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

BTW Sal, i am not blamimg the school for my DD's weight issue and am therefore not diverting blame. I have squarely taken the blame on myself as that is where it resides.

Ok sorry, didn't mean to be rude.

MM it is equally important to highlight the underweight children.It is similar to obesity but obviously the opposite. Parents may not relaize how underweight their children are. Surely weighing children is a wake up call. It means that serious life threatening issues can be addressed and hopefully the correct support for children and adults can be put into action.
If your youngest is upset and anxious perhaps she needs counselling or some support to address her issues regarding how upset she has been over her sister.

Hi LoneStranger. I understand why you feel unhappy about your DD being weighed without notice to you. I always feel aggrieved when these things happen without advising me. I/we should be allowed to be there when these quasi-medical things are thrust upon our children.
You say that your DD may have a "solidity" issue. At school lunch she eats "cake and custard". These will not make her healthy, but they may be the only things she likes/will eat?
ALSO - why on earth is the school allowing her to eat only that?????
Could you consider a packed lunch with nice, healthy things that she likes to eat? Beware of the shitty "low-fat" stuff - it is crap and stuffed with additives that no-one, never mind a growing child, should eat. What about a wrap with chicken/ham/cheese and salad (or just salad) with some hoummous to stick it together, some fruit that she likes and a drink of water (in an opaque bottle so it is disguised - no reason why it should be disguised, but necessary in some schools), or mini homemade quiche (DS favourite), proper yogurt, proper cheese, raisins, etc, etc. I do realise you may rely on a free meal for her at lunchtime. We also qualify for one of these for both of our DCs. We prefer to say No Thanks and give them a packed lunch as we like to have control over their food. Their packed lunches are cheap and cheerful. We always have a family dinner together in the evening. This is also cheap and cheerful, with the emphasis on cheap. It is always homemade and nourishing. In case this sounds like the Waltons - oops, no - DS eats anything he is given, DD is more picky and frequently has no pudding cos she won't eat dinner. I must add that DD (14) is also included. She is a picky devil, but eats up as she never wants to miss pudding. Pudding is usually fruit with yogurt, but as it is called "pudding", it is desirable.
DC's were starting to be "solid" but since I have taken control of everything they eat they are now slender. We (and they) now eat "real" food - not crap full of additives - butter, sugar (in moderation, but real sugar), real cheese (not those cheestring crap things), whole milk, proper yogurt, good bread and loads of fruit and veg. Children need the right calories to grow in a healthy way. Oops, this is turning into a lecture sorry, was not meant to be one.

I can understand why you're upset abouyt your dd being weighed and measured without your consent - but, all the same, I don't think it's worth making an issue of. Certainly check the wording on the letter that did go out before taking things any further.

I don't think you have anything to panic about with your dd, though. If you just try to maintain her weight, her height should catch up in time, IYKWIM. My dd was probably a bit overweight a year ago, and I tacked that primarily through reducing portion sizes slightly. Also cutting down on fruit juices and so on, which I think contain a lot of calories without actually filling you up. Didn't even mention to her that I was doing anything different. She's perfectly in proportion now. Just look at it as a long-term change rather than a quick fix and I'm sure things will turn out fine.

Thanks for that Paddington. My DD also reads at every opportunity, she eats grapes, mangoes and clementines like they were going out of fashion. She does not like vegetables particularly and will eat lots of pasta dn rice if given the chance. I have started to limit the type of snacks that she has and introduced sweetcorn and cherry tomatoes, which she loves.

I am taking note of all the suggestions and am grateful for all the input on this thread.

I would look at portion control aswell, eating lots of carbohydrate can be quite fattening.....I had this problem. I couldnt understand why I was putting on weight but eating healthy food.Check with HV or GP to see how much is recommended. I would give her either water or fresh fruit juice which can be diluted with water.
Wholemeal bread, wholemeal pasta are much better for you and easier to digest.

S'OK Sal .

DD says that if they dont like the dinner they are allowed to eat just the pudding. As i said ealier, i think, if there is an issue (and clearly there is) i feel it should be mutually managed. DD only has any pudding on a Sunday, otherwise its fruit after dinner. She does enjoy a fair range of food and will only really object to eggs or raisins.

So, what is a suitable breakfast portion of cereal for a 6 - 10 year old? Is 1 weetabix really enough?

Gosh I would give 1.5 or two, but with fresh fruit no sugar.If your child is active they do need more.

sorry if there was a roghu post, ds sat on the keyboard. I now dilute DDs fruit juice to 1/3 water. Will try the wholemeal pasta as she luuuurves pasta - a lot. Will also do more fish as she like that too.

LoneStarnger - the school will not have weighed your dd.

