To think we’ve lost sight of what a healthy child’s weight should be?

[Winniethepoohandtiggertoo]

Walking through town today as kids were leaving school and I was quite shocked by the size of them (primary kids). But then I noticed that so many of them were overweight that in a way it isn’t surprising that maybe their parents haven’t noticed or realised there is a problem? When I was little kids were skinny things, now it seems the norm for them to be built like shot-putters! I know a few parents with overweight children but they insist they’re ‘strong’ or ‘solid’, or ‘they run around so much they just burn it off’. When so many kids look like theirs it probably isn’t surprising they think that?

I see this with my DC. They get fed more or less the same meals and get similar amounts of exercise but my oldest has the tendency to lay down body fat and when she's due a growth spurt she will probably be slightly overweight on BMI. My youngest hasn't got a scrap on him and when he climbs up for a cuddle he's all elbows and ribs. My eldest is just like me, the youngest is like his dad. You can't blame it all on poorly educated, lazy parents.

I've found the opposite. My DC used to go to a large city primary and there were very few overweight kids. One or two in the whole school who really stood out and obviously a range of weights in the rest. My DS has moved to a smaller village primary and I now see more chubbier kids than ever. Not sure why- I think more are driven to school generally but that's not going to be the only factor.

It could just be that she'll be one of these slightly chubby youngsters who suddenly have a growth spurt and grow in to themselves. It sounds like you and the family are doing all the right things!

It's really hard to judge how much a child should weight and how many calories they should be and are actually eating. Guessing DGD is around 10 years old, she should be around 40kg and would need around 1400-1800kcal a day to be healthy. School lunches aim to be around 30% of daily calorie requirements so would be around 450-600, so the rest of the calories will be coming from home - do you have any idea how well she eats, other than not enough to be her weight? If she drinks a lot of milk that will give her a lot of calories, and perhaps she's not burning as much as you think as often as needed?

I've had a few comments about my ds being skinny but he's a good weight.

When two parents working f/t on average or low wages can afford the money and time to feed their children properly, it's not a social problem it's a parent problem. There will be a few exceptions, but generally I'll stick my neck out and say it's priorities.

I, and millions of others, was brought up on a council estate (we would have been in poverty by any measure) and we ate a lot of veg, fresh or tinned (never frozen; we didn't have a freezer), didn't have meat every day and I only knew one or two fat people - they weren't the norm. We often didn't have enough food but this seems to be far healthier than eating too much rubbish. Snacks were rare (three meals a day, sometimes two), sweets were a treat at the weekend or occasionally after school - five penny sweets from the shop. We walked to school and back every day, and played out in the street.

This , in spades!

Yes, same for us. Eldest DC was on 80th percentile for BMI at her reception check (now in year 2) and very much looks 'solid' (sorry! 😆), particularly in winter, I think she might sometimes tip over into overweight category, though I do keep a very close eye. She's on I think around 30th percentile for height. She very much takes after DH and his mum in stature who are all short (DH is 5'7 and his mum 5'1) and only have to look at food to put on weight.

Youngest is currently in reception and there's not much between them in height. I think he will come out at about 40-50th percentile for BMI. He takes after me who is 5'4 (so average height for a woman) and a size 8. I have a very petite frame and apart from in pregnancy the heaviest I have ever been is 9.5 stone (and looked overweight even though I wasn't!).

In humans, 70% of fructose is metabolised by the liver and 4-5 fruits are too much for a small child,I would even recommend adults eat that amount. No the best carb is not potato, on the contrary, potato is high in starch which is transformed to sugar by the body (gluconeogenesis). Yogurt is fine as long it is not full of sugar.
The example is a high sugar diet but it’s hidden if you’re not aware that carbs equal sugar.

haha! ok you try giving my DS14 an apple after he's run 5km cross country in the rain or time trails where is he left breathless. Or after a 100km cycle ride.
Also my DD12 who will cycle for half an hour in the cold and dark to get to the climbing centre, then climb for an hour and cycle 30 min back home again. She also does cross country - fasted in her year. An apple won't suffice.
Some people do need the quick acting sugary calories. They are both nearly underweight. I only worry about tooth decay, so I do limit the sugar, but otherwise I'm not demonising treats, they exercise on a daily basis,

A lot of people who comment on these threads appear to have quite disordered thoughts and eating habits. Not surprising I guess.
food is fuel, most people would do better without most of the crap micromanaging of food and just get back to intuitive eating. Some people have deficits in recognising hunger/ full signals and will probably need professional help

I live in a relatively affluent area and run a girls activity group and most children I see aren’t overweight. A few miles down road in one of most deprived towns in England it always hits me how many are overweight. If you look at child weight stats yr 6 the difference between affluent and deprived areas is very noticeable.

YANBU.

What I find astounding is how parents refuse to accept their child is overweight when presented with actual evidence of BMI centiles.

