picture of 4 yr old of what the school calls "Obese"

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  • Coming4U
    Coming4U Posts: 93 Member
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    That is crazy! She is not obese, fat or even "chubby" as I saw some people say here. What does her own PCP say? They are way out of line with that. If it was a true case of obesity then yes they can say something. Only thing this will cause is a perfectly normal healthy little girl to have self image problems and weight issues due to them.
  • Countryslove
    Countryslove Posts: 50
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    She is so adorable. She is definitely not obese.
  • samf36
    samf36 Posts: 369 Member
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    Weight control?? Really a school is qualified to discuss weight control?? I am going to go out on a limb and assume she is enrolled in Head Start, the program that is all bout social issues not about learning your abc's and 123's. Honestly the assume all parents are stupid and want to come and snoop through your dd's house. The next thing you know they will say there was beer in the fridge and meds in the cupboard you dd is not a fit parent. Trust me I know people who this has happened too.
  • Tiggermummy
    Tiggermummy Posts: 312 Member
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    My almost four year old is 44lb and about the same height as your little one.
    As it happens her older sister has been to see a paediatrician as she is tiny, and I took her along for comparison
    and the Doctor's reaction was "Wow, she's huge!" She took DD2 off to be weighed and measured and when she came back
    she explained that she is on 50% for weight but 75% for height. DD1 is on 9th % (lowest for weight) and 2nd% (one up from bottom on height)
    She is prediciting that our younger child will be between 5'8" & 5'10" (i.e - like her dad)
    and her older sister will probably only be about 5'6" (i.e - like me - she then called me petite!!!)

    At no point did she say she was overweight! And if the school were to send me a letter like that home they will get an earful from me!

    My youngest has always been a "solid" child but at the same time she can hang onto the monkey bars for ages, she is even trying to do pull ups on them.
    This morning they both took part in parkrun 5K - for daughter one her 5th and new pb by almost 10 minutes and her sister set new pb by two minutes last week.

    As long as they are doing normal kid stuff running around and playing it should not be an issue.
    Good luck
  • Ready2Rock206
    Ready2Rock206 Posts: 9,488 Member
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    She's not even chubby looking. I'd just say thanks for the info and move on. My son's kindergarten teacher was an older lady who I think just didn't want to deal w/the energy of boys - every time I saw her she told me I needed to get my son on drugs for ADD. I always told her I'd look into it. I'm sure they mean well but Mama (or grandma) knows best. If her pediatrician doesn't have an issue w/her weight and mama doesn't have an issue, then just ignore the school. (my son's Dr. never said he has ADD and neither has any other teacher and he's in HS now)
  • jencjeffery
    jencjeffery Posts: 99 Member
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    She looks gorgeous. Absolutely nothing obese about her!
  • sleepy_mum
    sleepy_mum Posts: 40 Member
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    Hiya.

    The NHS have a BMI tracker app for the iPhone which is very useful for adults and children as it takes height and weight into account, as well as distinguishing between the calculations used for adults and children. For children the calculation is a comparison to their peers, so out of 100 children who are 3ft 3ins, where your granddaughter's weight would fall. At 44lbs she's in the 99th centile, which is why they say obese - anything over the 90th centile is considered so. If she were 4lbs lighter she'd be in the 89th centile and classed as a healthy weight. So it's not a lot that they think she's over.

    Personally as a mum of 4 I know that mine tend to gain weight then grow and it stretches out, then they gain then they grow ... so I'd be inclined to say it's nothing to worry about right now. She looks healthy and if she's active then there's probably nothing to worry about. If I were her mum I'd tell them to forget the home visit as there's nothing to discuss. If you check her again in 6 months without changing her diet I'd bet she'd be under the 90th centile and classed as healthy just because she's growing.

    Hope it helps,

    Sarah
  • helyg
    helyg Posts: 675 Member
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    Just checked the WHO centile charts. You don't say exactly how old she is (ie if she has just turned 4 or is 4.5), but at 4 years exactly 3'3" is only the 25th centile for height, ie below average. 44lbs is roughly the 95th centile for weight. So the centiles that her height and weight are on are are way out of proportion.

