So I'm looking through the news yesterday and I read an article quite similar to this one.
Then I woke up this morning and while thumbing through my political cartoons on Cagle found this beauty:
Now that's just a bit too much for me.
I have two large children. Rosie was born 7lbs, 13oz and Shai was 8lbs, 4oz. A healthy infant gains 200% of their birth weight within the first year, and both came within ounces. They've both always been extremely healthy and active and have stayed at the same weight percentile their entire lives.
The kids have two cousins close in age (1 month apart and 1 month 9 days apart) who are the same size but are no means the same weight. They could swap clothes easily, but picking up one of my kids after picking up one of my nephews is like picking up a lead weight. Their bones are just dense and they are ridiculously hard to hurt. I've seen my two year old bang her head on a ceramic floor and get up as if nothing happened.
On 2-2-06 Rosie was 43.5" tall and 45lbs and Shai was 37" tall and 36lbs. Both have gone up another clothing size in that time so I am reasonably certain that Shai is close to 40lbs at this point. What does that mean? Shai has outgrown most car seats with restraints because most are only rated to 40lbs. She's also only 2 1/2, so she's a full two years away from a booster seat because according to federal standards she won't be old enough (physically ready to absorb the shock) until she's 4 1/2. I may be cynical, but if we are ever involved in an accident I a.) want my kids to have the best protection available and b.) want to be able to go after the insurance company for medical bills WITHOUT having to argue over whether or not the restraint being used was "adequate".
Fortunately there are "combination" car seats which have been on the market for years that fulfill the function of both car seat and booster seat and allow the restraints to be used up to 60lbs or so. I bought one when Rosie outgrew her infant seat and Shai uses the same one to this day. So what's the big deal? Manufacturers have known for years that there are big kids out there that don't fit nicely into the prescribed age and weight ranges. They follow profit, and it didn't take long for them to figure out that if parents only had to buy one car seat, they could charge the same price for a dual purpose car seat as they would for two, and use fewer materials at the same time.
So where is the flap coming from? Ah, yes, the "o" word that everyone is afraid of for their kids. Obese. For some reason some parents (and much of the media) believe that children must fall into this simple chart of age and approximate weight and if the poor child is even slightly over that "acceptable" weight the kid is obese.
Yes, my kids are heavy for their ages. They are also dense as hell and are taller than many kids a few years older. Rosie wears 5T/XSM clothing and Shai is solidly into 4T clothing. As I wrote earlier this year Rosie is moving into the scary "girls" section and she's not even in Kindergarten! But despite their size many parents and much of the media consider them "overweight" even though their doctors have repeatedly said that as long as the weight is steady in proportion to height they are perfectly healthy. I mean, health is the real point here, isn't it?
No, not anymore. Now, in this country, exist parents who think their infants are overweight. It's almost impossible for an infant to be overweight but entirely possible for a healthy baby to put on as much as 20% of their body weight in one month. Are they obese? Most likely not. Both my kids added on weight rapidly one month, then learned how to crawl and eventually walk off all of that extra stored energy. This is of course a direct result of better nutrition and health over generations, and something to be proud of. The kids are fulfilling every bit of their genetic potential and I don't see that as a bad thing.
But parents are paranoid, both for health reasons and social reasons. It's quite ridiculous actually; parents putting babies on diets, pre-pubescent girls starving themselves because they don't realize the extra weight they've just put on is about to turn into breasts and hips. All because of the "o" word.
This won't be the last we hear of it of course. I'm sure the babies I will have with Chris will be just as heavy and dense, and I'll still be scouting for combined car seats. Manufacturing as a whole knows to follow the profit, and a kid that can't fit into a car seat (or soon, cars) comfortably is a sale lost. Manufacturing never needed hysteria to get in the way, and never needed the "o" word as motivation.
Yesterday while working I saw an eighth-grader from the San Carlos Indian Reservation school group who was 6'5" and skinny as a rake. This from a native group (Apache) not much known for their stature. But this also was a result of better nutrition and health, as many of his classmates were also larger than the parental chaperones among them. I couldn't help but wonder what kind of car he was going to be able to drive with those extremely long legs. I'm sure manufacturers will come up with something though, they always do. Now if only the rest of us could see the good fortune of such a healthy generation.
Mel
Just call me Mel, everyone else does.