Having said that, people say DS is "big" and "chunky" but he's actually 46th centile (done 2 weeks ago at a pediatrics appointment) so clearly isn't particularly large or chunky. They also say my daughter is "petite" but she's the same height and weight my son was at her age (42nd centile) and they called him chunky then!

I do not think people should be commenting on children's weight/ bodies in earshot of them though.

Swimming lessons is where it really shows. Of the 30 or so kids that swim at the same time as my kids I see a massive difference between these really skinny 70s style kids (the majority) ridiculously muscled kids (5-10%, I genuinely swear a couple of boys in my daughter's 5-8 class have six packs), and obese kids (2-4%, maybe).

My son is short, he was a typical butter-ball breastfed baby but it melted off him between 18m-3 years. He's now 30% for heigh, 50% for weight, so short and slightly stocky.

My daughter was the same, but she's now tall for her age and athletically built. She is 6, needs age 8 in height and age 5 in width. It's really tough. Her quads and calf muscles look like a body builders though, it's crazy. She weighs low in proportion to her height, but high for her age if that makes sense.

I think the things that trigger kids to be overweight are...

• trauma, ill health as a baby. Parents feed them up.

• poverty or not prioritising healthy lifestyle within your budget

• sedentary lifestyles, electronic lifestyles.

I think parental obesity goes one of three
ways, either you get the "don't know any betters", the "we're all big in our family so what's the point in trying" types, or the "over my dead body are you turning out like me" types.

People haven't lost sight of what is normal. What is normal has changed, when more people are overweight than those who aren't. If anything people saying being overweight is abnormal and shameful have lost sight of what is normal.

Vanity sizing always get trotted out on these threads. If people have changed, obviously the sizes stocked in shops changes so that shops don't size out most of their customers*.

So what if being a size 14 now makes me a 16 in 1990 and an 18 in 1965? I'm not in 1990 or 1965, thank fuck. I do weights, I've never been able to get my limbs into vintage clothes even when I was BMI 19 and less than a size 8 (in 1999). Why would it help me in my life if I couldn't buy clothes in regular shops? More than half the women in the country wouldn't be able to buy clothes if 14+ was outsize.

*That said it was hard to get sportswear to fit when I was a size 16/18. It's bad enough to get clothes as things are without sizing out half of the market.

I agree with this.

I definitely have issues with recognising full/ hunger signals. It hasn't always been this way though and its only in the last 8 years that I have gained weight - but I am constantly thinking about food now, it is constant internal chatter in my head. I am now on medication which has stopped this incessant background noise and its like "I used to feel like this" and I never had an issue with my diet or weight because I used to eat intuitively. I no longer eat intuitively, because I don't have the intuition any more. I don't know what switched it off, its definitely hormonal/ medical though.

It being 'normal to be overweight' and having a go at people saying it's abnormal is fucked in the head and part of this stupid denialism.

It is abnormal for humans to be as large as Brits are now - why?

Because it's leading to health problems and quality of life problems further down the line.

It's not about dress sizes, it's about a full grown health crisis.

Saying that it's normal for people to get cancer so why are people treating it as abnormal is about the same level of insanity. Being obese just isn't good for humans.

It isn't normal for a human body to be carrying excess fat, especially not in the quantity some now do. It might have become normal in society, but it's still not normal biologically and it's harmful to people's health. The issue with vanity sizing is that it feeds into the ignorance around our ever increasing waist lines, it's not about reducing the availability of clothes that fit people, but how often do people say ah Marilyn Monroe was a size 16; she wasn't in todays sizing.

a lot of additives and sweetners etc in processed food override the body's natural intuition also.

What is apparent from many of the replies is that:

• many/ most parents with a child who is overweight will deny that that is the case, citing all sorts of excuses; and
• if anyone, including medical professionals, points out that their child is overweight, that constitutes "shaming".

Catch-22, innit?

At least as this thread develops the disordered eating pushers become less subtle in their madness.

Surely disordered eating covers those who undereat as well as those who overeat? Both are disordered approaches, one is seen as more normal and acceptable though for sure.

Yes. I was actually referring to the comment that children (who must otherwise be rib skinny and not eat) should be encouraged to “gorge” themselves at parties.

Over-eating and under-eating are both potentially disordered.

The smuggery on this thread is unbelievable seeing "only poor people get fat because they're too stupid to cook they just eat chocolate and McDonald's all day" thrown around a lot as usual 🙄 I live in an area where practically everyone is working class and there is not a single fat kid in my child's class.

But you’re only seeing it as “smuggery” because what many are saying (backed up by… many multiples of studies including government research) doesn’t shine a light favourably on the area you live in. And that’s a shame, but doesn’t mean that what you don’t like isn’t reality and your area doesn’t fit with what the research indicates is that there most definitely is a very strong link between poverty and obesity

@Leah5678 how old is your child?