Can anyone explain child centiles to me?

[olivewreath13]

AIBU for thinking it's really confusing, or am I being thick?

I've been diagnosed pre diabetic this week and trying to overhaul my diet and tackle my weight as it's got out of control.

Youngest DC is also looking quite chubby. I'm trying to work out their BMI but everything gives me a weight centile, which don't seem to take into account their height? But their height must be a factor?

Your GP isn't gojng to do any sort of body composition scan on her. All your GP will do is weigh her and say fucking hell 7 stone! My adult dc is taller than her and weighs the same!

Muscle mass doesnt produce flabby bellies. Dancers are lean. Ignore discovereads - she objects to most things people posts for some reason.

3 meals a day, use side plate not normal plate and half full of veg. Breakfast high protein - scrambled eggs in one slice of toast. Keep up the activities for her. Snack on small amount carrot and humous for example.

Firstly OP I'm glad you are doing something about this now for your daughters sake. It doesn't matter how overweight she is, the fact is she is overweight and that's not healthy. But now is a good time to do something about it.
The extra curricular activities are great so keep them up. Portion sizes for children tend to have got very out of hand. A child should be eating of a small plate.

For context, my DD is 11 and she weighs 3 stone 8lb. Everyone passes comment about how little she is but in reality she's perfectly in proportion for a child. Children this age should certainly not have a belly or rolls of fat. The weight trigger for puberty is 45kg which is what your DD is, at 8 years old.

@MRex anything above 91% on the BMI centiles is overweight. Above 91% on the weight centiles might be OK depending on height. Sorry if that is what you meant but just wanted to clarify.

OP if you play around with the numbers on the NHS calculator you can see she would need to be 1st and 2 lbs lighter to sneak into the 'healthy weight' category. The range is large so already accounts for different builds, muscle mass etc. (in most cases). From everything you have said she is likely carrying an extra stone in weight around her middle which you say have noticed yourself. It is not too late to rectify this and could be very do-able in a reasonable time frame.

Is she really short? That’s a very low weight for an 11 year old.

@SpookySally Yes, she is very short, around 130cm. She's also under paediatric review and no immediate concerns. 13 year old DS is only just over 5 stone. I'm just trying to give another perspective to OP.

@hippoherostandinghere my daughter was a very similar size to your daughter at eleven. As an adult she is around 5’1”, with size 2 feet and probably doesn’t weigh much more than the OP’s eight-year-old daughter, which makes her a petite size 6. I think this is what shocked me about the OP’s daughter’s weight. As a child, I was fairly short and chubby but at eight, I probably weighed about four stones at around 4’1”.

Bragging about perfect petite children when I've explained mine is tall isn't really helpful is it @hippoherostandinghere 🙄

Seriously OP, that's what you took from my posts? I offered you advice and tried to give you some perspective. An 8 year old should not be 7 stone, it's not healthy. If you want to take your frustrations out on me go ahead by all means if it helps. Or channel it into helping your DD.

We are not bragging. We are very concerned for your child. She might well be tall but she is also very obese and the more you post the more concerning the picture becomes. You still seem to be in denial about the true extent of the problem. You say that you have only just noticed how tight her clothes are. I said that I was considered a short, chubby child myself by seventies standards yet I was not really overweight, let alone obese. You have said how many other children look similar to your daughter. This is a real cause for concern as they are at risk of serious health problems.
Small children also have problems. A few years ago, my daughter was in hospital for a week (not anorexia) and her weight plummeted to 5 1/2 stones. It was a huge concern.

You keep asking this but the thing is that being in the same centile for both weight and height doesn't mean everything is fine.

Being at the very top of the chart for weight is a concern. The fact that your daughter is also tall doesn't mean that her weight isn't a concern, particularly when you say that she is carrying weight on her belly (rather than being naturally tall and lean). I'm glad you are going to the GP. Hopefully they will be able to help you and her.

I agree with @Violinist64, why would we brag about our own underweight children, that too comes with its own problems. Believe me, I take responsibility for my DC weight, and do my best to make sure they are both fit and healthy.

Violinist, I'm sorry to hear about your DD, I can only imagine how worried you were about her at that low weight, I hope she's on the mend.

It's when violinist said she was 'shocked' when comparing OP's daughter's weight to her own petite children. I didn't find that particularly helpful either. Bear in mind that OP's daughter could be be near enough six stone and still classed as 'healthy weight'.

My dd has been over 99th centile since she was 18 months old. We went through HELL with the Hv and Gp ended up having all sorts of tests and being referred to obesity clinic.

I was accused of fabricating her food diary and they tried to push for us to go into hospital for observation I actually posted on here at the time.

Long story short dd is perfectly healthy. Nothing wrong with her at all (except asd but that doesn’t cause weight issues!) But we were treated like liars and bad parents.

@vera16 l was shocked by the weight of an eight-year-old girl compared with that of my ADULT daughter, a woman in her twenties - nothing to do with the tiny child she was. In addition, six stones still sounds very heavy for an eight-year-old, even one who is very tall for her age. I would have thought five stones would be about right for the height she is now. I know from my own experience what it is like to be overweight and would not wish it on anyone, let alone an eight-year-old child. I have nothing but sympathy for this child and the OP obviously loves her daughter very much and only wants the best for her. Unfortunately, sometimes love means having to make difficult decisions and not being blind to problems but doing something about them and following through, which is the hardest thing of all.

@hippoherostandinghere thank you. She is fine these days. This was at the end of her first year at university. She had her appendix removed and they were investigating diseases such as Crohn’s and diverticulitis but could not find anything conclusive.