When should you tell someone they are overweight and their DC are too?

This is not a tricky situation

Your friend is a busy body and instead of concentrating on other people's health concerns, she should examine hers first

The school nurse, or the family GP should mention it if the child is overweight, and the GP should also mention the mother's increase in weight.

No-one else, except the husband and father involved, has any right to mention the matter.

My friend is not a busybody Hithere but is genuinely concerned about the health and wellbeing of this family.
She is a healthy eater herself and wishes that she could influence her friend. It is a difficult situation but I am sure not uncommon.

Short answer: never.

Long answer - the person presumably has a mirror at home, and you do not know why she is gaining weight. My boys ate me out of house and home but took off their jeans still zipped up. Who made your friend an arbiter of weight gain [or loss]? People who knew me when I was rake thin often exclaim about how fat I am, and I say 'Yes, thank you' which leaves them stumped.

Grammaretto
The road to hell is paved with good intentions

It doesn't matter your your friend is a healthy eater

Her wishes to influence others may very well cost her the friendship

Your friend could use her good intentions on people who do want her help and request it - could she volunteer anywhere?

Vegans and vegetarians are pestered for their good intentions too - food for thought

Hithere

Vegans and vegetarians are pestered for their good intentions too - food for thought

What do you mean by this, Hithere? What "good intentions" do vegans and vegetarians have that other people don't have too?

Just mind your own business who knows what she is going through.

when you are 500 miles away with your ‘show my number’ disabled

The overweight person knows they're overweight. No positive good either for the person or the relationship will come from having it pointed out.

FriedGreenTomatoes2

Years ago, there’d have been a school nurse weighing and measuring all the kids once a year.
They didn’t hold back.
Perhaps that’s what is needed again? Straight talking from a professional.

There still is; there is a scheme called National Child Measurement programme (NCMP).

Over 99% (17,000) of eligible state-maintained schools across England, including academies, usually participate in the NCMP . Over one million children in reception and year 6 usually have their height and weight measured in schools as part of the programme

Fleurpepper

Is 'fat shaming' different to 'smoking shaming' or 'alcohol shaming' or 'drug shaming'?

If doctors are no longer allowed to discuss these issues as part of their medical care and direct connection to health issues, what then?

If doctors are no longer allowed to discuss these issues as part of their medical care and direct connection to health issues, what then?

According to the government's own statistics, obesity is at crisis point. If the medical profession are forbidden to tell a parent that their overweight child is heading for a future of possible heart disease, cancer, diabetes, etc, because to mention the fact is fat shaming, then it's a bleak outlook for the child, and the NHS.

As for a 'friend talking to another friend' - I don't know. But if my best friend cared enough about me to be worried that I was eating my way into an earlier grave, I would not feel she was shaming me. As it is, she has told me I am not eating enough since major surgery a couple of years ago after which the consultant told me that it is imperative that I maintain my weight. Which I haven't. And she discusses it with me. What's the difference? I don't feel she's shaming me for being scrawny.

She is my cleaner and carer, and she works hard - and sometimes she looks very tired so I give her a day off on pay and tell her to put her feet up - she doesn't think I'm shaming her for looking haggard. She knows I have her best interests at heart and that I care about her.

If someone is possibly messing up their own life - well, maybe that's their right I suppose - but inflicting it on their child is I think a different matter. Parents have a right to parent their child as they see fit, but I'm not sure that storing up future ill-health is part of that right.

The a swear to the question is 'ne er'

The answer to the question is never!

Definitely never. That's a professional's job eg Doctor, school nurse, etc
Or maybe v close family mother sister brother. She must already know anyway
.

I'd say never.

This is, however, something GPs should be able to discuss with their patients.

Fried green tomatoes , my son was “ outed “ by the school nurse as being in Her words “ in the top 2 % of overweight children in the school “ it was the most awful event my son was bullied and I had people I didn’t know mentioning it to me at the school gates ! When I look back at photos there was no way he was overweight , (it was the era of twiggy etc ) but left my son with a lifetime of feeling body shamed.

Thankyou for your answer Dickens and I hope you are recovering well from surgery.

Political correctness gone crazy. Why should a friend's concern be less valuable than that of a "professional" or that of a parent or close family member?

Fae1

The answer to the question is never!

... the human brain is clever - as long as there are sufficient numbers of letters in the right place, it knows what you mean.

Although at first I thought it was some informal linguistic style peculiar to a specific region!

ruthiek

Fried green tomatoes , my son was “ outed “ by the school nurse as being in Her words “ in the top 2 % of overweight children in the school “ it was the most awful event my son was bullied and I had people I didn’t know mentioning it to me at the school gates ! When I look back at photos there was no way he was overweight , (it was the era of twiggy etc ) but left my son with a lifetime of feeling body shamed.

Surely that conversation should have been strictly between you, possibly your son - and her; how on earth did it become common knowledge to the extent that parents you didn't even know were mentioning it to you?

Was it usual then for schools to allow their visiting doctors and nurses to share the details of a child's medical / private details?

Grammaretto

Thankyou for your answer Dickens and I hope you are recovering well from surgery.

Political correctness gone crazy. Why should a friend's concern be less valuable than that of a "professional" or that of a parent or close family member?

Thankyou for your answer Dickens and I hope you are recovering well from surgery.

I'm getting there, thanks.

Political correctness gone crazy

I'm wary of using that phrase because some tend to 'label' you for doing so, but inwardly, I do use it.

IMO, fat-shaming someone is when you mention the fact purely to mock, insult, sneer, jeer, or bully - or to make them feel inferior.

It may or may not be a 'good thing' for your friend to say something; personally, if I didn't know that person very well and they were not a close friend, I wouldn't.

I do think you have to really know and care about someone for that kind of conversation.

If your friend doesn't, then I'd advise her to not say anything. It could be one of those good-intention paving stones leading to you-know-where.

I am 67 years old and was very subtly fat shamed all my life by my mum an my oldest sister. My weight has always yo yo’d depending on how stressed I have been. I’m a comfort eater but they were the type of people who if they were stressed didnt eat. They were also lucky that they didn’t go through the type of stress i did ( eg horrible divorce, 16 yr old daughter involved in a terrible car accident) but they never let up or understood me at all.
Don’t get me wrong, I loved them both dearly but now they are both gone its almost like I feel free. As a consequence I now exercise regularly and my weight is going slowly but surely.
The same daughter as I have mentioned is a bit overweight but I never mention it to her at all as I know how it feels. We only talk about it if she brings the subject up.

Would you tell and person smoking or drinking to stop as they are causing the NHS money. Would you tell a disabled person they are costing the NHS because they are disabled.

Where does it stop.

Dickens wrote 'If someone is possibly messing up their own life - well, maybe that's their right I suppose - but inflicting it on their child is I think a different matter. Parents have a right to parent their child as they see fit, but I'm not sure that storing up future ill-health is part of that right.'

and yes, this is the crux of the matter. At what stage does it become child neglect or abuse- with long term consequences. If a friend was mistreating a child, with any kind of abuse- would you keep quiet, for fear of losing that friendship or embarrassing your friend? Isn't this how so many children fall through the net, with terrible consequences. Yes, the school or the GP should be the ones.

Agree to that there are 'ways and ways' - to try and discuss this in such a way that is non judging and non threatening or shaming, out of true care.

Children in the uk are weighed as they start primary school at 4/5 and as they leave at 11.
As for mentioning that the parent is overweight as well as the child. It’s a NO from me. They know already and will not respond gratefully with a ‘thanks for telling me this, I had no idea’