My nephew's school sent home a letter saying he was in danger of obesity and wanted to set up an appointment with a nutritionist. They obviously didn't look at the child and only looked at his age and weight. The kid is a full head taller than the other kids in his class. Of course he's gonna weigh more.

Once, when I went to the student health center with something like my fourth case of tonsillitis that winter, the doctor told me that there was nothing wrong with my throat and that my only problem was that I needed to lose 60 pounds.

Stabby!!!!!!!!!!!ELEVENTY!!!!!!!!!!

“If we just went running out of the cave as little cave babies and stuck anything in our mouths, that would have been potentially very dangerous,” Dr. Cooke said.

Um, is crawling around inside the cave sticking things in their mouths any safer? Or are we assuming that all cave-mommies were hard-core babywearers who never let the little ones out of their sight? (Now imagining a prehistoric Park Slope full of custom mamoth-print slings...)

Would anyone care if a kid was ultra skinny as long as she was healthy? (as this kid seems to be?)

Yes. Doctors (not all, but enough and more than should be) will diagnose happy healthy babies as "failure to thrive" if their weight falls too far off the standard growth charts. (Standard growth charts which reflect the average white American formula-fed baby from 1975, btw. Breastfed babies between 4-6 months of age do not look good on these charts, let me tell you. Breastfed babies of smaller-than-your-average-American ethnic backgrounds? Pretty much screwed.)

If you are not watching sodium you add more soy sauce.

Or you can use the lower-sodium soy sauce, which is just as tasty. IMNSHO.

Once, when I went to the student health center with something like my fourth case of tonsillitis that winter, the doctor told me that there was nothing wrong with my throat and that my only problem was that I needed to lose 60 pounds.

Sounds like my ex-shrink, who once, after asking literally nothing about my depression, badgered me until I told her what I weighed, calcluated my BMI, told me how much I needed to lose, and -- my favorite part -- that she would prescribe a weight-loss drug for me.

The hell, you say. That was the last time I ever darkened her door.

If a stone is 14 pounds, that baby weighs 30 pounds. Which is not particularly big for 18 months; I know an exclusively breastfed baby who is 24 pounds at 4 months, and Peter was 27 pounds at his 18 month checkup and dead average (50-60%ile). I mean, seriously? Picky toddlers of normal weight: not news.

Occasionally, I forget how tiny Lillian is. Then I read this, and think, gosh, she was 25lbs at her three year check up. (It's on the charts! Barely! She's also short. Like, 34-35" tall or something. The good part? I got two to two and a half years of wear out of all her cloth diapers, and usually get at least a year out of her clothes, if not more. She still wears the Batman shirt Ginger sent her. It's marked 12 months.)

This is why I miss my OBGYN in LA. I gained 67 lbs with Em, putting me will over the 250 mark. He told me every appointment that I was "perfect and beautiful".

I'm going to make an executive decision here and decree stabbination across the board for: the Brit baby's doctor, with a side of extra stabbination for the author and editor of that obnoxious article; aurelia's nephew's school; Hil's student health center doctor; and the Marie Claire 6-foot-tall woman's doctor.

Also, yeah, what Jess said about breastfed babies. Pediatricians are supposed to have separate growth charts for BF babies, but they very frequently don't. And then you get the happy fun MUST START SUPPLEMENTING NOW pressure. Ugh.

I was just about always at the very bottom of the growth charts as a baby and child. I remember in fourth grade, when I was at the fifth percentile for height and twenty-fifth for weight, my doctor and mother were a bit concerned about my weight, but I was all excited that, for the first time I could remember, I was actually on the chart for height -- before that, I'd been below what was on the charts as the lowest conceivable height for my age. (And I ate an incredibly healthy diet and was skating three times a week and spending hours on my bike each weekend then. My cholesterol at age 9 was also over 200, even though I ate only super-lean meat, almost nothing fried, no egg yolks, and only skim milk. No escaping genetics in terms of cholesterol in my family.)

Plei - I'm right there with you with Em. She was 5th %tile in weight for so long, but Em's pretty tall. She wears a 3t, but mostly cause she needs the length. At her 3 year check up in February she was 38" tall and 31lbs.