Bmi and children

[the why bird]

The problem with BMI is that it was designed to give an idea of weight issues in the population as a whole.

If we measure all the five year olds every year, and we notice that suddenly there are a lot more kids with relatively high weights (or a lot more low weight children) then there might be something going on that needs looking at. You can see how it would be helpful.

There will always be some kids who are stocky but healthy, or weigh a lot even though they are slim because they are muscular, but once it's averaged out with thousands of other kids, some of whom are low weight, it gives a good general picture of national obesity levels. It's just that it doesn't work that well applied to an individual person.

On one hand, I'm glad that there's some sort of check because as a parent, I want to know if I'm missing a potential problem because I see my child every day and I am used to the way they look. On the other hand, it's clear that just working out BMI and using a tick-box approach to designating some kids as obese is ineffective and probably causes unnecessary worry.

 

[oox_tasha_xoo]

I literally weighed and measured my daughter yesterday and entered it on the nhs website... What a load of ball! My daughter is perfectly healthy she's just petite. Bmi calculators are so shocking!

 

[Missnurse]

Oh my god don't get me started on this!! Just had the letter from the school nurse saying DD is over weight according to bmi! She's like a bean pole! And the healthy eating woman will be in touch! How rude I make a lot of home made meals, she does get treats but not too much and she always goes to school with fruit in her snack, veg at lunch time and veg and fruit at tea time!

 

[the why bird]

tasha got me curious about the NHS website. I ran my 2 year old through and apparently she's obese, 98% of children her age/height weigh less.

And yet... she's barely above the 50th percentile for weight, about the same for height, wears size 12-18 month clothes and I can see her ribs. So either my 2 year old has bones made of lead or there's something screwy about these measurements.

 

[Missy86]

I can see Rhys 's ribs too

 

[aimee-lou]

Just put earl through the nos calculator thing and his said he's on the 75th which is about what i expected but to look at him he's scrawny and tall for his age too. Strange calculations going on somewhere. Completely expecting letters next year so i'll definitely be opting out.