to be furious at this?

[noseywhatsit]

Just for background: My DD (10) is currently going through puberty, has had major growth spurts and is currently 8st 3Ibs and 5 foot.

A couple of month ago, her school had brought in a team to weigh the pupils and we didn’t receive feedback until a couple of weeks ago. In the letter they had sent home, they’d claimed that DD was overweight! I can very clearly see that she isn’t. This has made me feel really disgusted that they’re body shaming children! I have an older daughter who faced her own body issues during early teenage years and it was heartbreaking to see how it was affecting her emotionally and mentally. Am I wrong for thinking that they shouldn’t be throwing around claims like this when so many people, especially children and teens are dealing with eating disorders and mental health issues? I can’t help but think that they shouldn’t be throwing so much of the tax payers money into something like this when there’s so much more the NHS could do with that money, i.e. better mental health facilities for those who desperately need the medical intervention.

Obesity in children is a massive public health crisis.
Schools, parents and public health England are trying to address this - fat shaming doesn't come into it! We simply don't have the resources to deal with anymore obese adults so therefore it needs to be addressed in children before if becomes an adult problem.

I remember the days when all children and teenagers were skinny and most adults were slim.

Society is in denial and it's worrying.

BMI is flawed because of many reasons.
A healthy bodybuilder can weigh in very heavily but its muscle, not fat. Yet it will still affect their BMI.

A friend's first child was put through this because she is sort of sturdy-built, very tall - her father is six foot something big and her mother is tall too. The father is overweight but with his height he doesn't look it. This was a few years back and said daughter is a very normal and average looking size. Genetics also affect these things.

Some people have denser bones as well. I do, plus my chest is very large and heavy. My youngest is what people call a beanpole, a short one but she is very, very skinny. But if you pick her up, she is heavy af! She's nearly eight.

I've had a few healthcare professionals diss the BMI system. We aren't all the same inside.

My DS will be 10 next month and he's 3 stone 12. I find it hard to comprehend that someone in his class could be 2 and a half times his weight and not be overweight.

YABU to give a stupid piece of paper this much of your energy. Every time I see a story like this online or in the press I think to myself "this persons life must be so easy if this is their biggest problem". Don't be that person just throw the letter in the recycling and be done.

I'm 8st 6, have a double d chest, quite sizeable legs from cycling and running and am 5ft 3. Im 35 and would ideally lose a few lbs and certainly wont gain any more as this is the most I've weighed in years. She has a great adult weight, but her body has a lot of growing to do and this is a warning to not let her weight grow alongside it too much

noseywhatsit I think you are being treated very unfairly in this thread by some posters. Starting her periods at 8 is very early, so she can not be compared to a 10 year old that hasn't. How can people say puberty is irrelevant?? Precocious puberty is medical condition that has to be taken into account. Some very judgmental people who think they can bash another mothers judgement of their own child because they entered some figures into a website! If your DD has the body of a female that can technically reproduce, she can not be judged on the same scale as another girl her age at a completely different stage in their life. I started my periods at 13 and didn't grow from after that so still 5 ft 2. I wasn't the slimmest of children after puberty, but was not a "fatty", a word bounded about to describe children! but was picked on at school anyway, so sadly suffered from anorexia at 19 which did me more permanent harm than the couple extra pounds I had as a child! You know your child, you know whats best for her, ignore the clearly unhelpful posts.

BTW My ex was a health professional focused on weight and healthy lifestyles and he was also a sportsman. He was clinically obese by the bmi but stood by it as an average. Yes, some are taller, smaller, skinnier, bulkier do no exercise, are rugby players or weight lifters. But for Joe bloggs it's a fairly good indication. Perhaps everyone who disagrees with the result is an exception. Perhaps some don't realise they're not an exception. Who knows?

Finding this thread a bt emotive, personally.

For all the posters shouting about 10yo kids not being broad enough and shouldn't weigh the same as an adult, pipe down. Everyone is different. I hated it. I was bigger than some of my teachers, we did a lung capacity experiment in science one day and mine was greater than the adult male teacher's.

At that age I had periods and the same size clothes, boobs and shoes as I do now. I too was weighed and shamed by the school. Along with a 5ft friend who was referred to a specialist consultant who could advise on surgery to stretch her legs to make her taller. I am exactly the same height, size and weight today as I was being weighed in the San back then. I don't stand out much against my peers now though. They just think I'm taller than I actually am.

No comment on the school monitoring and informing parents as I can see value in preventing obesity but anyone who hasn't been that adult-sized child amongst pint-sized friends who thinks the OP is talking shit is wrong.