I think she will have been weighed as part of the The National Child Measurement Programme. All the children in her year should have been weighed and measured. All the children in year 6 are being measured too.

Details are here - www.dh.gov.uk/en/Publichealth/Healthimprovement/Healthyliving/DH_073787

and this page has the copy of the letter that the local PCT should have sent out to you via the school.

www.dh.gov.uk/en/Publicationsandstatistics/Publications/DH_086724

If you are the only one who did not receive the letter then it was obviously lost between the office in school and home somehow.

BUT if no-one got the letter then go into the school office and ask for the name of someone in the PCT to complain to.

Tillymint, I am unsure re: portion sizes for everyone, I just followed what the dietician recommended for my dd.

She give me a basic guidline of this:

here

I found it easier to give everyone less than to just tell dd she wasn't allowed more of anything... she wasn't and still doesn't eat anything really unhealthy, for example we don't regularly eat in fast food joints (when we do it is usually a local chinese food place where they get noodles or rice & a chicken dish), we're not a family who sit & watch tv with a bowl of crisps but we don't deny them (or ourselves) popcorn at the cinema!!

Can I just ask why you are so angry at the school for weighing her? I assume it was done on a mass scale & she wasn't singled out

Although I will tell you that after dd's last visit to the clinic I was sent a letter home saying the school was having the weighing session again & I wrote a letter asking for dd not to be weighed as I was dealing with it at home & didn't want her weight to be an issue for her. I also spoke to her teacher who assure me that it wasn't a big deal & that some children in the class are never weighed as their parents didn't want them to be.

I agree catinthehat

its cos LS obviously has the best interests of her dd as her priority and the advice given has been practical and fair

Some children are just more prone than others to be "heavy". My ds1 is like this. At around 4 or 5 it was really noticeable despite a healthy diet. As am am overweight and my whole side of the family has weight problems, I took it very seriously and started to restrict portion sizes. The fact that he ate no junk food and lots of veg was not enough. Whereas my ds2 has a slim build and is not prone to the "heaviness" that ds1 has. Now at 7 years old, ds1 has a nice shape and build. But we do have to continue to restrict what he eats.

My point is, eating healthy is not enough for some children. Portion size (and also lot of exercise) are vital too.

IlanaK, did your DS1 eat larger portions than DS2? - was that why he was bigger, or did DS2 just burn it off better?

A separate point really but I'm just wondering, as we're on the topic of weighings: I would worry that, if my child is the only one that is not allowed to be weighed - would that not make him / her more of a target to be teased? Kind of highlighting him / her? This would obviously not be a problem if other parents are doing it too, but how would you know in advance?

My ds is clearly not school age yet - might be a non-issue!

Prob wouldn't be a problem in year R or year 1 (4-5 year olds) but maybe in year 6 (10-11 year olds)

Cat and Any, I was in too minds about whether to post this. I shudder at the thought.

DD is back at achool on Tues and wanted to have a clear way forward in my mind. For the record, i would still have objected to my DD being weighed if she had been in the 'normal' range. Except, i would not have known, becuase they only sent the report to the parents of those that were outside that range. I know some dont agree with my point, but, yes the principle and then the negative outcome have been a double blow.

I dont think i have disproportionately focussed on the weighing issue and i am committed to dealing with this. (Part of me still wishes that i knew how to post pictures though. Im so sure most of you would not, if you saw her, consider her to be obese.) I think it would be irresponsible parenting to not even commit to sorting this for DDs sake - and my ego's sake.

I think the portion size depends on the child. DD2 (7 yo) eats like a horse But she runs everywhere. She is constantly on the move and has the body of a whippet.

Hope you can get things on track before it becomes a problem, LS. As the others have said I'm sure small tweaks now will pay dividends in the long run.

From what I remember, we were asked to give consent to the weighing & measuring programme, which is not run by schools but at and through schools (as that is where the children are) before school started. We had to fill in a form and it was one of the things on mentioned on it.

Knowing I have a very small (but healthy) five year old I put this on this form, and when I got the weight/measurement slip back last month the nurse had ticked 0.4% centile but also marked satisfactory. I don't think anything was said to my son. He isn't yet aware quite how much smaller he is, and if all goes according to our genes he should just end up short rather than teeny.

just seconding was waswondering said - i remember signing a form when my dd started school 4 years ago now - it was in a large file of papers including your emergency contact details etc - so you may well have signed something a while back - my dd was measured at end of last year and we got a letter and leaflet and i was amazed she had been weighed and then remembered that i had signed something or other about it

tbh i was more upset when i was weighed after second preg and the doc said youve got to get on top of that weight now - i did not think i was that big tbh - shocked me into action though