Letter from school nurse saying ds overweight - I want you to look at a photo and tell me he isn't!

[Wallace]

Just to make sure i am not deluding myself

Letter from school said his BMI is 18.9 which puts him on the 98th centile and they will review in 6 months.

He was 5 in July and is 113cm tall and 24.2kg.

He is very very active - doesn't stop moving all day. Very athletic - been riding a bike since he was 2, swimming independently since he was 3. Spends most of his free time riding his bike or kicking a football around.

Photo looks like he is pulling his tummy in, he wasn't, but he was stretching up to throw something.

Photo on profile btw

That photo certainly doesn't make him look remotely lardy.

If you aren't worried, just ignore. What's the nurse going to do? Confiscate his lunchbox? She's told you because she thinks you should be concerned. Clearly, you aren't. FWIW I wouldn't be either. He looks fine.

he looks skinny

Looking at his thighs, he's muscular. Quite well defined. We're going to have the same problem with dd. She's very fit, plays sport and is muscular. I will await my letter with joyful anticipation.

Your DS looks just right to me. Maybe the nurse got him mixed up with some other kid. Or she had a glass of wine at lunchtime. WTF. Ignore. And give the DS a packet of crisps - he looks like he needs some.... :)

BMI doesn't adequately account for muscle vs fat I don't think.

Although 18.9 is the small end of normal isn't it? Normal is from 18.5 to 25!

Thank you, just wanted to check that love hadn't blinded me He is stretching in the photo, which does make him look a bit skinnier. He is really muscly, you're right.

Made me really to get that letter though.

I think it's different for kids Bertie. He looks scrummy to me!

He definitely doesn't look overweight.

I think children's BMI are quoted in a different way from adults' ones though so 18.9 may not be as skinny as it would for an adult IYSWIM.

The nurse who weighed my ds recorded his weight as 4st 10lbs, height 113cm.

He was actually 3st 3lbs and 116cm tall.

I then received a letter from the director of services at the NHS saying my ds is clinically obese and will suffer from a long list of awful illnesses as a child and adult if I don't change his diet and make him do more exercise.

It's ridiculous, my ds is very skinny and tall (now 119cm tall but same weight) I was actually worried the nurse would say he was underweight!

You know your child and you know if he is overweight, don't worry what the nurse says

Oh I see. I thought it was calculated differently to make up for the difference.

Do you still have his red book? I'm sure there are growth charts for up to 18 years in DS' one.

Looking on the NHS BMI calculator here it does say the same as the letter you got. I think the weight of muscle must be making the difference.

Looks perfect, slim and healthy from here. 98th centile is normal - what centile is he for height?

BMI is different for children but I don't know the details of how/why exactly. I would file it in the round cabinet myself

BMI for children has different targets than for adults, Bertie.

That's weird you got a letter, Wallace, it's impossible to say your child looks plump. DS didn't get a letter when I reckoned he was obviously veering towards plump & maybe I should have had a letter. Here's a pic of DS about the time he was weighed & I thought he was tending to plump (pls. do admire the chickenpox ).

Are those measurements ones you have done or what the nurse put him down as?

Children's bmi is v different to an adult's bertie.

Wallace, your ds is going to be fairly muscly I suspect. Looks fit and healthy in that one pic.

He looks and sounds a similar build to DS2, he's 4 1/2 and still has that 'good covering' of flesh as my Gran used to say, but he's by no means chubby.

He's also quite tall and muscular for his age.

Can't wait for his weigh-in if they're going to tell me he's overweight

we get a lot of these threads, don't worry about it. They just assess height/weight according to a chart and send the letter out if the dc falls outside the normal range. He looks fine to me, you have to know really and keep an eye on it - like we all are supposed to do.

It's hard to tell from that photo, but, as someone has said, he has muscular thighs. He cartainly does not look to be overweight though.

link doesn't work ragged.

i ws expecting chunky child from this post but he looks slim if not skinny to me - if/when this happens to me I will be straight down to the GP and ask them to confirm or deny - have you done the measurements yourself?

He looks muscular...like my DD2....chunkier than some and quite sturdy but NOT overweight.

He looks ok although he is stretching up in the photo, but I can't see it'd make that much difference.

I do wish if they are going to go round weighing children, that they would direct their attention and energies towards children that are clearly overweight and where a serious problem needs addressing. Anything else is just worrying people unecessarily and possibly dangerously so.

They don't seem to take into account that real people do come in differing shapes and sizes. They bang on about charts and positions on tables and centiles as though we all popped from the same mould and must all look the same Children are changing shape all the time when they are growing and active.

It's obvious your ds isn't o/w, so although you should probably ignore the letter, it's clearly playing on your mind and concerning you, as it did me when my dd had one saying she was underweight. Did they think we weren't feeding her What do they actually want me to do about it?? She's just naturally a tall skinny minnie, perfectly fit and healthy and eats ery well. But it feels like a criticism.