DD (5yo) is in the 97th percentile for BMI...doc says she's in the obese category - Page 5

[wishin'&hopin']

Hey, OP, can I come live at your house?  The food sounds awesome and you guys clearly have fun!  

[serenbat]

Given what you had previously written and - 

A few people have asked about us, as a family. DH and I are both very average. I'm 5'5'' and weight about 150. DH is 6'1'' and weighs about 185. Our oldest DD is 7yo and she is tall and skinny. She has a totally different body type than DD though...long legs and built like a stick. It's actually how I looked as a child, until I hit about 25yo. We have no history of thyroid issues, diabetes, metabolic disorders, etc.

 

and assuming she was the ped for your other child, I think the dr just may be  seeing a jump and wants an understanding as to why

and if you have not mentioned I certainly would - 

She is always hungry 

if you have trusted her in the past and sounds like you have liked her, I'm sure she will have no problem addressing your concerns and erring on the side of caution may be how she is as a dr

best of luck!

[Youngfrankenstein]

FWIW, my kids always get like vacuum cleaners in the weeks before a growth spurt.  They are always very hungry for a few weeks then it goes back to normal.

[LynnS6]

Quote:

Originally Posted by mamatoablessing 

The more I'm reading on this thread, the more I think she's getting ready for a growth spurt. She is always hungry and hasn't grown much height-wise in the last 6 months or so. Not sure what I'm going to do about the blood tests. I'd like to speak with her ped again first and then maybe wait 6-8 weeks and see if the growth spurt does materialize.
I appreciate the help here...I knew it would help put things in perspective for me.

I think following up with the ped is a great idea. I would measure her height today, and then check it in 2-3 months. If she hasn't grown, then maybe a blood draw would be a good idea. But if it's really been a year since the ped has seen her (my kids get weighed when they go in when they're sick so they know how much medicine to prescribe if it's needed. Some years they see the doctor 2-3 times, once we went 2 years!) I wouldn't rush into bloodwork without waiting for a growth spurt for a bit, and I'd tell that to the doctor.

Quote:

Originally Posted by jenrose 

My younger daughter won't grow at all if she doesn't have a little fat pad on her, it's a metabolic thing, I think, part of her chromosome disorder. Also, both kids have long torsos, and thus tend to run heavier for their height than kids with long legs.

Wow, thanks for posting that my dd has an incredibly long torso (as does dh and ds). She always outgrows shirts long before pants. Right now she's a size 7/8 in pants and the size 8 shirts are starting to get too small for her. The fact that she's in a heavier percentile for her height now makes more sense. (OK, and it worries me a bit about ds -- he probably IS underweight a bit with his short legs and long torso.)

Originally Posted by Linda on the move 
Every single girl growing up in American right now, regardless of her body build, will get messages over and over and over again that she is fat and that her body is wrong. Her mom and her doctor should be the voices of sanity.

Yep, our 7 year old dd announced just the other day that she thought she should lose some weight. Dh and I had a serious chat with her about the fact that she is NOT fat, that it is unhealthy for children to lose weight, and that the best thing to do was to eat healthy foods and be more active. Secretly, however, my heart broke. Somewhere, she's heard that her little peasant German farmer body is 'fat'. We don't talk about dieting. When I'm doing weight watchers (which I've fallen back on), I talk about eating more healthily so I feel better. I do not talk about losing weight.
 

[Storm Bride]

Originally Posted by LynnS6 

Yep, our 7 year old dd announced just the other day that she thought she should lose some weight. Dh and I had a serious chat with her about the fact that she is NOT fat, that it is unhealthy for children to lose weight, and that the best thing to do was to eat healthy foods and be more active. Secretly, however, my heart broke. Somewhere, she's heard that her little peasant German farmer body is 'fat'. We don't talk about dieting. When I'm doing weight watchers (which I've fallen back on), I talk about eating more healthily so I feel better. I do not talk about losing weight. 

DD1 announced the same to me several months ago, just before ballet class. DD1 is very slim, with a small tummy. I mentioned it to another mom at ballet (her child and dd1 have become fast friends - her dd is about 9 months older than mine, and is somewhat taller and very slim, even more than dd1...I'm tempted to call her skinny, but that sounds as though I'm being insulting, somehow). The other mom told me that her dd had said the same thing just a few weeks before my dd. These are two very active, healthy little girls, full of energy (the other girls dances at home, just for fun, for at least two hours a day, as well as other activities - dd1 regularly dances, rides her bike, walks, and is currently taking a circus class), with great skin tone, mental clarity, etc. They're both slim (even after her last growth spurt, dd1 can still wear a lot of size 5-6 shirts and dresses, at 8 - they're just way too short). They both eat mostly healthy diets (I'm not where I feel I should be, but we eat a lot of veggies, a fair bit of fruit, especially berries at this time of year!, and not a lot of junk). Yet, both of them think they're fat. It breaks my heart. :(

[journeymom]

OP, those foods sound delicious and healthy.  And your 5 y.o. went on a three-mile scooter ride?  That's awesome, and is probably more physical activity than a lot of kids get. 
 

