To complain about teacher weight comments

[jd88123]

My Daughter is in S1 aged 12 and was in biology class. Her teacher made them all weigh themselves.
My DD went through puberty age 10 and has boobs and a bum. Her BMI is 22 which is normal.
She said the teacher told them to "put 50kg down if you don't want to put your real weight as this is normal".
I am fuming about this as my DD is already weight conscious and has said she is going on a diet which I don't condone as she is healthy.
I think the teacher was very irresponsible to comment this and I sent a complaint about it to her guidance teacher which they've said they are looking in to.
I feel it's so wrong for children to compare themselves to each other as everyone is different. It's so damaging to their self esteem and at this age all girls especially have so much pressure to be thin and beautiful from the media.
Would you have complained?

Are you seriously body shaming a 12 year old girl right now? Have a look at yourself

This.

I remember being a chubby 11 year old and having to weigh myself in front of the class- it was horrible and I also remember we had to measure our height and there was one of the boys really upset about it- it's not very fair on insecure teens.

Weighing kids at school is a dreadful dreadful idea. I can’t believe this is happening in 2025 tbh!
I vividly remember them doing this in my primary school and one girl was very noticeably heavier on the chart THEY STUCK ON THE WALL. The fact she was head and shoulders taller than most of us wasn’t mentioned or the fact she very obviously had been through puberty. Absolutely awful.

id be complaining to the governors, its such a dangerous and unnecessary thing to do.

Yes they can. Don’t weigh children?

There is also prepubescent weight and post pubescent weight and they are COMPLETELY different. Suggesting to a 12 year old who has already developed that they are abnormally or unhealthily heavy but telling them what they should be is harmful and has long term consequences

I am freakishly tall. Why are you being so freakishly sensitive?! Drives me nuts.

At 5’4” 54kg with a BMI of 20.4 she is at the LOW end of healthy.

you’ve proof of why these numbers are hopelessly unhelpful

Percentile charts for 12 years old are horribly inaccurate as this age group varies enormously in terms if sexual maturation. So an average is meaningless.
you clearly don’t understand BMI, percentile charts or puberty and development in terms of context. The why comments from people like you are unhelpful, incorrect and dangerous

The teachers statistics were one set of data used in comparison to our own data set when I was in S1. Teachers were again used as a data set for S5, along with the current S1s. Their weights weren't announced fgs.

Height, weight, eye colour, shoe size, whether or not they could roll their tongue and how they folded their arms or crossed their legs.

Was no different than using the quadrant squares to compare species present in three fields. @jd88123 teach your child that data is just data. There is a reason for "averages", they wouldn't exist if everyone was the same.
Boys at that age could get triggered about their height. People have eyes, they can see if someone is shorter or bigger than others.

@carrotsandtomatoes

At 5’4” 54kg with a BMI of 20.4 she is at the LOW end of healthy.

If she was an adult white woman. She's not. She's a 12 year old child. Your comment is incorrect.

ETA a just turned 12 yo female of 5'4" weighing 54kg is at 79 percentile. Top end of normal weight. 91 percentile is overweight for a child.

Yanbu. I usually stick up for teachers but weighing teens in class is monumentally thoughtless and stupid.

It's off the scale stupid tbh. I'd have complained too. I'll happily weight myself and have never had issues but loads of teens do.

You are absolutely right to complain. The same thing happened when I was at school. As an early developer, in year 6 I was 5 foot 7 and weighed 9 stone which was obviously more than the other, smaller girls but within a healthy range. The public weighing has given me lifelong issues with food and should never have taken place.

As someone who was slightly above average weight at this age and later developed a debilitating eating disorder, I would seriously discourage anything to do with weight at school - kids remember these things. The comment about 50kg being "normal" , is just bloody destructive to a child who has seen they are over that and who would have a tendency towards overthinking.
Blame the whole exercise in general, for me personally, I would highlight my own issues at that age and emphasise how I would never want another child to go through what I went through.
I don't even think BMI would be an entirely accurate way to measure things either, as I was very sporty and had a fair amount of muscle as a result.

Eating disorders are highly complicated mental illnesses with a range of causes over a period of time, linked to a need for control, self-image, and holding oneself to unrealistic standards.

They are not caused by being weighed once, or even being called overweight once.

Surely your daughter- like most human beings- is aware of her height and weight and I daresay she is aware of whether that falls into an average category for her age group and whether it is classified as healthy or not. If she doesn't, then a doctor will no doubt clue her in at some point. This biology lesson shouldn't have caused any unpleasant surprises and she was not made to reveal her weight.

We were weighed annually in PE as part of a fitness check-up which also included a range of stamina, speed, and strength exercises and body fat percentages and not one parent made a fuss, and not one child ended up with an eating disorder.

If they're just after data sets for weight, just ask them to bring in their mum's weight, can't see that being an issue.

YANBU. Can’t believe there are people that actually think this is ok!

Part of the learning includes collecting data yourself. Showing what outliers are, what happens if value is recorded incorrectly etc. Learning what personal data means.

Why would any mum (not every child has a mum either) provide their weight when OP is complaining about one child being triggered about being weighed once privately?

BMI should not be used for children.
I thought that was widely known.
Children have different body compositions to adults, regardless of whether they have been through puberty. A 12 year old cannot be compared to an adult of the same height.

I knew 54kg at that height for a child would be the upper end of the % for 12 year old girls based purely on my own height and weight (as an adult).

Facts aren’t body shaming?

You don't know who had / ended up with an eating disorder though. Bulimia is especially easy to hide.

@jd88123 Going on about BMI to a 12 year old, who aren't measured normally by BMI is more damaging than being weighed once in school.

I was bulimic. It had nothing to do with a biology lesson.

Exactly. For example, an unsettled education with many supply teachers coming and going leading to having to work extremely hard in order to keep up with studies, that could be quite a stressful area which could cause a child who sets high standards for their achievement a lot of anxiety. But it's easier to pretend that it's all caused by once seeing a picture of a skinny model or blame it on a teacher.

The fact is that this is a vulnerable time for children and things like this can push them over the edge or cause distress. Why have them weigh themselves? They could record something else that doesn’t have this risk factor.