Weight Fascists Upset 5 Year Old
School bullies are usually found in the playground. Now it seems that it is not just kids pulling faces at other kids. Some grown ups are at it too.
Stories of children’s lunchboxes being opened and their contents removed by monitors are already abound in most areas of the UK.
But has Nanny now gone too far by telling one small girl she is ‘overweight’ when she patently is not? A Local Health Authority has branded a 5 year old ‘fat’ and ‘at risk of cancer’ in an astonishing attack on common sense and common decency.
The Bournemouth and Poole Primary Care Trust wrote to the mother, Mrs. Susan Davies, 38, who found the letter ‘insulting’. The Health Officials remain unrepentant, refusing to answer specifics, instead offering this from a nameless source:
‘It is right that parents are aware of the consequences for their children – and good health is key to a great start in life.’
Full Report HERE
Should 5 year olds be routinely weighed?
An interesting article from Paula Roberts of the Bournemouth Echo
By Paula Roberts
THIS is the question being asked by parents across Bournemouth and Poole following concerns that fit and healthy youngsters are being branded “fat” by health officials.
The ethics behind the National Child Measurement Programme has been raised following our story about five-year-old Lucy Davies who was branded “overweight” after being ranked just one per cent outside the healthy category. Her mother Susan, from Poole, said Lucy should be having fun rather than “worrying about her weight”.
Yesterday, the Echo was contacted by many other concerned parents who say weighing four and five-year-olds is unnecessary.
But health chiefs at Bournemouth and Poole PCT say overweight children can face many problems in later life and the problem needs to be tackled “head-on”.
Five-year-old Max Riley swims every week, can run for miles and like many boys his age never sits still.
But his mother Jak was outraged after receiving a letter from health officials to say her son weighed 4st 2lb and his body mass index put him in the 100th percentile and “very overweight”. Jak says the figure is completely wrong and her son, a pupil at St Luke’s School in Winton, only weighs 3st and at 3ft 7in therefore falls in the healthy weight category.
She said: “I was fuming. I know my son is slim and there is no way he is off the scale.
“But because of their mistake he has been labelled clinically obese. I am upset because I know I am right and I am upset that children are being labelled as fat at five years old when there is enough pressure.”
Vicki Bahadori said she was left upset after being told her daughter Lillie, four, falls into the “overweight” category by 2lb.
“I don’t think my daughter is overweight, she is perfectly in proportion.
“I have been made to feel like I am a bad mother.”