Obese in Britain

I don’t know gilly but I would guess that mild vitamin D deficiency, as opposed to rickets, might be suspected but would have to be confirmed by a blood test.
The school inspections are a screening service, not a full assessment & diagnostic service.

So itbprobably wouldn’t be picked up
Until it was way too late . Shocking in the U.K. today isn’t it ?

Why should ‘schools’ be asked to do this? Teachers are not medically trained. Perhaps in the ‘old days’ the now redundant School Nurse might have picked up on this,

I have googled as you suggested and didn’t find any credible evidence of a child being only a pound or two over the average weight being labelled obese. I did however find lots of hysterical and illogical rubbish being posted by parents in denial or having misunderstood.

Mainly in the Daily Mail.

That was the result of my googling too anja.

Well I disagree . I found several separate cases so you didn’t look very far. No hysteria either just parents upset (as I would be) to have their small child labelled obese when they clearly are not . But hey maybe my computer works differently to yours . Who cares if they are from the mail, express, sun or the moon, they are real people. What more “credible evidence do you want”? Are you suggesting they are liars?

From experience the school health “professionals” do not always get it right, infact sometimes (believe it or not) they get it VERY wrong.

I did not suggest that schools should be asked to check Vitamin D levels at all Anja . They would not be able to tell without a blood test anyway. My response was to janea that rickets is on the rise, which it is.

gilly if rickets is on the rise, surely that underlines the importance of medical examinations in school, and parents being notified of findings

This was janea’s response to my saying that rickets is in the rise.

Sorry gilly I’ve obviously misunderstood. You did seem to be implying that school inspections should include screening for low vitamin D levels.

As for credible evidence, I don’t believe anything I read in the Daily Mail or similar publications. Statistics are frequently manipulated and research results misreported.

Absolutely not Janea it was you who suggested this when I said rickets was on the rise, not me. Of course schools could not check all children’s vitamin D levels. Are they expected to run a complete phlebotomy clinic ?

Btw change of subject.....sorry but while I am chatting to you....serious question.... have you ever come across a 9.5 month old baby with 9 teeth? Yes 9 ! My DD’s dentist was quite astonished. (5 on the top and 4 on the bottom) .

I didn’t say that, gilly.
I said if rickets is on the rise, surely that underlines the importance of medical examinations in school, and parents being notified of findings
Meaning that if children’s health was generally so poor that rickets was increasing, then it was all the more important that they should be monitored (weight and height) to flag up early signs.
I never said schools should test for vitamin D deficiency.
In answer to a question from you, I said that if a child had rickets, as opposed to a mild deficiency, there would be physical signs that could be picked up.

In answer to your dental question, no I never saw that, but early eruption of teeth is well documented and occasionally babies are born with one or two teeth which obviously makes it a bit uncomfortable if the mother wants to breastfeed ?

I am not arguing any more about school medicals . I know what I said and meant . I also know that the school medical “professionals ” let my DGD down ( as they do others) and caused great alarm when there was no need and they were VERY wrong.

My DDG was not born with any teeth at all, they just started to pop through one after the other from about 4 months old. My DD has perfect teeth ( not a single filling at 34, although probably irrelevant) she took the baby along for her first check up and the dentist was astonished to see 9 ( soon to be 10) perfect little teeth

DDG ???? DGD

And elsewhere on the GN forums is a thread on food banks. People who can’t afford to eat for various reasons.

Went to listen to Dr Michael Mosley 2 weeks ago. He said exercise is good for our health but it’s not a good tool to actually lose weight. Calories ‘in’ is what counts apparently. We are what we eat!

I must be a McVities Hob Nob then Urmstongran as I've just pinched two from my DH's secret stash in his desk .

I'm not normally a great biscuit fan but they were just what I needed.

I was listening to a piece on local radio this morning about people not being able to afford to buy their inhalers for chronic Asthma and having to choose between eating and the drugs they need to keep them alive and well. Shocking when so many people have so much and others, so little.

I have a friend who is a practice nurse in London and she also is seeing a lot of children presenting with rickets.

In most cases they are from those ethnic groups which cover their bodies from top to toe, therefore they have no exposure to sunlight for vitamin D production.

Idiotic political correctness of course makes it difficult for the connection to be pointed out to those concerned.

I was going to post that comment earlier JE it’s a fact well known as the reason amongst health professionals.
Ditto the reason for the ‘explosion’ these last few years of type 2 diabetes.
Known but not spoken of.

Yes JenniferEccles that is pretty much what the pharmacist told me too.

Idiotic political correctness of course makes it difficult for the connection to be pointed out to those concerned

Exactly.

Even on here I feel we have to be careful in case someone comes along with howls of outrage at our 'racist' comments.

gillybob re your post about asthmatics not being able to afford their prescriptions, a young woman has died recently due to this.

Asthma UK has a petition to make asthma medication prescriptions to be free.

Chatting to the pharmacist most of the children fall into a similar category

Which is exactly why I did not go any further than this Jennifer

Crazy isn't it?

I am just watching, on catch up, the junk food programme on ITV.
It answers a lot of questions and highlights the dangers of over indulgence of junk food.
I don’t ‘need’ to watch it. I’m fairly slim and eat mostly real food.
The people who do need to watch won’t be.
They expect the Government, schools and the NHS to take the responsibility.

I think many of the people who do eat a lot of junk food probably do so because they either ;

Cannot even begin to think how to cook/construct a healthy meal.
OR
They are too busy to cook/construct a healthy meal and the "junk food" is a quick and easy option.
OR
They are too lazy and can't be bothered to cook/construct a healthy meal.
OR
They do not have the facilities to cook a healthy meal.

All children I have ever taught from Muslim communities have worn the same school uniform as their peers! So not sure how that correlates to some statistics/opinions.

It may be a problem for Muslim adult women who wear all covering clothing. Last summer I went to an interesting science talk, as part of Pint of Science week Surrey Uni was involved in, where the researcher presented their new fabric which would let in the right sun rays for Vit D but keep out the harmful cancerous ones. To be used for any beachwear, summer clothes and also for Muslim women's abayas and hijabs. Clever stuff!

JenniferEccles what do you mean by "even on here" you have to be careful in case someone comes along with howls of outrage at our 'racist' comments?

Surely it is not OK to make racist comments anywhere especially not on a public forum!

Quite, PECS. It isn’t racist anyway to say that there’s a higher incidence of a condition within certain groups.
Cantonese people have a much higher incidence of naso-pharyngeal carcinoma than any other population. It’s related to their high consumption of dried fish. It’s not racist to say that, it’s a fact.