful.

M&S do plus size children's uniform too - yet no slim fit! I cannot get school summer dresses for my very slim DDs that don't stick out about two inches on each side, I've had to take them in to get them to fit properly. Go down any further in age and they end up too short!
In my experience from a school perpective, the children who need to be weighed and measured the most (who are obese/overweight to look at) are the one's whose parents opt out of the scheme so there's nothing at all we can do about it.

I think this is such a complex issue. I say this as a fat kid, obese/ anorexic/obese/ slim and currently one stone overweight adult!
To be brief I think my childhood fatness was linked to parents who believed “ clearing your plate” was a good thing, used sweets etc as a reward, over ate themselves so didn’t know what a healthy portion was, didn’t encourage me to be physically active ( because to be fair they were busy working). I disagree about economic factors...calories are calories no matter how much the food costs.

I will say though that we do have to avoid “ fat shaming” but there’s nothing wrong with saying fat is unhealthy and that we have a problem. I was recently in an airport waiting room, full of mainly Brits and almost every woman was obese. I’m overweight so not judging just saying it really stood out as the “ obesity epidemic “ you often read about but don’t realise is actually happening. I noticed the men were either fine or a little overweight, but not saying this is a typical representation of society.It was just so marked it was shocking