Kids weight article – need help with research

hi there ds is 9 and weighs 45 kg , he has been under the care of a paediatrician and a dietician for the last 6 months and is doing really well , at his age they are continually growing and he is in the top 80% for his height and in the top 75% gor his weight , he is very active , he hasnt gained any weight in the last 6 months and has grown 4cm , docs are happy with his progress so far

when dd was born she was always in the low percentiles for her weight and the phn had me driven mental , she is /was just a dainty little girl , i hate those bloody graphs

i was bullied all my life with weight issues i tryed to hang myself once but the rope wounldnt hold. and when i was having my first child a very special time the head doc in the bloody rounda said i could feel around the fat i see if your baby healthy i left crying i was 20 at the time . in 2004 i went for a life changing op . i got my stomack stapled and lost 10 stone and got down to a size ten. i wasnt happy i looked gray and sick .

dont get me wrong i was much healthyer and clothes were nicer . my son is ten hes 5 foot 2 and is carrying a little weight but the little fecker keeps grown up so no i wont worry him . we walk a little and enjoy the wii fit . he was a premature baby as was daneil who now needs 2 year old clothes from the height of him . im sure parents who have under weight kids feel similar in many ways. lifes to short to stress the kids out too.

i will not let my kids be treated or called lazy at all . and jack loves the fact im smaller mainly because he can hug me or just that im more active.

This is a bit off topic, Sabbi, but…

The issue of kids & weight is one that I’m very interested in. I’m the co-ordinator of SPHE in my secondary school & trying to organise healthy food & exercise opportunities for boys who aren’t the ones to make the soccer / Gaelic teams is a bit of an uphill struggle.

Some kids are alarmingly overweight, but it is a small minority, thank God.

I wonder how useful & how accurate some of these weight graphs are. Are we trying to fit everyone into a ‘category’?

I’m the eldest of 6, Sabbi, we all ate typical country fare growing up & had meals together. Mince & gravy & spuds, cornflakes, toast, (grilled) sausages & beans …. no deep fried anything. The odd bit of junk, but no fizzy drinks etc etc. You should see family photos – I’ll try & find one or two for the Dundalk meet.

Typically brothers 1 & 4 and my sister look average.
Myself & brother no. 3 look like we haven’t had a decent meal in months.
Brother no. 2 looks like he eats full bullocks for every meal.

And it is still the same. He’s a guard & has the build you’d expect of an old-fashioned guard (before they started taking in midgets!). He eats way more healthily than I do, does the odd mini-marathon, regular runs, but is constantly having to watch his weight. He is a weight watchers expert, but seems to be naturally about one to two stone over his recommended weight. At a main meal, I’d eat more than him hands down.

Brother 3 looks a bit chunkier than a spaghetti man.

And after three babies in four years in my late thirties, I’ll bet you money that I’ll probably be a size 8 / 10 within six months of baby’s birth. And I don’t diet & am practically allergic to formalised exercise.

Some of it is, no doubt, learned behaviour.

My mum struggled, & still struggles, with her weight, & I’ve seen how hard it is for her to lose weight, so maybe I’m a little paranoid about ending up in the same situation. My Dad has a sweet tooth. But we all grew up in the same environment, so….???

Out of curiosity, I just weighed & measured the heights of my two lads, both of whom to me look perfectly normal & typical of the other boys in their creche. The results surprized me, to be honest, although I’m not stressing about it.

DS1 is just gone 4 & 18.3kg (2 stone 12) & about 104 cm. According to the wee HSE book, he is in the 75th-91st percentile in weight, but only the 50th-75th percentile in height. Technically overweight….

DS2 is 2 & 3 months is 13.7kg (2 stone 1) & about 88 cm. He is in the 50th-75th percentile for weight, but only the 25th-50th percentile for height. Again technically overweight…

But with my hand on my heart, looking at them running around the living room in the nip, I can’t see it…. They just look healthy to me. Am I in denial??

I know of a child who is seriously overweight and it would impact on her emotionally as well as her physical health. But any time she has been brought to see a GP about other issues, infection etc. the GP has never once mentioned she is overweight???????? or offered to support or help her parents, even asked how they feel or if they feel there is an issue. She is a young child wearing adult clothes as no children clothes fit her….its heartbreaking to see a child like this. I know people say its up to the parents, but if the parents really don’t want to see issues with their children they don’t. And the child has no real power to change anything as they only eat what they are given. 🙁

That true they will only eat what they are given and the trend of the diet in the house is set by the Adults as they are the ones buying the food….

But as i said before how in my house 6 of us fed the same and we all looked so different, no junk food at all, cabbage, veg, spuds, etc… no deep fat fryers or the likes, yet one child very over weight. He went horse riding everyday, had an off road motor bike from the age of 4, my dad was a dog breeder so we would have to walk the dogs twice a day…. only 2 tv channels and no computers so always on the go, yet over weight, Why????

I would say the overweight child has a different metabolic disposition than the rest of you lucky lot 😀 . More of a protein heavy/lower carb version.

It’s a difficult topic.

There are certainly children who need to lose weight.
But how do you do this without impacting on their self-esteem?
Whose fault is it?
Is it always someone’s fault?
Who decides what is overweight?
Is it weight / BMI or fitness or nutrition that is the most important thing?
Are we at fault as parents & just making excuses?
Are we trying to categorise kids too early?
Do we not intervene early enough?

I don’t know about the rest of ye, but I find these fat-kids-boot-camp type of programmes really disturbing & exploitative & would hate to think that my child was heading in that direction….