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!

goosey it's never clear-cut

(nearly) always a matter of genetics and environment (behaviour) combined

I don't judge, I just observe. There are some kids in upper primary who are mahoosive. Fact. And plenty who are just chubby, with little boy boobs and wobbly tums. Fact.

But we do live in an area with the highest proportion of overweight children nationally, apparently.

frogs i march our yr 3 down to highbury pool regularly and have seen it with my own eyes

yes frogs I know some people have agreed with me but the majority say their child is not overweight (or has some special reason why they are but they aren't IYSWIM) and there are few overweight chidlren in the school.

But kew, that's not particularly surprising given that there's a socioeconomic thing going on with obesity, and that most MNers kids will fall into the 90% who aren't obese.

But go to a swimming pool that serves a reasonably mixed inner-city population and you will start to see where the statistics come from.

Looking at my children's London primary school I think I've only seen a few kids where I thought there was a significant problem. My two are 7 and 9, and at this age they are and should be pretty skinny. You should see their ribs and no way should you ever see breasts on boys or girls (well maybe some of the nine year old girls). Going swimming it is even more pronounced. In the UK I would say perhaps a quarter of the children at our local swimming pool look like they should lose some weight, and yes I'd guess 5-10% look frankly fat. Now I'm in the States it is definitely much worse. Some of the kids coming out of the school gate look like they are struggling, and that's just not right at an age where they should be tearing around and having fun.

The health consequences of being overweight as a child are really not at all good. Type two diabetes rates (closely related to obesity - 80% of sufferers are obese) are shooting up amongst children, and this used to be known as "adult onset diabetes". For those who think it's just out of date charts, then bear in mind that the definition used is the 91st centile in the UK and the 95th centile in the USA, and that the UK charts were rebased in 1990. I can't find god long term comparative rates for the UK, but in the US rates have jumped from the 70's from 4% of primary aged kids in 1971 to 17% in 2004 (and probably are higher now), in the UK we are actually talking about 1 in 4 children (not specific to 5 yr olds) being overweight.

Scary stuff. I also have wondered why, looking at my son with his enormous appetite and high energy expenditure, but I think it is the abundance of crappy food + the fact that many families do very little exercise (no walking, and loads of TV).

yes kew and a "few overweight children" prob equals one in ten

ish