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?

Yes it's shocking and really sad. I have a friend who is super intelligent, in a high paid professional job, someone you'd presume was pretty "switched on" and aware of childhood obesity etc.
Her daughter is enormously obese to the point it's a massive concern. Does no exercise (she's been signed off PE at school citing mental health reasons), constantly grazes on high sugar and fat snacks which she can help herself to, doesn't eat a proper meal ever...she's only 8 and it's just really sad as she's going to have dreadful health issues for the rest of her life if she carries on like this. She's already been warned that she's at risk of diabetes by the GP, but her mother said that this was a "fatphobic comment" (not kidding).
My kids eat good dinners and we have ice cream at the weekend, but they never ever snack unless it's a piece of fruit and they really can't wait until the next meal.

I don't think people have lost sight of things. I think there are more extremes, more fat & more skinny, less in the middle. When I was at secondary school (early 90s) I was teased for being lanky & skinny (I was). Mums & Dads weren't obese but they did have some fat. In the part of London I'm in teenage girls are very thin & their parents are all endurance athletes on the weekends! 😆

My god smugness overload

I do think parents are more stressed & far more time poor which is of course going to impact on wider health outcomes. And this is more a factor in poorer areas.

I was on some training with school nurses a few years ago. There was a picture on screen of 5 images of the same child, all different weights. Barely anyone could identify the healthy looking image. The majority said the overweight image was a healthy normal weight.
People just don't know what healthy looks like anymore.

BMI takes height into account so will be adjusting for that, so a ‘top end’ yet tall child is still in the same position as a shorter ‘top end’ child.

Completely wrong.

BMI goes up as kids grow. So taller kids for their age will have higher BMI. Hence they are higher up on the BMI percentile measure.

We definitely have different standards of what is considered ‘fat’ than we used to. In the 90’s a ‘fat kid’ would be rare, and actually not that overweight. Where’s I’d say half the kids I see walking to the local school are overweight, some considerably so.

Its the same in my country, the children are bigger (both from observation and statistically, been in the news a fair bit lately. Also national fitness tests show their fitness levels are decreasing, its worrying) but children get weighed and measured every year here so its not like parents don't realise or can't see that their children are overweight so there has to be more to it than that.

Snacking must play a part, when I was a child we only had two snacks a day, after school and supper but nowadays people snack so much more (including me, even though I know I know better - stricter with my children but probably not as strict as I should be), along with greater availability of snack food.

My children are average now but DS has a much bigger appetite and is much less active than his sister at the same age so I can see that I will have to be careful with portion size.

Bloody hell what a portion size.

Because they grow up thinking that a huge bag of crisps or Maltesers that are actually meant for several people to share is for one person. Ditto “family size” bars of chocolate.

Along with many other reasons, obviously.

And agree that in the UK it’s clearly a socio economic issue. I don’t know about other countries.

Exactly the same here with my DD. She’s always been pretty strong (literally- she could lift me off the ground at 8) but she’s usually fairly slim. Only gets a bit pudgy just before a big growth spurt.

Did your training not include that you can't see healthy? Unless you are a superhero with X ray vision of course.

I don’t read this as smug at all.

My 16 year old has always been classed as overweight using NHS guidance despite being skinny. His ribs, collarbones, cheekbones, Adam's apple and hips are very pronounced due to being so skinny.

His frame is big, broad and athletic. His feet and hands are huge, his shoulders very very broad- but it is all bone and a bit of muscle. He has two friends of similar height (6ft 2 inches) who are also really slim but their frame is much more fine, their feet and hands are considerably smaller. Seeing them walk side by side the difference in frame, especially shoulder width is very noticeable.

I now know that DS is underweight for sure as he's had some detailed investigations related to a medical condition.

The effects have included a sore tail bone from sitting on school seats without much natural padding on his buttocks, difficulty keeping warm, an eye condition and low BP.

I appreciate that this is an unusual situation, however it is yet another example of why the standard measures of whether an individual is under or overweight aren't fit for purpose. We need a better tool so that parents know without doubt that their child is over or underweight.

