A regular thread- the weighing children at school one.

[RebeccaWrongDaily]

www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-6483913/Does-boy-look-overweight-Mother-told-four-year-old-son-dangerously-heavy.html

apologies in advance for the link to the Daily Mail.

This boy has love handles- the comments at the bottom are all saying there's nothing wrong with him/ that this child is skinny as a rake / pure muscle. Why do (some) parents do this media shaming to their kids rather than take it as advice to address issues that may arise?

YAnbu
That first photo he is obviously sucking his tummy in.
It’s not to say he’s not excellent at sport or a kind friend etc, but obesity is crippling the NHS and burying heads in sand about it won’t help.

Ridiculous!! Mine often bulked out befor a growing spurt and then shot up to be back to 'skinny' unite normal.

Nothing wrong with this lads weight

DS who has just turned 5 weighs the same as this boy but is 10cm taller.
He's always been top centiles for height and weight, and if he'd weighed what he does now being 10cms shorter I'd think he was slightly overweight. As I say even though he's taller, he isn't particularly skinny at the same weight. So by that I *don't think yabu.

Well he's 7lbs heavier and 16cm shorter than my youngest ds (7) who is slim but not skinny. I just think people have no clue what children should look like.

My boys are constantly called skinny, they really aren't, they are slim.

I've no idea why people would put their children's pictures in these stories!

I think people really have lost sight of what normal/healthy weight in children looks like.

To be classed as overweight as a child, the BMI percentile would have to be over 85.

What does it say about relationship to fat as a society that people see a child that heavy and consider the appearance normal?

The reported amount of activity for this child seems on the low side - an hour a day is the minimum not the target.

I wonder what the parents were hoping to achieve by going to the press?

I think it's very mean spirited to post a link to this so that people can judge and comment on a little boy's body. His mum shouldn't have done it in the first place so I agree with you there, but you are just as bad by posting the link.

I haven't clicked on the link so I admit I may be missing something, but I couldn't blame the parents for wanting to draw attention via the media to how wrongheaded this school weighing is. The school nurse service (here, at least) uses BMI, which is a blunt instrument even in adults and totally irresponsible with prepubescent kids. All of mine were technically overweight at 11 and, like a pp mentioned, then had a series of huge growth spurts and are now all tall, slim and healthy weight-wise. One is actually much more skinny than I'd like (naturally, not from dieting).

I appreciate obesity is a problem, but so are eating disorders. I hate to think what effect letters home screaming 'Your child is overweight!!!' (as we received) have in households where everyone is already weighing themselves anxiously and feeling guilty about eating birthday cake. If I had the time and stamina I would have complained about it and tried to bring about a change of approach, although not with the help of the DM admittedly.

Discussing what a person has freely put into the public domain is not inherently mean-spirited. (Of course people can be either mean or nice, or whatever, when discussing published material).

If you think information on DC should not be posted on line, I agree with you. And squarely blame the parents. Not those who discuss what they chose to publish.

I don’t understand the thing about ‘centiles’ - it says if you’re in the 40th centile then 40% of children the same age weigh the same as you but that’s not how BMI works, is it? It’s a ratio of height to weight to get a measure - nothing to do with centiles.

BMI doesn’t indicate a specific weight so comparing the weights in centiles makes no sense to me - can someone explain it?

My DD is 4 nearly 5 so similar age and weighs 6 kilos less than him and is 2 cm taller.
Unfortunately there is charts and they will always go by them 🤷‍♀️

As kids they still us use centiles no doctor I know worries if the centiles match

99th centiles for height
99th centiles for weight
Is fine

25 percent centile for height
99th centile for weight
Is over weight

2nd centile for height
2nd centile for weight
Is fine

99th centile for height
2nd centile for weight
Under weight

Although interestingly we are under hospital and dietician so deal with this a lot !
What they state 17.2 kilos as average weight doesn’t seem correct in the article.

Always

This is what I mean - my DS had ‘dangerously overweight’ letter - he’s not. What he is, is tall. He was 11lb and 60cm at birth on the 99.6th centile and has been that since forever.

He’s the height of a 7 year old and if you put in his height and weight but with DOB of a 7yo absolutely fine.

It makes me wonder how many children actually ARE overweight with these measures.

Ok after googling I stand corrected my daughter has 3 weeks to gain 3 kilos 😂

Yes merry gold I wonder if the system they are using in schools are not quite the same as it would be in the hospital however

The boy in this article is average height of a 4 year old but weighs 5 kilos more than the average 4 year old.

At the same age my son was nearly 120cm. It’s all just bollocks.

I actually did his measurements too. The average chest and waist - just leg length and height that are high.

Ok, this child is a lot younger but the same height as DS and quite a lot heavier so it doesn't surprise me that he's overweight.

Age does matter for children, overweight children are both tall and heavy (so 99% height and weight is not necessarily OK) and then go through puberty earlier (it's why the average age of first periods in girls has gone down).

Children should be skin and bones, and all legs and arms as they get older. We are so used to seeing overweight children we've lost sight of what is healthy.

Merryoldgoat centiles work like this:

Take 100 children exactly the same age. The one on the 40th centile for height will have 39 children (39%) who are shorter than them, and 60 (60%) who are taller. Same for the weight chart.

I get that, but where does the BMI come in?

My point is if you’re 99th for weight and 99th for height you’re tall and in proportion but a centile chart for BMI is meaningless the way they’ve expressed it. They say they take BMI but then compare weight - it’s useless.

It makes no sense to compare two children’s weights and expect a meaningful result if they’re of very different heights.

Like, isn’t there a BMI scale - like we all know 18-24 is what we’re after as adults - why don’t they give us the appropriate scale for children, say 14-19 (or whatever).

@organiseandbrewery

The maths makes no sense - I say this as someone who studied maths at university and is an accountant - very comfy with figures - just not the way they’ve explained them in the article.

The NHS use centile charts from several decades ago (when people were, on average, a healthier weight), which is why such a large percentage of children are now above the 99th centile on them.

I used to work in this field and it's scary how out of touch society is with what a healthy weight 'looks like'. I regularly worked with children who were above the 99.8th centile, (effectively unplottable on the charts) with a future of diabetes and serious health problems ahead of them, and yet parents just thought it was a bit of puppy fat. Of course, there will always be the exception of children who grow out of it, and that's great, but many, many don't. My issue is not with BMI tests, but with the inadequate provision and follow-up support for families who are told their children are obese.

Yes, BMI is a blunt, imperfect tool, but it is difficult to roll out national schemes to identify and tackle obesity without it. Parents are usually in denial, and health professionals don't have time, impetus or are afraid of offending, to address the weight of children.

But they’re not using BMI if I understand the article correctly? They’re using weight centiles which is meaningless.

I relented and clicked on the DFail link. What a muddled article! I put his data into a bmi calculator and it came out as being well within the healthy range