    As I say, she might just be due a growth spurt. But if she were one of mine I would definitely want to keep an eye on it.
  • vim_n_vigor
    vim_n_vigor Posts: 4,089 Member
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    They probably just went by the typical "growth charts" for weight only for her age and didn't cross reference it against her height. School needs to stay out of it. (What are they doing weighing and measuring the children in school anyway??) You and your doctor know what's best.

    You do know that not all kids are regularly taken to a pediatrician or any doctors, right? While this child looks fine, many don't. If my son were screened at school, they would send home a note that he is severely underweight as he has been in the 25 percentile or lower in weight - since he was born and seeing as he is 95 percentile for height, well, you see the difference. The school wouldn't have the benefit of being able to compare either of their growth charts from birth to see if this is out of the norm for them and signals a problem. You can also just get that off timing right before or right after a growth spurt that really messes it all up. We can't continue to complain that kids are becoming more and more obese and then getting all riled up when someone tries to institute an early intervention program.
  • Coming4U
    Coming4U Posts: 93 Member
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    Hiya.

    The NHS have a BMI tracker app for the iPhone which is very useful for adults and children as it takes height and weight into account, as well as distinguishing between the calculations used for adults and children. For children the calculation is a comparison to their peers, so out of 100 children who are 3ft 3ins, where your granddaughter's weight would fall. At 44lbs she's in the 99th centile, which is why they say obese - anything over the 90th centile is considered so. If she were 4lbs lighter she'd be in the 89th centile and classed as a healthy weight. So it's not a lot that they think she's over.

    Personally as a mum of 4 I know that mine tend to gain weight then grow and it stretches out, then they gain then they grow ... so I'd be inclined to say it's nothing to worry about right now. She looks healthy and if she's active then there's probably nothing to worry about. If I were her mum I'd tell them to forget the home visit as there's nothing to discuss. If you check her again in 6 months without changing her diet I'd bet she'd be under the 90th centile and classed as healthy just because she's growing.

    Hope it helps,

    Sarah


    Why should a little child be worrying about 4 pounds. Those charts are way off base anyway. Let a child be a child. Stay active and moving and as long as they are healthy then dont drop self image crap on them also. That will come in time all on its on. Why should we set them up to focus on this.
  • Coming4U
    Coming4U Posts: 93 Member
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    They probably just went by the typical "growth charts" for weight only for her age and didn't cross reference it against her height. School needs to stay out of it. (What are they doing weighing and measuring the children in school anyway??) You and your doctor know what's best.

    You do know that not all kids are regularly taken to a pediatrician or any doctors, right? While this child looks fine, many don't. If my son were screened at school, they would send home a note that he is severely underweight as he has been in the 25 percentile or lower in weight - since he was born and seeing as he is 95 percentile for height, well, you see the difference. The school wouldn't have the benefit of being able to compare either of their growth charts from birth to see if this is out of the norm for them and signals a problem. You can also just get that off timing right before or right after a growth spurt that really messes it all up. We can't continue to complain that kids are becoming more and more obese and then getting all riled up when someone tries to institute an early intervention program.

    It is not the program...it is the fact that the child is clearly not overwieght
  • Toya2xcel
    Toya2xcel Posts: 107 Member
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    omg she is just ADORABLE! :-)
  • stines72
    stines72 Posts: 853 Member
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    omg she is so adorable!
  • heatherloveslifting
    heatherloveslifting Posts: 1,428 Member
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    at 3 foot 3, she's tall...my daughter is tall for her age too...

    so what did they do? plunk her on a scale and say *kitten*, she's 44 pounds that's obese...and not even take her height into account?

    that's what it sounds like to me.

    my daughter is 5'3 in a classroom full of kids that are a head shorter than her at LEAST....

    if they put her on a scale she would be obese too...

    jus sayin.

    I think they didn't take her height into account. If height and weight correlate it's fine. She certainly doesn't look fat or even chubby to be honest.

    My 3 year old son is taller than that though and around 35lbs. I'll probably get told he's too skinny when he's at school!

