School did height/weight check without my knowledge. Results say DD is 1kg away from 'official' Clininally Obese category. How should i approach school about this?

[LoneStranger]

I am so angry that DD was weighed without my knowledge and would not have consented to this if i'd had a letter. DD is almost 5 and weighed 22kg and 1.4m tall (or short). She is one of the two 'larger' girls in her class.

To look at her, she looks 'full' but not 'fat'. To pick her up, she feels as though she has bricks in her pockets. She doesnt eat a lot of junk food and i really do think she is heavy-boned.

I have tried to restrict her junk food intake since we had the letter and 'leaflet of advice'. DD was unwelll for a few days before Christmas and ate very little during that time. She has just got out of the shower and i can notice that her belly does not appear as 'pot' as i am accustomed to.

I feel so sad, for her and me but feel i should say something to the school. Im not deflecting blame. At the parents consultation I mentioned that DD had said that some of the others had laughed at her once when they got changed for PE. Her teacher said that she considered DD to be 'solid' but not fat. A week later we got the letter.

DD does weekly swimming lessons and 1 and 1/2 hours Stagecoach and is driven 7 miles to and from school.

Any advice greatfully received. Thanks

Just seen your post WoS - could you give us an idea of what the portion size should be for a child of that age?

DS would go mental if I only gave him one weetabix for breakfast. He literally never sits still, and eats like a horse!

LS, you have not failed her as a parent - IM(very honest)O you will be failing her if you do not act on this. However, you have said that you intend to take action so that is great. I hope you all manage to achieve without too much difficulty

As for the school, you are right they should not really take implied consent, however, it depends on the wording of the letter. If it is something the school want to do they will often say "please return if you do not want us to..." meaning they can do it if you don't respond. I think I would ask for a copy of the letter as a first off and then write to them based on what you find the letter contains (ie you have much more to say if it was a letter that had to be returned before they can be weighed)

LS, are you also overweight?

I am thinking that family portion sizes may be relatively large.

Any dietician will tell you that children of this age mustn't "go on a diet" but with subtle tweaks to their intake and activity levels, their weight gain can be made to slow somewhat, while the linear growth catches up.

LS, don't feel defensive, your parenting skills have not been called into question here.

"Can a medical type comment on the concept of "heavy-boned"?
"

Yes - no such thing.

Maybe your dd has a bit of puppy fat that she will lose naturally. However I'd be concerned if she's already getting teased because of her size and you say she's "full" I think I would approach my GP and get advice from an unbiased person with medical knowledge.

Oh no. DD birthday in a few days and we have bought her a DS. We do walk or scooter to swimming, about a mile, when we are not late, its not cold or raining. I will get DP to do the last 1/2 mile to school on the scooter; the parking is horrendous anyway, so that might be ok for him.

Sorry. DS crying and pulling my fingers off the keyborad, going to give him some dinner and return. HE, incidentally, is rather underweight. DP says its because im on here too much and DS cant reach the crisps yet. I didnt laugh!

WTH, I'm struggling with this too. OP, would you rather not have had it confirmed to you that your daughter is a bit larger than is healthy? Surely better to find out now rather than letting her wander into a fat and miserable adolescence?

Not sure where you live, but one of my DS's was recently weighed/height measured at school, but by the school nurse/PCT ie it wasn't actually anything to do with the school. At age 5 child health becomes the responsibility of the school nurse as opposed to the Health Visitor ( so I believe) my local PCT has started to weigh all school children at 5yo and then again at 11yo to monitor obesity levels. They are also advising parents of their findings. Parents can then choose to take advice/referrals onto specialist advisers or ignore the advice.

My DS1 is exceptionally underweight due to a growth condition. I allowed him to be weighed but advised the school nurse that we didn't require onward referral. I thought it important that all children were measured to give accurate statistics.

bluestocking, I don't think you can have heavy bones but you can have a large frame, i.e. more bone than a similar height skinny person. Those differences are perfectly normal and accepted. (It is why I will never be a size 8 no matter how much I diet - my hip bones are a 10 before you even get to the fat padding covering them where-as another person could well be my height but have hip bones measuring a size 6... If that makes any sense at all..?

...dammit I've been playing the big boned card all my life

I agree with NCBirdy. As average weights have crept up over the last decade it is difficult for people to recognise overweight as overweight and not the norm. I went on a diet last year and almost everyone thought I was an ok weight to start with even though my BMI was in the overweight range and I was about 10 lb heavier than I was 6-7 years earlier. If she is 1kg away from obese then she is overweight. My ds is about 1.06m and 14kg. He is 5 in March. I think you should make an appointment with your gp to discuss it properly and possibly get a referral to a dietitian. If you don't want her to have cake and custard then could you give her packed lunch instead?
My dd is 3 and eats very little 'junk' she is chunky but according to HV is fine atm. Her problem is she hardly moves. I am now doing more structured exercise with her which wasn't necessary with my ds as he is active naturally. DD does swimming, ice skating and tennis every week. I am hoping that she will stick at a sport throughout her life because she is not naturally active and I am concerned that she will be a fat adult.