Originally Posted by Linda on the move 

Every single girl growing up in American right now, regardless of her body build, will get messages over and over and over again that she is fat and that her body is wrong. Her mom and her doctor should be the voices of sanity.

Amen to that.
 

[karne]

Originally Posted by Linda on the move 

Every single girl growing up in American right now, regardless of her body build, will get messages over and over and over again that she is fat and that her body is wrong. Her mom and her doctor should be the voices of sanity.

Absolutely.  I hear from my middle school aged dd about a few girls she knows who don't eat at snack time because they want to be skinny.  My dd wants to bring them in some apples to eat.  

[jenrose]

With that amazing diet and activity level, and the fact that she's strong, active and looks incredibly healthy (that kid GLOWS...) Seriously, I can't imagine why anyone is fretting you. This IS a wait-and-see thing, but even so, it just looks like her healthy, growing build.

If her thyroid was off, she wouldn't be biking that way, or eating that way, or looking that way. Trust me on this one, I know how low thyroid feels, and that level of activity wouldn't be happening, not and still have a happy child with all her hair.

[seafox]

Originally Posted by Storm Bride 

IMO, a concerned ped would want to see the child again in a few months, and see if a growth spurt or something had brought her back in line with her former growth curve. A paranoid ped would be talking about blood tests. In the absence of any other sign of problems (eg. low energy, low muscle tone, inability to exercise at a normal level for her age, etc.), jumping to blood tests is premature. The last thing a five year old girl needs, especially in this culture, with its wigged out ideas about body shapes, is to get the idea that having a bit of a tummyand being bigger than average automatically means there's a medical problem.

I'd maybe give the ped one more chance, but I agree with this, from my own (biased) experience. I am 'heavy' also, although I am an athlete (I bike, run, play ultimate frisbee, and ice hockey) I look FINE, and as one other poster not so eloquently put it 'I'm not fat, but not lean either' - the thing is, I am even kind of lean, I am just very muscular so I look 'thick' - if lean means lower fat, than I am lean, I am just built very strongly.

for YEARS no one ever told me anything about what I weighed. Then BMI came out, and I started being told I was heavy. Confusing, given that I was so active? I really didn't get it. In college I think is when this started. And, eventually, I did struggle with an eating disorder. Not just because of docs telling me I was overweight, but that certainly didn't help. At the peak of my disorder, so the *lowest* weight I got to, where one could see all the striations of my muscles and my veins stuck out, I was STILL over what most consider normal. I was 140 or so, at 5'6. I was 10% body fat at that weight. I lost my period. Finally I ended up in the ER with intestinal issues as a result, which is what finally got me recovering. It wasn't until a doctor THERE told me 'you are very thin' - I even argued with her, I said 'I'm 140lbs! I'm not thin!' she replied 'I don't care what you weigh, I know from the cat scan, you don't have enough fat on your internal organs. You are very thin' That was only when I finally believed that I'd never be a 'normal' weight.

My 'normal' weight is 165.

your daughter looks absolutely fine. I wouldn't even qualify it at all as being not this or that. She looks normal, and strong. I'd definitely just see if she jumps up in height. My ped has said that when our child (he's too young for BMI, but then track percentiles) jumps around in percentile its because of being post or pre growth spurt.

and I recently had a daughter, and (I know partly because of my experience) I'd have probably freaked out a bit at the ped for not *looking* at her and at least pointing out 'despite X, she LOOKS fine' - use your eyes!!

[A&A]

She has a slight belly, but so did my dd until she put it completely into her height.  As long as she is eating well and exercising (and getting enough sleep), I wouldn't worry about it. 

[rightkindofme]

Originally Posted by Storm Bride 

No - the point is that it doesn't matter what you say to your kid, because that's what's happening. The doctor says her dd is too fat, and she needs to determine if there's a medical reason. There is no way to honestly answer a child's questions about why they're getting blood work that isn't going to come down to "you're so fat that the doctor thinks you're sick" whether you ever actually use those words or not.

Personally, I see the odds of this whole thing triggering issues in the OP's dd as a lot higher than the odds that there's actually a problem. The OP has to make her own decision, obviously. I wouldn't get the blood work or see the nutritionist...and I probably wouldn't go back until the next well child visit (if I did them) unless I noticed her weight going up).