    Yeah, my son is 5 - over 45 inches and 36 lbs with clothes. A lot of people feel the need to comment on his skinniness.
  • KeriA
    KeriA Posts: 3,270 Member
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    Your granddaughter is not obese. I understand how this feels. My daughter always looked chunky in clothes but had nothing extra on her. She had her father's large shoulders and his cute cheeks. No hallow cheeks on my daughter. She played soccer, softball and danced. Your granddaughter shouldn't be put on any restrictive diet. She needs good nutrition while she is growing. Good nutritious food yes and of course junk food isn't good but I see no reason why they have any right to intervene under the circumstances. Having a BMI in the upper range of normal is not only not obese but not overweight. There are very prejudiced people out there.Look at the models on the NY runway. It is worse now than when I was younger. I thought they looked anorexic and sick. I was wondering what the fashion trends were since my son is getting married and I have to find a dress. I was shocked. Many of my daughters friends were so skinny she looked overweight besides them. One of them was hospitalized in high school. She never ate anything. I was afraid to have her spend the night with us. If they are determining whether a child is obese with those who are underweight then surely their reasoning is going to be out of wack. Thank goodness you have such a cute, healthy, and happy-looking granddaughter. We are not all meant to be the same. They really don't know what they are doing. They do not know how to use those charts. So sorry.

    Oh and I totally agree about how kids grow. My son who is probably underweight now would do that exact same thing. He would chunk up every so often and I always knew he was going to be spurting up in the next week or so. Soon he would be taller and skinnier.

    I never had junk in my house. No chips, no soda, no candy and just ice cream once in awhile. I didn't bake alot of cookies, cakes or pies except at holidays and didn't go overboard. My kids would never finish their halloween candy either. They were given vegetables, fruit, mostly complex carbohydrates, dairy, protein, good fats like avocados, or nuts and a well balanced diet. I was always a normal to slim kid myself. It is only after years of being overworked, having little time to take care of myself after pregnancies that affected my metabolism that I slowly over time gained too much weight. I hope this all gets resolved in a way that is best for you granddaughter.
  • iampanda
    iampanda Posts: 176 Member
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    Absolutely ridiculous. A) Children are supposed to have some chubbiness to them. B) She is not even close to obese. She weighs slightly more than my 5-year-old, but my daughter also comes from a family of small, short, slender women. People rarely take into account how the child is built. To say she is obese is absolutely preposterous! She looks healthy to me!
  • MorganLeighRN
    MorganLeighRN Posts: 411 Member
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    First of all, she is adorable!!!! Secondly, check with her doctor. Don't listen to the school, they rarely know what they are talking about (The "nurse" at my son's school tried to send him home last year because he had a "fever" of 99.1-that's not a fever). Just make sure she is eating healthy and running around outside, that's all kids really need anyways.
  • DavidC1857
    DavidC1857 Posts: 149 Member
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    The basic problem here is that a great many people have lost the ability to actually think for themselves. And, schools are monitoring things like this because a great many parents are not. If it were me, I'd send a letter back to the school telling them to mind their own business. I might also make a personal visit to the person who sent the letter, the Superintendent of the district and possibly the School Board to tell them the same thing.

    Because a great many parents have abdicated the raising of their children to the schools, we get this. A teacher, probably a health teacher, or the school nurse takes each kids weight and height and plugs it into the computer and it spits out "obese", based on a table created by some government drone who is looking at averages of millions of kids. Same said person enters it into the child's record and sends off a letter to the parents, if the computer doesn't do it for them. This person probably couldn't think for themselves if they were allowed to, so it never occurs to them to actually LOOK at the child and see that she appears healthy and active and is not even overweight, much less obese.

    Be very aware. As this sort of thing becomes more commonplace, and as we give more and more control of our children to the schools/government, the next letter that goes out will be to child protective services, or some such agency, and the home visit, the prescribed diet, etc will not be a suggestion.

    Parents need to actually start getting involved in the lives of their kids.

    Edited to add: Your granddaughter is indeed adorable. But mine is cuter, of course. And, sue the school? Are you serious? That's just what we need, another stupid lawsuit.
  • samanthawarren
    samanthawarren Posts: 120
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    The CDC BMI calculator that the school uses would classify her as Obese. This is really frustrating since obviously she is not "obese". I have the same problem with my daughter. She is tall and solid. She is also thin. She has to where size 10 pants at 7 1/2 because of her height, even though her waist is only a 7/8. People always comment on how thin she is, yet when we go to the doctor she is called "obese".

    I ignore them.

    I was also a person who for my size weighted more than my friends, even when we wore the same size. I think she probably just has a genetically solid frame, that most kids don't have.
  • HannahsBestLife
    HannahsBestLife Posts: 209 Member
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    OMG!! she's completely fine,

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