To be horrified the NHS classes 5yo DD as overweight?

[mommathatwearspink]

DD (5) had her school night and weight check at school earlier in the week. Received a letter today saying that she is on the 94th percentile and classes as overweight for her age and height.

Im horrified! She doesn’t look overweight, does gymnastics and swimming each week, doesn’t over eat, treats are limited and I cook healthy meals from scratch most days. What the hell am I doing wrong???

@storkbloom really?

My DS is 4 about 5 cms taller than your child and probably 6 or 7 lbs heavier.

He does fit 4 - 5 mainly but trousers are way too big.

My eldest is 7 and I but 8-9 and I don’t think it will be long before I buy her 9 - 10 but I have to be careful what I buy her. I often find tops can be too big at neck but she needs them for length and we generally have to buy leggings and skinny jeans ( from H&M)

They told me my son was obese. The same child who is under two paediatricians and a dietician because he only eats 9 things. They tell me his height and weight are perfect. You wouldn't tell he eats very little. But then the chocolate buttons help with that. We got a letter about 6 months later saying they made an error in their findings.

So glad that my kids go to a private school and we don’t get these ridiculous letters.

@storkbloom really?

It depends on the shop. Her cardigan today is size 5-6 and fits, slightly baggy but not obviously too big. Trousers would be too big in that size, likely. I don't like fitted tops though, prefer them looking more floaty so I probably do size up one than I need to, she is probably 4-5 clothing mostly.

None of my kids have ever outgrown clothes width wise, except as toddlers/babies.

The only place I can find uniform is M&S as they do different leg lengths but still with adjustable waists.

I have yet to find jeans to fit my middle child that aren't too short or big round the middle.

Agree that a lot of kids clothes are made for fat children instead of normal sized children. We've actually had leggings, skirts and shorts fall down because they're too wide. I can't buy things that don't have adjustable waists so that I can cinch the elastic right in.

And adult sizing is all vanity sizing these days. At 8st 7lbs I was typically a size 12 over 20 years ago. Nowadays you get women of 12/13 stone saying they are a size 12, it's obviously not comparable to what sizes once were.

Also:

Chunky = fat
Broad = overweight
Big boned = a ridiculous excuse
Chubby = fat
Stop all this "chunky but not fat" bollocks, who are you trying to kid 😂

BMI for adults is bad enough but for children is just stupid. You just need to look at a 5 year old to see if they are overweight. Forget the letter.

So glad that my kids go to a private school and we don’t get these ridiculous letters.

Aaarf!

What a ridiculous comment.

I

BMI for adults is bad enough but for children is just stupid. You just need to look at a 5 year old to see if they are overweight.

Bad enough? What, if people want to be in denial?

The point @manicmij is that too many people do not know what overweight and obese looks like. It's become the norm to be overweight, so to may people that looks 'slim'.

hobby my dc didn't have an ounce of fat on them. Stand them behind a small/narrow build child and that child was invisible and yet had a fat tummy which mine never did.

Similarly, at 50 my best friend, a narrow shouldered yet rotund person with cankles was barely visible in front of me. I still had the defined waist.

At nearly 60 I am a stone overweight at 12st 10lb but I am a 16/18 not a 12. And that's M&S so I don't particularly agree with your spin on vanity sizing. I do agree I need to lose a stone.

And for good measure, at 5 dd was very ill. Her bmi was 91st centile, along with her height. She lost 11lb in two weeks. Both the paediatrican and gp said it was good she had the spare, otherwose she'd have ended up hospitalised and on a drip.

People can easily be chunky but not fat. Plenty of slim women could be a true 32/34 ribcage, especially if they're tall or have done something like swimming that develops shoulders but carry no fat there. Same goes for hips - visible hip bones but wider than my padded ones...

I'm overweight with a 28 ribcage measurement, trousers between a 14 (falls down) and 12 (falls down from waist, too small on thighs) but would be fine in a 10 in a skater type dress because I carry weight on my boobs and thighs and to a lesser extent on my arse...

DD gets away with a size down on age with the waist cinched in- had a real mission finding shorts with adjustable or drawstring waist. Fortunately capri length is ok in girls. Although interestingly Primark skinnies are almost tight on her calves while loose everywhere else (6 buttons of elastic each side to give them a chance of staying up ...

