Over eating is also an eating disorder. Being overweight when you’re young makes you much more likely to be overweight when you’re older. Being overweight and obese often leads to extreme dangerous yo-yo dieting, binging, health problems and general unhappiness. I think if the children and parents are being taught about eating healthily and exercising and how important these things are to life then what’s the harm? People seem to be over feeding their children and not realising the harm they’re causing. Overweight kids are probably going to get bullied at some stage anyway. Wouldn’t it be better if some help was in place? I believe it’s something that has to be dealt with very sensitively, of course but if done properly I think it’s a good idea.

“Obesity is a problem that’s only getting bigger” – ha, brilliant

Healthy eating lunch-wise is taught in primary school already and a large number of schools have a lunch policy in place already I.e no fizzy drinks, chocolate, cereal bars etc. It’s the parents who need to be educated now, the foundation with children is already in place – look at how successfully the green schools recycling policies have trickled into the home for example.
While it would be wrong to publicly shame children by weighing them, an individual assessment by the public health nurse during the booster shot age (4-5) and a nutritional plan assigned where problems exist – similar to an eye exam or hearing exam – could go a long way to helping parents act responsibly when it comes to their children’s diet.

surely its the parents that need to be educated about healthy eating habits… my daughters school has banned all rubbish during the week and issued advice on healthy foods.. on fridays they are allowed a treat in school. if your child is obese a parent would be a fool not to know this so what help is it to weight the kids in school… surely exercise should be compulsory and a ban on rubbish. the parents should be held accountable, not bringing a childs weight to their attention. are they going to tackle kids that are underweight which I’m sure is in schools too.. its the parents responsibly to ensure their children are getting enough nutrients and having a healthy diet..

Wow people are so sensitive about kids being bullied for their weight but yet don’t want anything done to help. Sure, the fault lies with the parents but just saying that doesn’t help fix the problem. Children need to be educated about healthy eating and understand what it means to have a caloric allowance. They need to understand what is a good weight for their height and how to maintain that weight. I can think of no better place to do this than in school. Just like schools teach kids how to read, write and do maths they should teach useful life skills like eating healthily.

cudnt this weighing be used as a way of highlighting kids with anorexia as well as obesity if it was carried out as a routine health check a few times a year? at least then the problem isnt ignored and hoped to go away… we can help the kids rather than being fearful of the facts…

If the schools stopped feeding the kids chocolate muffins and strawberry flavoured milk drinks yes in our Dublin schools that would reduce alot if the problem for starters …

Parents should be held accountable. It’s a disgrace. This is a v good idea, the PC brigade need to accept that reality hurts. A fat little kid eating an ice cream actually laughed at me running in the park recently, he cudnt understand what I was doing! Surely the PC brigade would prefer him being aware of his illness rather than perhaps being offended by the state trying to help him??? I think we should introduce even harsher penalties on unnecessary obesity, it’s morally wrong in the greater context.

What a load of rubbish, it’s the parents that need to stop contributing to this epedimic, unless children are being fed a healthy diet, weighing them will make no difference.

educating kids on healthy eating in school is one thing but it being practised at home is another thing…if the parents don’t care why should the kids. school can’t enforce adults/parents to carry on with their teachings. as was said already it is being done in doctors surgeries for years and the problem is still there. parents should be fined for breaking school rules on healthy eating but only after a parent is educated themselves! the source of the problem should be tackled first.

Why is it always though the schools? Is it just about ‘weighing every child’ or is it about changing lifestyles & building awareness. I think that every child should have one free mandated medical appointment a year, where such standards/tests etc are available to every family via a community nurse or similar. Doing it through schools implies teachers not parents raise children. Rather than making this about who is right or wrong, why not make it about skilling parents & families.

As an uneducated guess it’s probably a good thing but it sounds terrible. You would be ostracising some poor kids instead of educating the parents. Maybe if the parents weighted and filled out the forms in the privacy of their own homes. Still doesn’t sound right though.

I think this is an awful idea, it’s parents who are responsible as most children of this age have very little pocket money, don’t do the grocery shopping and don’t cook the meals, i.e. have extremely limited spending power, so who buys…the patents. The amount of crap I see in trolleys in supermarkets is frightening, litres and litres of soft drinks, crisps etc. the kids ain’t picking up the tab.

I’m sure that it makes a lot of sense for schools and the state in general to take over responsibility for children’s weight problems.
If we can engender a culture of nanny stateism into these kids from a really young age, and drill into them a total lack of parental accountability, perhaps we can really secure future generations’ incapacity to do anything for themselves.

