Tangential, but since becoming a mother I have experienced so much whiplash around weight. You'll have newly post-partum women lamenting they haven't lost their "baby weight" yet while also agonizing over their baby's every ounce gained, worried that they aren't gaining weight quickly enough. I've seen mothers with low-weight infants post online about being jealous when seeing babies with fat rolls. My mother--who very much buys into diet culture--gets upset because my son is "so small" (he's been 60th percentile height and weight since birth, for reference). It's such a mindscrew for me, someone who's been fat most of her life and is used to seeing people view weight gain and fat as wholesale evil. I'm curious at what age the switch flips over to parents fretting that their kids are too big. I feel like there's a good anthropology book in here. It's weird.
I was surprised to see BMI listed on my newborn's health summary. His height, weight, and head circumference have all grown in a nice linear pattern, while his BMI is all over the place, jumping from .5% to 83% back to 36%. It does not seem like a stable or usable metric for an infant. Why is it even there?
I did find this helpful! I had no knowledge of how this new analysis of data came about but I did know it had changed in the last 30 years. I’m old enough to remember that they weren’t calling me obese as a child when I was in the 99th percentile and while the dr has never used the term I still see it written in my almost 8 yo’s chart. I logically know that he’s genetically predisposed to hit puberty early and he’s a very similar height and weight to me at his age. our second child is like his dad and right in the middle of the curve at 5 yo- he’s my child that also has a much more limited diet and it frustrates me that he gets labelled as a healthy weight and my oldest is not. They have very similar activity levels and play the same sports. My oldest also had a low birth weight and was a low percentile the first year of his life- they put him on high calorie formula that whole first year, there is so much emphasis on them growing “well” as babies.
Excellent, clearly written and shareable with folks (like parents) who aren't healthcare professionals.
They are SO desperate for an "empirical" way to assess body weight, and the efforts are so obvious towards medicalizing and otherwise pathologizing higher weight. I guess that's how you legitimize bias and prejudice, and sell more pharma to "treat" it.
Thank you for this lucid explanation about our early years. BMI is also pretty useless for older adults, given that everyone shrinks half an inch a decade after forty.
Tangential, but since becoming a mother I have experienced so much whiplash around weight. You'll have newly post-partum women lamenting they haven't lost their "baby weight" yet while also agonizing over their baby's every ounce gained, worried that they aren't gaining weight quickly enough. I've seen mothers with low-weight infants post online about being jealous when seeing babies with fat rolls. My mother--who very much buys into diet culture--gets upset because my son is "so small" (he's been 60th percentile height and weight since birth, for reference). It's such a mindscrew for me, someone who's been fat most of her life and is used to seeing people view weight gain and fat as wholesale evil. I'm curious at what age the switch flips over to parents fretting that their kids are too big. I feel like there's a good anthropology book in here. It's weird.
I was surprised to see BMI listed on my newborn's health summary. His height, weight, and head circumference have all grown in a nice linear pattern, while his BMI is all over the place, jumping from .5% to 83% back to 36%. It does not seem like a stable or usable metric for an infant. Why is it even there?
I did find this helpful! I had no knowledge of how this new analysis of data came about but I did know it had changed in the last 30 years. I’m old enough to remember that they weren’t calling me obese as a child when I was in the 99th percentile and while the dr has never used the term I still see it written in my almost 8 yo’s chart. I logically know that he’s genetically predisposed to hit puberty early and he’s a very similar height and weight to me at his age. our second child is like his dad and right in the middle of the curve at 5 yo- he’s my child that also has a much more limited diet and it frustrates me that he gets labelled as a healthy weight and my oldest is not. They have very similar activity levels and play the same sports. My oldest also had a low birth weight and was a low percentile the first year of his life- they put him on high calorie formula that whole first year, there is so much emphasis on them growing “well” as babies.
Excellent, clearly written and shareable with folks (like parents) who aren't healthcare professionals.
They are SO desperate for an "empirical" way to assess body weight, and the efforts are so obvious towards medicalizing and otherwise pathologizing higher weight. I guess that's how you legitimize bias and prejudice, and sell more pharma to "treat" it.
Thank you for this lucid explanation about our early years. BMI is also pretty useless for older adults, given that everyone shrinks half an inch a decade after forty.
Thanks for this piece, Ragen, and I look forward to the next part.
I don't know but perhaps work by Joanne Ikeda might have had some information about
children, weight, and food.