Agree about snacks, we don’t do snacks unless she’s actually missed a meal or is Ill & lost her appetite. Snacks are for children so small they can’t eat enough to last them until next meal time - so toddlers.

Yanbu. We've lost sight of what a healthy weight is on adults and children.

It was by a dietician. It was to highlight that people have lost sight of what a normal body shape on a child looks like.

Your ds is being investigated by medical teams for being underweight

The vast , overwhelming majority of children classed by simple tools as overweight are overweight and don't have any other medical assessment to say otherwise

People are grasping at straws and making irrational choices to avoid admitting any problem

YANBU but I think it can be hard for lots of people to see. My DS 7 is tall and gangly, and waist wise he will fit into tiny trousers and shorts (I think a lot of kids' clothes are huge though!) but I remember having a shock to find out he was actually on about the 75 centile for weight at one point during lockdown when he was 4. He generally hovers around the 60th for weight and is somewhere in the 90's for height so not overweight by any means, but given he looks really lean, he's still on the heavy side.

DS almost 4 is built completely differently, not as tall and stockier. Haven't measured him recently so need to get on that!

I do sadly know of a few kids who are visibly overweight and the all have overweight parents. I think we've lost sight of a normal diet for a child as my older DS can put away an awful lot of food.

For my DC it’s the pressure and denial I have had from older members of my family. DS1 is starting school later this year, I weighed and measured for car seat purposes about 6 months ago and was shocked that he was classed as obese! Mentioned it to both DM and MIL and received all the usual “oh no he is just solid” and “that can’t be right, you must have measured wrong” etc. I have made an effort to cut down on treats and get more exercise and he is now in the healthy category, although close to the top. Yet neither MIL or DM thought I should do anything.

At weekends the queue for McDs goes out of the car park, along the road, round the corner and blocks the nearby roundabout.

I think the British food problem has been around years. My DM feeds my girls badly when she has them, we have had to repeat ourselves constantly as she just doesn't get it. I grew up with that attitude: I would eat four packets of crisps back 2 back as a 6/7 year old and mum would say it's fine as I'm growing- bollocks!

I am working really hard with my DDs to encourage better eating. I am getting there, they are in great shape and eat well but there are loads of people who grew up like me with 4/5 siblings and they all went on to have kids and passed down the bad eating habits.

It's a vicious cycle.

Completely agree. As well as the attitude of 'if you limit unhealthy food they'll obsess over it/get eating disorders.'

My cousin's kids are on the larger side and they'll have stuff like Skittles and Haribo as everyday snacks for the playground. Mine are a healthy weight and we have things like fruit, crackers, cheese etc.

My grandma recently said my cousin 'has the right idea' and 'you don't want them to feel deprived.'

...they're not deprived, and they're fine with the fact that food like sweets are for dessert or special occasions. We shouldn't normalise regularly eating processed rubbish.

This is also my experience.

Part of my job involves performing anthropometric measurements on women, infants and children aged up to 8. I must have measured thousands of people over the past 5 years. It is really difficult sometimes to recognise obesity.

That said, when I measure children, and they have a high fat ratios, the parents are always shocked. This isn’t BMI by the way, it’s skin fold measurements with holtain or harpenden callipers. these are children that are visibly fat/overweight/heavy/chunky.

I’m 58. At school in the 70s, there were very few ‘fat’ kids, in fact it was rare enough that the fat child was noticeable (and sadly, known as the fat boy/girl in Mrs Brown’s class). We ate breakfast, lunch and tea. Water from the playground fountain. A glass of squash and two cow biscuits after school (maybe, not always). Now parents can’t leave the house for a short trip somewhere (shop, school pick up, etc etc) without taking snacks. You only need to look at the supermarket shelves in the baby aisle to see the ‘snacks’. Plus, not all kids play out, we were outside playing 40/40, block tig, hopscotch, skipping ropes, hide and seek, etc etc from dawn to dusk in holidays and always after school.