Kids do not grow at one steady rate. It is completely normal for kids to gain weight first and then shoot up. The body prepares for a growth spurt by increasing apetite. If you catch a kid right before a growth spurt, they're going to be a little chubbier than they normally are. It's temporary.

How about, instead of focusing on BMI in children, we take crap lunch out of schools, and put gym and real recess (running around on big climby things) back in.

This whole "war on fat" is having some dumb unintended consequences and kids are one of them. Anorexia is up in teenagers quite a bit for the first time in a long time. Doesn't get much play in the media because "thin is good". That's the problem: Kids hear all this shiat about fat being really, really bad for you, thin being the thing. They punch their weight in to the stupidly low range BMI calculator and it has them at the high end of normal so they think "Oh shiat I have to get skinner!" This of course combined with the normal body-image issues kids have.

We have got to stop this madness. Is obesity a problem? You bet. However it is not NEAR the problem that being underweight is. We also have to stop with this "one size fits all" number that is the BS called BMI. Particularly since they keep working to push it down. Now they want to redifine so the high end of normal is called "near overweight".

There needs to be some farking sense in all this. Encouraging people to manage their weight is good. Worshiping the alter of bean-pole thin is very bad.

I'm betting they meant between the 91st and 97th percentile. I dunno.

bobbette: From what I know gastric bypass it isn't what you'd consider safe. It's abdominal surgery on a patient that probably already has multiple health conditions that complicate surgery. Much easier to stop eating so much.

I agree about the surgery, but "stop eating so much" isn't particularly helpful. In my (no-medical-qualifications) opinion it's more important to be very selective about the types of food you eat:

- No alcohol (sorry, but there's a reason they call it a beer gut)
- Low carbohydrates (whose only purpose is to supply energy, i.e. calories)
- Low fat (duh, you're trying to lose it so don't eat a lot more of it)
- Adequate protein (too little = body breaks down its own tissues. Too much = just extra calories)
- Lots of "filler" vegetables like broccoli, lettuce, celery, cucumber, ... NOT rice, potatoes or anything starchy
- Lots of water
- Vitamin/mineral supplements as needed, to make up for what you'd normally get from food

The key to getting out of land-whale territory is to find a diet that forces your body to burn stored fat to support its basal metabolic rate. Even if your only exercise is hauling your own tub of guts back and forth between the bed, fridge, and toilet you can still lose weight rapidly with the right diet. Of course you do need some willpower to stick to it, but less than you might think (at least after your body has had a few days to adjust to the changes).

Weigh yourself every morning after going to the bathroom, before eating or drinking anything. Chart the results; there will still be some daily fluctuations up and down, but if you're doing it right you'll be able to see a clear downward trend within a week. The positive reinforcement of actually seeing progress will help you stick to the diet. Also read up on some of the metabolic processes associated with this sort of diet; keywords "ketogenesis" and "gluconeogenesis" are a good start.

Add exercise gradually, only as much as you can tolerate doing on a regular basis. If you don't like to play any sports then do something easy like walking for half an hour while listening to a podcast or audio book. While you're still "obese" (morbidly or otherwise) the focus should on be dropping the weight; once you're merely "overweight" you can start to worry about getting into better overall shape.

Again, the above is not medical advice. Talk to a real doctor, but don't go for something as drastic as gastric bypass surgery until you've at least tried a low-carb diet for a month.

GungFu: [i.dailymail.co.uk image 634x820]

what a fat bastard. I hate obese people.

/why's mummy taking a poo?

Mum is clearly overweight, but the kid looks fine to me. In fact, he's no heavier than our 4.5 year old. Of course, our kid's also in the 95th percentile for height.

Sqrxz: Not that this is really related, but I found out today that my very overweight doctor died this week, a few days after undergoing gastric bypass surgery.
So sad and tragic to see people caught in the weight loss cycle and being desperate to the point of surgery.

And here I was thinking that gastric bypass was relatively safe. Maybe it is and her result was a rare case.

Bummer. :(

Sorry about your doc. From what I know gastric bypass it isn't what you'd consider safe. It's abdominal surgery on a patient that probably already has multiple health conditions that complicate surgery. Much easier to stop eating so much. Much, much easier to stop eating so much before you reach severe obesity land.

He is totally fat! That's how he should look like:

anyone who thinks the BMI chart/calculation is still relevant and accurate is stupid. like porn, we know obesity when we see it.