My school sent home letters and if you didn't reply then consent was implied. TBH, I think your dd is lucky that you didn't get the letter and she was weighed. You should treat this as a wake up call rather than something to complain about.

There was a statistic on the news recently that said an enormous number of parents of obese children thought they were a normal; weight. I'll try and find the article.

Is you dd white? The standard charts are for white children and black children are generally heavier when still at a healthy weight.

Ladyjulia, is that medically proven that black children are generally heavier?

I have always thought that many of them have a much more muscular build than most white children, hence why they may appear to be overweight/obese.

tilly, muscle weighs heavier than fat, remember

There are different charts in the red book equivalent for different countries apparently. The charts that are used in the UK are for white children I think. A friend of mine downloaded the chinese version for her dd to prove to the hv that she wasn't starving her as she was right down the bottom on the UK chart.

i can't see how refusing to have her weighed would help? are you saying you'd rather not know? my dd is both tall and heavy for her age, overweight i think, although in proportion if going by the centiles. much as that knowledge hurts (feeling you've let them down) i would rather know and have the chance to address it, than bury my head in the sand and have her grow up (as i did) utterly physically unconfident thanks to her size.

i do understand how you feel, i get utterly frustrated with the judgemental attitudes heaped upon overweight children and their parents, by adults as well as their bullying kids. and the new puritanism surrounding the obesity "epidemic" just makes it worse. and don't get me started on eating disorders and body image, it's a bloody minefield.

but it would be to go unarmed into that fight if you just shut your eyes to it, really it would. think positive, this is your chance to set your daughter on the path to positive patterns of eating and activity for life.

Regarding exercise - I believe the recommendation for young children is 60 minutes PER DAY, so a swimming and stagecoach session per week is nowhere near it. Unless she does a lot of running around at break times.

No idea how you fit that in if you're driving to school, though. We only just manage it because we walk 25 mins each way - and DD generally runs/skips at least part of it.

customised centiles for birthweight take into consideration ethnicity

puppy, brilliant post

I'd object, one of my daughters spent several months in an eating disorder unit having been critically ill with anorexia. My youngest is extremely anxious about weight/size/shape by way of some sort of knock on effect, she'd curl up and die before getting on the scales in front of anyone. I wonder if I should ask the school whether they have any such plans?

Wow - if I were you I would see this as a big wake up call - you know she is fat or you wouldn't keep repeating that you are restricting junk food and festive food not too healthy etc.

And there is no such thing as heavy bones - when will people stop trotting that one out!

You have the opportunity to stop this now and stop your child becoming an obese teen and an obese adult and suffering the social stigma and th health problems associated with this.

School have probably started weighing kids in the hope that parents will get the letter and do something - save the child, the family and the health service a lot of money if parents took notice and acted rather than getting defensive.

Have not reade all posts, just here sneaking a peek while DP feeding children. How very dare whoever asked if i a 'also overweight'. I'll have you know that i am 5ft5 and 8.6 stones. Dont have a clue what that is in kilos, revealing my age here.

They are doing it in all state schools in year 6 and reception I think.

MM, those are extenuating circumstances (very sorry btw) and don't apply in this context

I'm sorry to have to suggest this, because I do understand that you are already upset and wouldn't unnecessarily want to make things worse, but I think you are diverting blame here.

I wonder if you're not upset about the results, but find that it might be easier to be cross with them than to face the fact that they might be right. They are doing her a favour - she's being teased already.

Also remember that when you live with someone, you sometimes don't realize exactly how "bad" (for lack of a better word) things got. This applies to most people, including myself - you get kind of used to the fat (or extreme skinniness or whatever applies).

Ok ladies. Thanks again for your advise. Have not ready any posts since my last, indeed if there are any.

Just want to say this. I dont suspect that speaking to the school will, in itself, attend to the weight problem. However, i will speak to the school.

Yes the truth hurts and all that, but i have not buried my head in the sand about this. In fact the HV told me- several times- not to obsess about her weight as it would even itself out. Interesting the info about black children having more dense body mass. My DD is, by the way, Black. However, before you all groan and think that i will be clutching to a red herring, i will be changing all our family's eating habits. DP is also looking a little more round than perhaps he ought to.

Will read other posts now.

lonestranger, I just wanted to add that my DD, although younger, is overweight.

Like your DD, no doubt, my DD is fed a balanced diet, with far fewer cakes/biscuits etc than her peers. And my partner and I have BMIs in the normal range.

I feel that some children, like my DD, are more likely to become overweight than others, and for these children it is not enough just to provide a balanced diet, but one also needs to monitor portion sizes, and to really work on activity levels (DD would sit and look at books all day if I did not really encourage daily walks).

I feel a bit miffed that other kids who eat sausage rolls and fruitshoots whilst sat in front of the telly all day are skinny as rakes, and I hate the way others assume that this is how I must be bringing up my daughter. I think it's hard for parents of natural ectomorphs to understand that some people may struggle with their weight more than others.