So many adults are in denial about their weight, it's not surprise that they are in denial about their kids weight as well.
My sister says the "fat gene" runs in our family as the woman are typically large. My sister has recently gained a ton of weight herself. She somehow thinks it's genetics but she stopped exercising two years ago and has been eating a ton of crap.
Despite gaining a ton of weight she didn't realize she was much bigger until she saw pictures of herself. She was shocked.
I think unless people are obese, we blissfully ignore that being overweight is unhealthy too.
And as for active kids, I was an athlete and low on the scale and solid muscle. Kids who train for hours are typically thin.

We do a mile a day at our primary school. Some children have lost weight visibly. A few parents have said their school trousers and skirts have loosened.
thedailymile.co.uk
Kids used to do that easily just playing out after school but don't so much these days.

*their child's school trousers....it's good but not that good!

Just opt out of school medical tests.

Your daughter weighs more than my health weight 113cm 5 year old.

Children's BMI does take into account height as well as weight. It is calculated the same way adult BMI is (kg/m squared), then plotted on a centile chart.

See the BMI growth charts here.

Weighing and measuring just in year R and year 6 doesn't seem like the best idea as there's such a big gap between them, much easier for the parents to dismiss them as inaccurate measurements, and more of a shock if the children are overweight to suddenly find it out.

Where I live children get a health check up every year including weighing and measuring (school nurse does it for school age children) so you can see the long term trend in their weight and spot issues before they get too big. Though of course it still requires parents to take those issues seriously to be of any use, which sadly too many parents don't.

Also people don't realise just how much exercise children need - 5 year olds need to be active at least 3 hours a day, 1 hour of moderate exercise, 1 hour of brisk outdoor activity, and 1 hour of fast sweaty red-faced exercise. They won't get that from a couple of sports clubs a week.

I agree re people not recognising healthy weight. Dd was under gastroenterologist for most of primary and so regularly measured and weight plotted. Can't remember what she was- I think 25th centile. it was very difficult to buy clothes slim enough for her. I had to complain to school as midday supervisors kept trying to get her to eat past when she was full as they thought she was underweight.
She wasn't underweight at all but a lot of children in her school were visibly so.

“Big boned” 😂

Never has an osteoarchaeologist excavated a skeleton and said “this person was big boned”. Bones themselves are usually around the same ‘width’, variations are found in length... they can tell if someone is well muscled because of the tendon attachment points but a fat persons skeleton is the same as a slim persons skeleton.

I don't think people know what overweight looks like anymore and I say as someone who is still on the journey to losing weight. My son is 8 & a half and weighs less than 5 stone, he's around the 30th centile so not tiny.

Thanks to the poster further down who said about Italian kids clothes.

I can't even buy the adjustable waists for my DD now she's gotten taller.

When a 4-5 was long enough for her I could get away with them. But she's no wider than when she was a toddler and as the sizes get taller the waists get bigger.

So now needs 6-7 for height and the waists are so large that they just look stupid as I have to pull the elastics so tight.

School wise it's pinafore or summer dresses. Skirts/trousers are pretty impossible.

I was surprised to find that matalan leggings fitted dd really well (she is very slim and tall) Zara jeans fitted her too. Oh and gap are usually good. Boden generally fit but I find the quality poor.

We had the opposite. Year 6 ds classed as extremely underweight (BMI 0 - how is that even a thing?) Similarly, I know he’s healthy, active and eats like a horse. They are all made differently, whilst it’s important as parents to be aware if there are issues we also have to remember that we know our children best and are generally pretty aware of there’s a problem. I’m the mean time body shaming 5 year olds is just not ok, be they over or under weight.

Not sure if OP is coming back?

I would say that BMI for adults seems a bit odd for adult, very tall people (“normal” BMI is very skinny). I am not sure if it is something in how it is calculated vs height, but a bit odd.

I do believe in looking at your child honestly and using the weight curve together with the height curve. At my children’s school you see both clearly overweight children and, horrifically, 10 year old very skinny girls believing that they are fat.

I think that the only thing we can do is encouraging healthy eating and lots of “built in” exercise like walks in addition to weekly activities. Sizes can be misleading though, we by panties from Primark for DD6, even the year 4-5 ones are falling off her and she eats like a horse (everyone keeps telling me)!! However, we are quite active, drink only water and rarely eat junk (except a daily ice-cream on summer holidays) and rarely snack, so maybe it all balances.

OP, hope you manage to get to the bottom of this!