To think it’s possible for child to be overweight BMI but not unhealthy?

[NameChangedOct24]

My DS is age 8 and falls into 95th centile overweight BMI on child growth charts. To me he doesn’t look overweight, is it possible that he is still healthy despite the chart and I’m not deluded….ill try to upload a pic.

This is wrong though, ribs shouldn't be sticking out no but on an 8 year old you definitely should be able to see them and easily feel them, especially when they have their arms lifted up.

As I said - lots of things can trigger it. BMI of course is one. It’s ridiculous to argue otherwise.

To the person who thinks she was told one stone overweight at 5 foot 2 and 9 stone. You misread/misunderstood the BMI calculator. These numbers put you in the middle of the 'healthy' weight category with a BMI of about 23. A problem which seems to be getting more frequent is people (sometimes, sadly HVs or similar) assuming that if a child is at the 80th or 90th centile for weight. they 'must' be overweight and this is not so. The centile charts measure the spread of weight withing a population, so being on the 80th means that 80% of people your age weigh less than you do. This might be because you're overweight, but if you are also on 80th percentile for height then it doesn't mean that.

The other fact (which is becoming increasingly clear) is that many people think BMI and centile measurements are the same thing. They are not. BMI is the relationship between your height and your weight. As I said before, centile charts measure the distribution of weight and height in the population.

In an overweight population then how do the centile charts inform us?

Exactly @sunstreaming .

I think they show how everyone is getting bigger. It's population trends.

The average 10 year old today is larger than the average 10 year old 2 generations ago.
They don't show whether the value is normal or not, it's just a position relative to others.

Well I suppose that was my point, if someone says for example my child is on the 50th centile for weight and interprets that as being bang on average, it is average for an overweight population?

Is that how it works?

The difference is that Messedupabit* said BMI was the* trigger not one of many possible ones.

Yes.

Centile charts are only useful when you’re trying to track your child’s centile movements. Eg DS has broadly tracked between the 50-65th centile for height and weight his entire life. Nobody has suggested they be used to determine whether a child’s weight is okay or not - BMI is always used for that.

I suppose I see a lot of posts where posters are saying that, or saying that about an OP where they set out what centile the child is on

I thought they were just a tracker but I admit I thought they were in line with a range of what is suitable or acceptable for children of certain ages. I hadnt realised that its in line with what is actually the population spread (no pun intended)

My disordered eating was triggered by being an OW child. Not from being told I was OW, but by that being perfectly obvious to me when comparing myself with my peers. By being unable to run as fast, being less agile, and as I got older being unable to wear the clothes the other girls wore. As soon as I was able to control my own diet, I lost weight and vowed to myself I'd never suffer the misery of being OW again. Mostly I've achieved that through healthy choices, but not always. And it's been a preoccupation through most of my life. Had there been a BMI chart and my parents been guided by it and managed my weight my experience would have been different. Because avoiding the mention of weight to your child, never mentioning diets, reassuring them they're fine offers little to no protection against navigating the world as an OW child. (Tbf, I'm going back. I was a child in the 70s when being OW was rare and stood out. Perhaps its easier now it's more common.)

And the poster after suggested no one ever had an eating disorder triggered by BMI which is simply not true 🤷‍♀️ they’re both dealing in absolutes.

I mean I think people are very, very obsessed about BMI on here. I haven't checked but I know my children are healthy weights. My twin daughters are 15 and thin and healthy but not skinny. They're about 5'4 and weigh 49kg. My 6 year old girl is pretty skinny because she's young but I reckon she'll be similar to the twins when she's older. None of them ever had/have ribs showing.

My son is 12 and used to be an absolute stick with a mess of ribs but he has seriously grown now and is fine. He's 5'6 and still growing and bulking out a bit more. My 9 year old girl is currently an even bigger mess of ribs and is really skinny! Both are healthy weights although my 9 year old does eat quite little.

I'm 5'3 and 53kg and I refuse to let anyone on here or BMI tell me I'm overweight. I know I'm not. But there's a large span between being overweight and underweight and the middle ground of being healthy is big!! My point is you can be healthy whether you are skinny or well built tbh. In my opinion, OP's son would probably grow up out of it as long as they maintain being healthy.

Kids get weighed and measured in school. They get given a letter in a brown envelope to take home to their parents. It goes in their bags. In my LA only the children who are high/low on BMI have the letters.

I know about several girls because parents talk. one girl is the daughter of a health care professional. She removed her daughter from future weigh ins because of the impact of coming home with a letter.

‘Overweight’ children CAN become overweight adults, it’s not a 1 for 1 correlation. Kids grow at all sorts of rates and patterns. Catch a kid just before a growth spurt and theyll probably be a higher BMI than after. But honestly if a family are obese they are unlikely to pay attention-and those are the kids most likely to become overweight adults. It’s the potential negative impact on the other population which is concerning. So I don’t think the school weigh ins are effective.

BMI for children is not based on the same ranges as for adults. The OP says the BMI centile is in the overweight range based, presumably from the calculator on the NHS website or similar. This will have an allowance for a child about to have a growth spurt. A healthy diet and an active lifestyle and he should grow into his weight but definitely something to keep an eye on. Sounds like he may need more vegetables and a bit less of the high protein food.