I'm not going to read past here because I have to leave the computer.

I would run the tests.  It's not about "you are too fat" for me it is about "hunh, this is outside your normal growth curve, more data might be helpful".  And my three year old can handle a blood draw.  Does she cry for a couple of seconds?  Yes.  But when it's done we hug and she says that it sucks and we go cuddle on the couch for a while.  It's not a big drama.  More data is always better than less data for me.  

I'm not interested in "controlling" my childrens weight.  My older daughter has been everywhere from 97% to 24%.  It really depends on where you catch her in the growth spurt cycle.  For her, I wouldn't run tests because she has bounced up and down every time we have been in to the doctors office all her life from the bottom of the chart to the top of the chart and I can promise you I don't alternate starving her with feeding her like a goose meant for paté.  

If my younger daughter, who has sat between 51% and 56% so far suddenly dramatically changed percentages I'd be very open to tests.  Not because I care if she's fat.  If anything I think she is on the skinny looking side because I got used to having the Michelin baby and I loved it.  I like data.  Data is awesome.

Medical stuff doesn't have to be scary.  I know that is a hard area for some people.  I understand that.  I have had a lot of medical/dental fears/phobia issues.  I have to get over them in order to model for my kids how to receive adequate care.  My three year old tends to be more calm than I feel.  It is very hard.  But I do it.

[sparklefairy]

A jump in weight/height ratio (which is kind of what bmi is) often happens with kids before a rapid increase in height. First they gain weight, then they grow taller. I have watched my kids do this for their whole lives.

I would just keep feeding her good foods, though I would watch carbolicious snacky stuff that is grain based (like goldfish, that kind of stuff), even if it is organic. But I would say that about everyone in general.

She looks so beautiful and happy -- I'm glad you shared her with us :-)

[Storm Bride]

Originally Posted by rightkindofme 

I'm not going to read past here because I have to leave the computer.

I would run the tests.  It's not about "you are too fat" for me it is about "hunh, this is outside your normal growth curve, more data might be helpful".  And my three year old can handle a blood draw.  Does she cry for a couple of seconds?  Yes.  But when it's done we hug and she says that it sucks and we go cuddle on the couch for a while.  It's not a big drama.  More data is always better than less data for me.  

I'm not interested in "controlling" my childrens weight.  My older daughter has been everywhere from 97% to 24%.  It really depends on where you catch her in the growth spurt cycle.  For her, I wouldn't run tests because she has bounced up and down every time we have been in to the doctors office all her life from the bottom of the chart to the top of the chart and I can promise you I don't alternate starving her with feeding her like a goose meant for paté.  

If my younger daughter, who has sat between 51% and 56% so far suddenly dramatically changed percentages I'd be very open to tests.  Not because I care if she's fat.  If anything I think she is on the skinny looking side because I got used to having the Michelin baby and I loved it.  I like data.  Data is awesome.

Medical stuff doesn't have to be scary.  I know that is a hard area for some people.  I understand that.  I have had a lot of medical/dental fears/phobia issues.  I have to get over them in order to model for my kids how to receive adequate care.  My three year old tends to be more calm than I feel.  It is very hard.  But I do it.

My issue is that I don't see this BMI as "data" in any real sense. A BMI (fairly useless, imo, anyway) being taken at long intervals (I'm assuming these are annual checkups) on a growing child is completely useless. If the BMI were still in the 97% percentile (assuming it even was, which it doesn't seem to have been) in a few months, then I could see your point. But, this number isn't data, in any meaningful sense. I'd actually be willing to put down money to say that, if we checked BMI on growing children every couple of weeks, we'd see large fluctuations over time in a huge number of those kids. I've met a handful of children in my life who seem to grow fairly evenly, but the vast majority of them do the "get thicker, sprout up, get thicker, sprout up, get thicker, sprout up" cycle over and over again....and those cycles don't always come at nice, even intervals.

re: medical stuff being scary. I have medical fears, yes. I'm not going to model how to receive adquate care for my kids, in the sense you mean. I overcame those fears several times in my life, and every one of them has ended really, really badly for me. IMO, teaching my children to totally trust doctors would be insanely irresponsbible. I'll teach them that doctors are a tool and resource, to use if and when they choose to do so. I'll be calling my GP tomorrow, to get a referral to a dermatologist for dd1, because I'm not comfortable with the recommendation he already gave me for dealing with the issue at hand (dd1 has a wart growing straight down from the top of one of her nostrils, and the location makes treating it unusually complicated).

