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???

@helpIhateclothesshopping a 5 year old with muscle mass high enough to get him out of the healthy BMI percentages would be extremely unusual and frankly concerning.

I'm not saying a 5 year old is a sports person, I am saying that not everyone who comes up on the chart as overweight is unfit, if they are muscular than average their results are skewed.

I've worked with a number of Registered Dietitians over the years. Some of them have been rather pedantic about spelling their title with two Ts, not a T and a C.

But none of them have lowered themselves to using the title Nutritionist.

You can still be overweight and fit though it doesn't stop you being overweight and that is unhealthy. Someone who has so much muscle mass that it makes that much difference to their weight would be very lean and therefore should still be in the healthy weight range because said range is massive. We are talking about five year olds here not a 25 year old rugby player!

Ali1ce

I went from a natural 4/6 to a 14 after children and a medication adjustment. I'm fat. No doubt. But trying hard.

Whereas my eldest girl, who's nearly 4. Is still unable to wear a skirt to school because they're massive. Even the waist adjustable, smallest sizes fall off her. She's a healthy and active 3 year old, but people constantly pass comment that she is tiny or skinny. Last time she was measured, she was 25% for height and 9% for weight. Yet ASDA sell a PLUS range for children as young as 3

The muscle weight confusing BMI results affects a minority of the population. My eldest has well defined muscles, he's a swimmer and you could teach an anatomy class from his muscle definition. He's 10 now but has been the same since he was 6. He is slim, and has never gone over the 50th percentile for weight.

People need to stop seeing the letter as a personal attack and use it as an opportunity to help their children.

Please can we stop calling it puppy fat & rename it parent fat. Puppy makes it sound cute. I was a fat child, I have photos of me at infant school age with adult size meals in front of me. I was allowed to eat chocolate, puddings, junk whenever I wanted to. Now I’m an adult I am still overweight. I constantly fantasise about being slim. Unless I’m on a diet then I fantasise about food.

@RussianSpyBot "I went from a natural 4/6 to a 14 after children and a medication adjustment. I'm fat. No doubt. But trying hard.

Whereas my eldest girl, who's nearly 4. Is still unable to wear a skirt to school because they're massive. Even the waist adjustable, smallest sizes fall off her. She's a healthy and active 3 year old, but people constantly pass comment that she is tiny or skinny. Last time she was measured, she was 25% for height and 9% for weight. Yet ASDA sell a PLUS range for children as young as 3"

I could have written that!!! (Although I have never been a size 4.)

I have daily comments on how small/slim DD is. I've just weighed/measured her and she's 25% for weight so would be on the smaller side but not a worrying weight.

Asda's plus size make me sad. Especially seeing as their "slim" fit falls off my daughter. We're pinafores/gingham dresses all year in our house.

Although now doing her height I see she's a pretty low BMI.

But. Look how huge that green section is.

Seeing that I know at least 5 of her friends got "overweight" letters last year then that's quite a big deal seeing how small the overweight category is.

M and S is by far the best for school uniform for slim children. Ds is underweight and their skinny fit slim leg trousers are the only ones he can wear (he wears them at home to!) they still need to be fully in fall down a bit on him but they are better than anything else I have found

This is the thing Mary poppins people keep going on about muscle and being a bigger build in general but that healthy range allows for all of that! I keep repeating it but people still aren't accepting it. We even had a GP phone in after a parent complained saying the child didn't look overweight to them and were obviously just muscular

Best to bear in mind that skeletons for men, women and children are easily identifiable.

The range as to how much padding that goes on top of it is culturally determined.

Big is the new "normal" padding.

It’s a massive range. For my DD’s age / height it goes from 3st 9 on 3rd percentile to 5st 2 on 90th percentile.

For her she would have to increase her body weight by 30% and she would still be a healthy weight.

I can’t believe muscle would account for that much extra.

Out of curiosity I put 5 stone 1 in and kept the height at my tall 6yos.

Clear to see 5 stone isn't right at all for a 5yo as that's for a 6yo and 99%

According to the NHS BMI chart, my DD is the on 31st percentile.

She's 4 foot 10 and weighs 5 stone 10. I'm glad she takes after her dad is just slim. I'd hate for her to have the issues with weight and food that I've put up with.

She's 12 btw.

My 6 year old ds just been weighed and measured. He is very active but can put on weight and lose weight very easily. If he's not as active and eats a few more calories than normal he will look much bigger and when he's ill for a couple of days and doesn't eat he looks gaunt. He got measured and was 91st centile for bmi. He's been at the dietician for being underweight for years so it was a surprise! He's 50th centile for height and 75th for weight.

Seeing that I know at least 5 of her friends got "overweight" letters last year then that's quite a big deal seeing how small the overweight category is.

It’s centiles so across the population as a whole 10% of children can expect letters. If you’d put your total amount of DD’s friends at 50 then that’s expected. 50 sounds like a lot to call friends though which suggests you’re in an area with higher than average incidence of child obesity.

DS is 12. He weighs 5 stone 5. Admittedly he is not tall for his age but he is slap bang in the middle of the healthy weight range.

He is very active and has obvious muscles.

I can’t imagine that a 5 year old weighing the same is not overweight.

@RiddleyW

I only say 5 as when the letters came out I was stood with 3 of the mums (we tend to wait together for pick up) and they'd all had the overweight letter. And then one mum also mentioned she knew 2 of the others had. And this was out of their class of 29. And only the girls. So presumably some of the boys would have too.

If I'm honest though to my eyes I'd have only said 2 of them would be "overweight" and none of them look fat.

Which goes to show that we don't know what a healthy weight child looks like.

I don't think we live in a particularly over weight area. (South East, wealthy commuter suburb.)

5 plus out of 29 is higher than the national average - unless the centiles are out of date maybe?

A couple of my schools in wealthier areas have higher than average numbers of overweight dc. It's not just the poor areas that are affected. The wealthy families can afford all the expensive smoothies (sugar), snacks (sugar/fat) and meals out that they like. Generally it is poorer areas with higher rates of obesity though. I know someone whose dd is v overweight and her mum doesn't understand why as she's healthy, she has a smoothie every morning and unlimited 'healthy' snacks but these snacks are actually more smoothie pouches, raisins, Ella's snacks etc.

Just as another reference, my DD 10 is on the 61st centile and she does a huge amount of sports (think athletics, street dance, football training several times a week, etc). You can actually clearly see her muscles, especially leg muscles, but she is with quite a bit of a margin on the healthy BMI. I think that muscles as an explanation for a child’s BMI simply does not work...

InstantCoffee just to add to your point, my DS is on the 85th centile and very muscular, he also carries a bit too much fat. I've heard so many times that his extra weight is just muscle, but it's clearly not. Children can easily be muscular and strong and carry too much fat. You can't discount their weight because they're strong.

Both my children do gymnastics and swimming, plus one other sport to the tune 5 hours a week, plus the normal kids running around. They are very, very strong. One armed push ups strong. You can see their muscles at rest in arms and legs and DS is developing a 4 pack, they are 5 and 6.

BMIs are 66% (Dd) and 87% (Ds), more or less tracking their baby centile lines. Muscle does not account for a high BMI in children.

(DS is higher due to his head circumference, it’s off the charts and has been since birth. It’s been bigger than mine since he was 4)