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?

It's odd how we all see things so differently.
I don't see 'love handles' like OP states. He looks ok to me. Neither underweight, nor overweight, average and fine. Not worth commenting on.

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

I thought they were using BMI centiles.

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

They plug the numbers into a computer that does the calculation automatically and generates the appropriate letter. Different areas/trusts may use different NHS computer systems, but the calculation will always be the same. Our local school nursing service uses the same system as DS paediatrician does.

They also calculate it two ways - BMI and on the centile chart too. It's called triangulating data - verifying it using more than one method to make sure it is accurate.

There is an awareness that the charts are out of date - the ones HVs use for babies are (last time I used them) based on formula fed babies. The children's charts haven't been updated in some time. To bring new charts into force there would have to be a longitudinal study (one that takes place over many years), which the NCMP arguably is.

Centiles will be BMI centiles. So 90th BMI centile will mean 10 in 100 will have a higher BMI at that age. Centile for BMI is age specific so needs child BMI centile calculator which takes into account exact age.

I just struggle to understand the mentality of parents who expose their children to this kind of exposure. One of my children got 'the letter', which said she was (just) overweight, in reception. I filed the letter under 'b' (bin), didn't tell her but kept an eye on her weight. By year 6 she was on the low side of the correct weight.

The children should never be used by their parents in this way. I just don't know what the parents get out of it.

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

Which is a significant percentage as the av. weight seems to be around 17kg.

The love your body movement is killing people.

The child, to me, appears to be sucking in for the first photo so it's impossible to say on appearance whether the child is overweight or not.

That said, my son appears similarly stocky and I thought we were going to get the 'overweight' letter. Nope, he was fine!

Knowing that extremely fit men at work were told they were overweight when there wasn't even a pinch of fat on them, I don't think bmi is a reliable indicator.

My belief was the programme wasn't so much aimed at shaming children but at ensuring the weights and measures reflected the population, so after a period of time the charts would end up being changed to reflect the more current population rather than the original, likely more active population.

@doublethink - I also put the figures in on a bmi calculator which said within ranges.

on the national child measurement program site and they came out as dangerously overweight.

I suspect there are many bmi calculators and they don't all ask for the same information or are aimed at adults. When I switched the ncmp calculator to adults and put in my age, the results swung to low end of fine range.

BMI is a damned good screening tool.

That a screening tool does not work as a diagnostic test does not mean it is poquality or without value.

There is a huge denial about how fat we have become, or that unless you have a highly physical job (Army etc) or play certain sports at a high level, it is higly unlikely that your high BMI is muscle, and vanishingly unlikely in a prepubescent child.

Different health trusts might include different information in their letter to parents. But as both height and weight are measured, it is not just 'meaningless' weight centile in isolation from height.

And yes, BMI centile shows your child's weight allowing for height (weight/height ratio) compared to the population. In a normal population, there would be both some severely underweight and some obese people. What becomes a worry is when either of those categories increases significantly (underweight and severe underweight were the problem post war, when this national measurement programme launched, overweight and obesity now)

The charts are revalorised to match population size from time to time. The changes are made based on what measurements are actually made of the population - all charts from time to time and additional ones, for example the different one for breastfed babies which was published by WHO in 2006

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

They are identical, because the programme which is hosted in schools is an NHS one. Though of course delivery and reporting might vary between different hospitals as they will follow the postcode lottery local trust policy

DD1 is about that height and 3kg lighter. Do kids have muscle or anything that makes them different weights like adults do? Or would the 3kg difference be entirely fat?

I think dd1 could do with a bit more weight on her, a stomach bug has totally wiped her out because she has no reserves.

Mini, I've just rechecked and I put the wrong year of birth in, making him 14 rather than 4! Serves me right for being online at 1am. So, yes, he's in the obese category. Poor kid being put in the papers just because his mum is angry .

No one ever thinks their kid is over weight do they.

The checks are made to try and ensure that kids stay healthy. It's far easier to start the habits at 4 than later on when you have less control over what they are eating.

It's funny how many people throw the letter in the bin as it's rubbish.

No kids are ever overweight on MN.