However, my concerns here aren't really about whether medical issues are scary. (Personally, I'm not bothered by needles, except for spinal anesthesia - getting a needle in my spine wigs me out, as does the anesthesia itself - and never have been, as far as I can recall...vaccines, blood tests, blood donation, IVs...they don't bother me. DS1 has always coped with them okay. DD1 gets kind of hysterical at the thought, which is in keeping with her personality. DS2 is in line for blood work right now, and he's not thrilled about it, but will probably bounce back pretty quickly afterwards.) It's about treating a child's weight and growth as a medical issue, on such a flimsy basis. There are more than enough messed up, unhealthy ideas about weight and physiques, especially for girls, in this culture, without pushing the freaking "OMG - you're obese - something's wrong with you", button over a child having a bit of a tummy. I've seen too many girls who weren't fat become convinced that they were, because they didn't have a naturally small build (large frames, unusually bulky musculature, etc.).

[babygirlie]

I thought bmi was completely defunct as being a gimic and inadaquate way of telling jack. The only way you can tell bmi is from a special full body contraption such as water or a body containment unit.. weight ratio doesn't measure bmi at all.

The daughter looks fit and beautiful. This pediatrician is a hater or being paid by the nutritionist to get referals. he's out of his mind.

[Subhuti]

Honestly, with the beautiful pictures you posted, the menus she eats, all her exercise ... that child looks super freakin' healthy!  Way to go!  

I would probably check in at your next doctor's visit and ask for a fuller explanation from the doctor.  I wouldn't do the testing because there are no signs of distress.  Your daughter's weight clearly fits her body.  There are no signs of fatigue or illness.  It goes beyond will she be traumatized by the blood draw for me.  How about just a waste of time, insurance money and overuse of medical resources ... in the face of zero sign of illness.

My five year old is a little more slender than yours overall, forget the numbers ... but she has the same tummy.  Love it.  

My seven year old has always been very thin, even as a baby.  Her percentages were off the bell curve at one point.  But she was healthy and eating.  The only corrective offered by the ped (now former ped) was to give her formula.  He** yah.

I know how upsetting it can be for a doctor to suddenly flag a child for something so fundamental as their weight -- in my case, some small part of me had a new fear that my child was somehow underweight and would starve.  I have let that go.  I hope you don't get set with the same fear -- that your beautiful child is somehow overweight.

Absent very obvious problem, for myself, I oppose dieting.  I eat when hungry and eat in the middle of the spectrum in terms of healthy.  Where I will put effort and discipline is exercise.  

I guess, short of true, obvious obesity, I can't imagine, therefore, ever restricting my kids' food.  I do restrict junk food and balance carbs with protein.  But ... healthy stuff ... only their bodies know how much to eat.  

[Imakcerka]

BMI should be thrown out. The only people with a perfect BMI are either genetically blessed or scrawny and lazy... sorry to those offended. After years of being a trainer... I shake my head at those who are consumed with a BMI just as much as those who are concerned with the numbers on the scale. She is little and not fat at all. Kids eat quite a bit before a growth spurt, they put on a little weight then they sprout up. As you'll notice it's beneficial. Think about those who were skinny their whole lives with loads of stretch marks. Their bodies didn't add on the pounds before they grew... they just grew. It's normal it's natural.

[tincia]

She is a pretty tall girl so i think that accounts for a lot of it, as well, like u said, muscle weighs more than fat. That said, in total honesty, she does look to have a bit of a belly, but again, that is just the body type of some ppl.
I do know that my daughter is not a super thin body type (has a booty and beginning of hips lol) also is athletic and has a little six pack, but is 71 lbs and 55 inches. I have no idea what her BMI is or her percentile nor do i feel the need to find out. I have no doubts that she is healthy..eats lots of veggies and fruit, is very athletic and has good cardio endurance..thats enough for me! So i would say keep an eye on all of those factors, but otherwise take it as a grain of salt and trust your mommy instincts.
As for the tests, i would probably go along with anything minimally invasive to err on the side of caution

[Alphaghetti]

My seven year old son is 48 inches tall and 58.5 lbs - nearly the same as your daughter. He is lean and fit. I can see his ribs, and he has ABS! hehe.  I think your daughter looks perfectly healthy. I do not see an overweight child in the pics, let alone an obese one!

[cameragirl]

For what it is worth, my BMI always said I was overweight, even when I'd play sports at least two hours a day. That was on top of P.E. at school. When they used calipers, my estimated body fat was well-within a healthy range. I am definitely overweight now, but I still disregard BMI. I have a condition that causes muscle rigidity and spasms, and I still have a decent amount of muscle weight under the chubs.