One in ten children starting Primary school is obese

[CountessDracula]

so saith the shitty rag that is the Metro

Can this be true?

I can't think of one child in dd's class of 30 that would get anywhere near being obese.
In fact I can't think of any 5 yo I know that is obese.

What is obese for a 5yo anyway?

I would say my dd is one of the heavier in her class (she has normal arms and legs etc and quite a big tummy- exactly as I was as a child!) but she is within normal on her BMI.

Do you think this is true?
If so, why are so many 5 yos obese? They all seem to run around and expend so much energy that they would have to eat their own body weight in lard to put on weight I would imagine!

they are all based on averages compiled in rationing days.

we all weigh a darn sight more now due to vastly different diets.

I think that living in a society with very high levels of obesity generally means that people do not actually even notice when people/children are getting overweight.

We've just got DD's class photo and I showed her mine at the same age. When we compared the two photos, it was quite shocking to see how much fatter the children were in DD's school photo.

fatter or 'healthier'?

really don't think this is a myth. GP I was talking to is v sensible

I agree Quattro. It's so normal, it's unnoticable.

Jessica starts school is September. She will be one of of about 45 children starting.

She is tall, and well built, but by no means fat.

I havent seen any child in her pre-school I would consider to be obese.

None in ds' nursery class.

About 2 in Reception (3 classes). I'm guessing they would be classed as obese as I don't know what the definition is for such young children.

But what I mean being barely being able to bend down/lift up their legs in order to put their own shoes on and the tops of their trousers not being done up properly.

Just thought I would double check and have a really good look to see it I wa just missing soemthing. Have just had a look at DD's whole school photo we recently got. So it has about 90 odd children on, aged from 3y to 11y. There is one child on the photo who would, IMo, be considered overweight/poss verging obese, but not excessively so. The rest are all normal, healthy sized girls, mostly verging on the skinny side rather than the tubby - mainly as they are all so active all the time I guess.

There was a very fat little girl at a birthday party my ds attended at the weekend, and some pretty chubby ones too. There is one particular child in his school who is just enormous with thighs that rub together who is always eating an ice cream from the van as she walks away from the school. I feel very sorry for her. Some of the girls at little dd's ballet class are overweight I think.
Whenever I see a class of school children out at the park there is at least one that is too fat.
I think we just don't 'see' fat kids so much because the general level of obesity/fatness is so high today.
I would hope that 1 in 10 was overweight rather than obese though.

But my ds1 is one of the more well built in his class (although I can still see his ribs) and I did his BMI - it's perfectly healthy. So who are these three children in his class who are obese? I can't see them.

tools.erpho.org.uk/bmi.aspx

DOH BMI assessment for chidlren

the thing is, they take things far too literal on BMI's without taking into consideration petite builds/average/well built etc.

I mean, rugby players are classed as morbidly obese, and yet they are very fit and very healthy, just because their muscles are very very built up and therefore, very heavy!

I know that kiddies are not the same as rugby players, but there seems to be nothing else taken into account IYGWIM.

So no-one thinks that obesity in childrne is a problme then. You just think the govt is measuring them worng?

I think it's a problem. Actually I think my son is slightly chubby yet his BMI is perfect, so to have a high BMI must mean something!

BMI's do take build into account - thats why theres such a wide range of childrens "normal" BMI. Agreed it doesn;t include every possible situation but the vast majority of children should easily fit within a healthy BMI even if they are stocky.

I'm just a littel sad that so many paretns obviously don;t accept that their child is overweight (not necessarily obese but overweight). I agree that it may resolve itself with more exercise etc but it won;t necessarily.

Coupled with the thread where the majority of posters seems to think it was fine for a child to take chocolate and crisps to school every day it maeks me think that many people must be fooling themselves.

MsDeamenor - it is indeed overwieght or obese (media are just calling it obese)

I am not saying that it is a problem, it clearly is for those kiddies that are, but I am not sure it is as bad as they are making us believe......the press are well versed in scare-mongering!!!

I do see some very big children, but not as many as the figures imply. the average is just that, so surely that might mean it is all being caught up with in the same way as we find the centile charts scare us when our kiddies are tiny babies, IYGWIM

just in repsonse to the OP - certainly not of the primary kids I know - maybe nearer 1% rather than 10%. So that would suggest in some areas most kids are - otherwise the stats don't work out.

I'm surprised at that figure for children starting primary school, since that doesn't appear to be what you see when you look at a random class of reception children. Most children of that age still have little baby faces, so maybe the differences are less pronounced.

Where I have no trouble believing the statistics is at Junior level in both dd1 and ds's class the differences became much more pronounced with kids of 7+ some appear to be built out of wire and skin with a few muscles thrown in. Others start to be large at that age, and not in a good way. There are quite a lot of 8yo (girls and boys) who appear to have breasts, and tummy hang is not uncommon either. Just watch a kids' swim session next time you're at your local pool. And by definition those kids can't be the worst examples, since they are at least taking some exercise.

they are not saying there are 10% of children above average - but 10% are overwieght or obese, based on what doctors think is healthy. The figures are rpoduced by the Dept of Health not the media, your local council will have yoru local figures - look up health profiles on their website.

my area is very affluent - 6% at starting primary but 13% by year 6, I can quite beleive it.

I agree with Quattro.

It is so sad to see fat children. It is a form of child abuse.

The problem with BMI charts for children (ime) is that it takes age into account as well as height and weight. I did dd's stats as a 3yo and she got a BMI that was at the high end of normal. Did it again as a 4yo and it was at the low end of normal. The upshot is that if you have a child that is tall for their age and therefore is taller and weighs more than her peers, she will for some bizarre reason end up with a higher BMI.

DD is 4 next week - will she suddenly become almost obese to almost underweight as the clock strikes midnight? I say to that.

imo if your child is at a similar centile for weight and height then they are fine - whether it be 2nd or 97th. DD knocks around the 91st for both and is therefore a proportionate weight for her height.

Kew what you said about parents deluding themselves ties with what I hear from GPs I know. When ds was at his most sickly looking last spring after 6 months of recurrent tonsillitis, he really did look like Gulag boy deathly white, and you could see every vertebra, all his sternum and all his pelvic bones. Not a good look.

But the GP was completely unconcerned. She said that loads of parents seemed to be under the misapprehension that if you could see a child's ribs, they were too thin. Whereas in fact a child would have to be really huge before you couldn't see some rib, and could be significantly overweight even if the ribs were pretty visible.