I also don't have periods with a BMI below 20 so the person who didn't believe that's medically possible can have a think about the diversity of the human body as well.

tbh my 8 y old boy is bigger than that,im not bothered as hes very active and dont keep still

hes 5ftt 1 and 120 pounds already pushing a 6 shoe

big i know but thats been normal from birth for him as he was over 100% percentile as a newborn (8llbs 10 and 27 inches)
but doubles his weight with in a few months

he doesn't do school as home educated so i dont have to worry about letters monitoring their growth and stuff as i do it myself but when he was in school(well reception) i refused as i knew he was to big at 4 and i wasnt getting a snootty letter telling me so as at 4 he was 4ft 3/4 and 70 odd pounds

@Dontletthebastardsgrindyoudown I calculated her age wrong, apologies

We are in the midst of an obesity crisis. Diabetes related conditions are going to decimate nhs resources. It’s well known that parents find it difficult to objectively assess their children’s weight. BMI has lots of faults but we need to do something to bring this to parents attention. Also in this system there is a line and someone can be just over the line and receive a letter whereas someone else who looks very similar may be just the other side and receive nothing.
In this case OP you may be right and your dd is an appropriate weight, in which case just ignore the letter. It’s a blunt decice that won’t always work.
A friend of my dd’s parents received a similar letter a couple of years ago and were totally indignant, their dd was not overweight she was just a ‘big’ girl (very tall youngster), two years later this girl is still very tall but still obviously overweight. Her parents can’t see it.

OP.....have you thought about asking your GP for an NHS referral to a paediatrician who specialises in puberty / endocrinology? I'd pop her along to one of them. Might take a few months for the referral to come through, but, in the same position, if I had any worries, that's what I'd do. Just to check everything's fine. You wouldn't even need to drag her along to the GP initially....you could just write to them requesting the referral and enclose a copy of the BMI letter saying you'd like an expert view.
To me the BMI tool seems a bit clunky and broadbrush. Equally I feel you are a little pig headed (sorry but I do) and seem to be desperate to pin point your DD's puberty to a specific point thereby wiping away any suggestion of her being overweight. TBH, none of us know how she looks - that's your subjective view. I don't know why anyone wouldn't make a few low key healthy meal changes in the meantime unless they were stubborn.

I'm sure that this has been addressed, but telling you your daughter's BMI which compares her to the rest of the country is not fat shaming. It's addressed to you for a reason, either you agree and keep an eye on her height/weight ratio or you think she's okay and get on with your life.

I'm 3 inches taller than your daughter and about 2 stone heavier and i'm classified as obese! It's an average system that doesn't take into account 32GG boobs or my size 10 physique(I was an E/F at size 8). If you're not a special case of extra muscle, heavy bones or thick build it's very likely that it will give you an accurate guideline of what your ratio should be.

What's funny is I am actually overweight and could see me losing a stone to get to my ideal weight. That's with me being active 3x a week and training for a 10k.

I'm talking in general terms because there are outliers to the statistical trends of BMI, and from the information that OP has posted, we can't know if her DD is one of those outliers who is of healthy proportions despite their BMI.

A child of 5 foot is not anatomicly the same as an adult of 5 foot despite puberty being in progress. Development continues through the later teenage years long after indicators like periods have started. Aside from mental and emotional development, a 10 year old may be technically able to create a preganancy but it would be very high risk as they haven't gone through the maturation processes required to sustain mother and baby through pregnancy and breast feeding. Changes to the pelvis aren't complete. Muscle development isn't complete. All these changes take time and have an impact on weight gain through the teenage years into the early 20s. This is why children of 5 foot have a healthy BMI range at a lower height compared to an adult of 5 foot. It would be very unusual for a child of this age to have reached their healthy adult height and weight. Not impossible, but unusual.

Puberty is affected by genes, but also by weight triggers. There is a strong link to early puberty because a child is overweight, overriding genetic factors, so early puberty could be an indicator of a child being overweight to begin with. Normally children grow taller and leaner through the primary school years before they reach the trigger weight to initiate puberty. They shouldn't have the softer look of toddlerhood which is why the checks take place at Reception too.

A child statistically being observed as overweight isn't a moral judgement, it's a time to evaluate and monitor what is happening. A factual letter to parents is not bodyshaming. Rates of being overweight/ obese are very localised. "Normal" in many schools may well be overweight. It may not be obvious from their peers or their clothing because it is widespread. Lean children of a healthy bodyweight often struggle with the bagginess of age related clothing and appear "thin" or "skinny" because the majority is towards the higher end of the scale.

Ultimately weight is a factor in health alongside a balanced diet of varied nutrition and high activity levels (more than 15 minutes of actual swimming in a 30 minute lesson, it is easy to overestimate the value of formal activity). Excess weight does make it harder for young people to engage in exercise, physically and through self confidence. It is worth an objective look at diet and activity levels to ensure that the teen years provide a healthy foundation into adulthood.