Fit Girl Series – Comparing Children

My husband and I are sitting in the doctor’s office and we’ve done the math – Ainsley is officially “overweight.” Her BMI is over 19. Not by much, but over.

I’m trying to wrap my brain around how this could happen and what it means.

Like every parent, I’ve compared her to the other children – in her class, at church, in the neighborhood, in our family, on her sports teams – and she’s squarely in the middle.

Of course, I believed if she was in the middle she was “normal,” “average” or “just fine.”

It took several weeks for me to understand that this doesn’t mean my child is at a healthy weight, it only means that the children who are larger than her – about 30% of children she’s around – are just fatter than she is.

She’s officially in the fat category – the larger children, and there are lots of larger children, are fatter.

There’s an obesity epidemic in the country. So, comparing your child to the other children just isn’t an indicator of whether or not your child is at a normal weight. The average is now too big.

Really, it was a hard concept for me to get. It was a hard concept for me to accept. The beauty of DNA is that we usually only see our children as perfect miracles.

Fit Girl Series: Exercise Poll

Fit Girl Series: Eat This, Not That!

Fit Girl Series: BIG FAT LIARS!

Fit Girl Series: Obese Teens on Oprah

Fit Girl Series: Weight = Moral Failure

Fit Family = Fit Girl