The classes full of huffing puffing unfit children who are driven door to door despite living 5 mins away and it taking longer to work than it would to walk, begs to differ

Not sure what the mum wanted from this. The intelligent thing to do would be to make a Drs appointment and get things checked out. Not have him pose sucking In his tummy In the paper in very deliberate "let's not show his height and standing normally" picture which is screaming "something to hide"

There is a huge denial about how fat we have become, or that unless you have a highly physical job (Army etc) or play certain sports at a high level, it is higly unlikely that your high BMI is muscle

Exactly. I read something about the BMI of olympic athletes. All the women had a healthy BMI and the vast majority of the men, except a few weight lifters. It is virtually impossible for a woman to have enough muscle to push them into a BMI over 25.

Not only that, but if people are not active they could have a 'healthy' BMI but still have an unhealthy amount of fat. This seems more likely to me than the other way round.

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

No they are using bmi centiles.
If you are on th 99th centile for bmi, then for every child born on the same day and are the same height, the 99 children will be lighter and and 1 child will be heavier.
If you are on 99 for height and 99 for weight then you are probably around 50th centile.

But they’re not using BMI if I understand the article correctly? They’re using weight centiles which is meaningless. They're using BMI centile charts to measure the obesity, but then the author of the article feels it's necessary to explain what a centile is, so does it in terms of weight rather than BMI, and unnecessarily confuses things.

The nhs scheme is based on bmi centiles and i dont think the author understands that

The kid is objectively overweight according to BMI.
This is why we have an obesity problem.
He also looks chubby.
Weight isn’t a matter of opinion.
His mother is horirible for having no self awareness and putting him in the paper.

If you put those figures in the nhs calculator for child bmi with a guess at birthday then he is on 99th centile for bmi

The boy in the article looks chubby to me...

He definitely has an extra layer...wtf was his mum thinking? But if he is active and eats ok then maybe he is due a growth spurt, a lot of kids concertina.

The child is clearly overweight but looks ‘normal’ as a good percentage of his peers will be overweight as well.
Modern culture has made a large proportion of kids overweight - more junk food, more eating out and takeaways/normalising of large portions, driving everywhere, less playing outside and more time on electronic devices, parents thinking if their kids do a 30 min sports class most days and no other activity their kids are ‘sporty’. It’s hardly surprising a lot are overweight and it looks normal.
I hate that parents would rather take offence at and make excuses about an objective measurement which indicates future poor health for their child instead of just doing something about it.

My ds-6yrs weighs the same but is 126cm tall.

Infact my dd-9yrs weighs the same but is 130cm tall (she's petite though)

It is hard though tbh, my kids were home educated up until a month or two ago and were genuinely very active... because they had the time. Lots of different classes, loads of time in the garden, on the beach, out on walks, swimming every day etc. Now they are at school they have two one hour PE sessions a week and a couple of short break times a day. They both do extras outside of school (park run, riding, gym etc) but it isn't the same, especially at this time of year when it gets dark early. I'm keeping an eye on them weight wise (oldest is pure muscle and can't keep still, middle is right at the bottom BMI wise but given the chance would sit still and eat sweets all day) and do not allow as many treats because they don't move as much. I haven't said that to them obviously.

I think children grow like Christmas Trees outwards then upwards. This is especially noticeable in our family when they are around 11 - 12 and are all pretty chunky then suddenly in the next year they become bean poles.
I do not think weighing children should be a snap shot and I don't think parents should be written in these circumstances.

Agreed it is harder for kids to be active in the winter but when I was younger before the dark nights kids would be playing out all evening and weekends for most of the year. That’s not so common these days. Being active now constitutes a 30 min swimming lesson in the evening about 15 mins of which they spend swimming!
And in previous generations if you lived within a 30 min walk from the school there’s no way you’d be driven but most kids are now even for short journeys. And it’s not laziness (mostly) it’s because parents are on their way to work. It’s rare to be able to survive on one wage now and hardly surprising that a lot of parents aren’t up for spending an hour in the kitchen cooking when they want to see their kids after a long day.
Modern society is making a lot of people fat.