If it causes bullying – the Irish must be the most bullied nation in the world. Look at. The parents – weight them every week in front of the class. Laziness and bad parenting is all that is – imagine stuffing your sumo kids. Jail or foster care is needed for the parents.

Is this the best we can come up with?
I am not disputing that obesity is not a problem, but the way our experts go about it is definitely not solving this issues. Focusing on weigh, is like mending the machine by smashing the flashing red warning light, instead of fixing the machine.
This new policy could bring increase in Eating Distress.
So called ‘Ideal Body Weight’ charts came from insurance companies, and not from medical data.
Today we treat them like they were one of the 10 commandments. We need to learn to think more critically about these charts,to challenge more, and to realize that they were created for economical purposes,more so than medical reasons http://www.eatingdisorderselfhelp.com/blog/marie/2012/april/14/weighing-our-children-could-cause-bigger-problems

Weight and Heath are two different things

It might come as a surprise to some but Height & Weight measurements (of children) have been part and parcel off every GPs practice since forever This is not a new thing. Non-story in my opinion.

What about the GP? Doesn’t this fit better with them?

I agree sascha there is alot more junk I could mention .. They are cutting back on teachers but still funding all this crap being fed to the children …

This is a terrible idea you don’t want children becoming obessed about their weight and thus causing eating disorders. It could also cause personality regression if teasing or bullying occured due to the issue being highlighted in front of school friends!

I can see this leading to an epidemic in bullying for little kids.

It could also lead to further disorders, such as Bulimia or Anorexic, probably create further issues, such as depression in children and a sense of insecurity as well a low self-esteem and lack of confidence in oneself.

as if children arent bullied enough. now the government is basicially picking children to be bullied for their eight issues

I would advise anyone, whether overweight, has digestive issues, finds it impossible to get up in the morning, has joint problems, diabetes, problems concentrating . . . . . . .I could go on with the list, PLEASE look into a Paleo/Primal way of eating.

For me and my partner, it has changed our lives. He has always had major digestive issues, since a child, which have all but gone away. I found it impossible to get up in the mornings, but now I’m hopping out of bed every day at 8am to go into college and study! (Yes, I’m a student and for now, 8am is damn early!!) I find I have a constant energy all day long, don’t get slumps, have better concentration and never get intense hunger pains.

The diet involves Low Carb and High Fat(good fats), absolutely no grains, no milk, no sugary foods – i.e. soft drinks, sweets, chocolate (dark chocolate is ok though!).

And before anyone automatically rubbishes this, PLEASE check out the following two sites first. There are dozens of success stories on Mark’s Daily Apple to add to the success story of my partner and I.

http://www.marksdailyapple.com/#axzz1s0eK1jbK

http://www.dietdoctor.com/page/2 – the video that has the evolution of man screen pic is particularly interesting.

I guarantee you will see more and more about this over the next couple of years.

i know my son is slightly overweight…i dont need to be told that! I have taken steps to ensure that he wont gain too much weight, he is of course at 2, the average given height of a 4 year old..both my kids are well nourished eat 3 healthy meals a day, albeit getting the odd mcdonalds if we’re out and about…my son has of course a bit of a sweet tooth, and will look for a lot of chocolate and biscuits. On saying all of this, a child being over or underweight at any given time does not mean that they are malnourished or whatever. If they have a worry about a childs weight, or their wellbeing then would be the time to ask a health visitor to attend to check up the child but i would feel that to weight every child to ensure they are the correct weight is the wrong way about going about things, will cause a lot of extra work, and anxiety in parents who have no need to be worried

I doubt that weighing children in school would cause an increase in eating disorders. Has any other country tried weighing its five year olds? If so, what kind of results have they seen?

It’s a common misconception that doing something about your overweight child’s weight, or even watching what your normal-weight child eats, will cause them to swing in the other direction towards anorexia. Parents understandably would rather have a chubby child than one who’s in danger of starvation and so ignore the problem. They often do so with the best of intentions. But anorexia and obesity, while both eating disorders in thier own way, have quite different causes and patient profiles. I would guess that the majority of anorexic and bulimic patients start at a normal weight. In fact, weighing in school might help because it’d make it boring.

I still don’t think it’s a great idea though. It’s a screening measure, rather than a preventative measure. It seems cheap because teachers would apparently do the weighing but who would do the follow-up? PHN’s who are already overstretched. Kids might be put on diets and if there’s one thing we all know (or should) it’s that diets don’t work.

How could the money that this scheme would cost be better spent? I still think PHNs should be involved but at a much younger stage. Nutrition in the pre-school years is crucial. In particular we need to maximise the number of babies being fed human milk- not through fatuous “breast is best” campaigns – but through proper support for those mothers who choose to breastfeed.