Tuesday, March 10, 2015

When Common Sense seems Less and Less Common

You guys.  You guys.  I just can't even.

Lovers of grammar I apologize for the above fragments but read on and I think you will understand why those words are pretty much all that I can come up with right now:


Today, after writing this morning's post I sat down to go over Mae's care plan in preparation of calling the social worker and getting the ball rolling on hopefully having a placard approved.  I was supposed to read over it, fill in a few blanks and call her back before sending it in.

And then I saw the above "diagnosis" along with a little highlighted comment asking me to elaborate and give more information about Maggie's diet.

Now let me just say that I don't usually struggle with keeping my language pretty G-rated, even in my head.  Today I most definitely have struggled.

And I decided that today was maybe not the best day to call because I needed a teensy tiny cooling off period to remember that the person I would be talking to would not be the person who decided to disregard the fact that Mae is pretty obviously not overweight (which she saw during the exam... to quote my dad "she's the only four year old I know with a six pack") and go with an incredibly inaccurate chart who's results do not reflect her actual physique in the least (and just for the record I've talked to about a half dozen people who work with Mae and every single person has the same astounded reaction.).

What does she eat?  Let's go with yesterday.  Yesterday we were able to convince her to eat a banana, some grapes, an apple and a couple of homemade gluten free/dairy free lemon muffins that her big sister made.  And water.  That's it.  When she eats anything at all, I'm happy because many, many days she refuses every single thing that I offer for lunch and dinner.

The things she will always eat are grapes and blueberries.  Sometimes she'll eat bananas and apples, rice crackers and g.f. bread with peanut butter on it.  Occasionally she'll it potatoes, oatmeal, beans and maybe a tiny bit of meat.  Oh and bacon.  She will always eat bacon, but doesn't get to have it very often.  She does have a fondness for bunny crackers when they're in the house.

Here's a picture I snapped today while she was doing her school work:


So... I know I wrote last week that I'm not a fan of the whole BMI chart but this week I'm even less of a fan (if that's even possible).

Now I'm going to take a few breaths (again) and remind myself how lucky we are to have such awesome resources for Mae and to have such a great team of people working with her.  And I'll gear up to sit down with that silly form and fill it out so I can make that phone call.

6 comments:

  1. Is the physician who made this diagnosis blind?

    Marie

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  2. Sorry that sucks. BMI is ridiculous. A few years ago I saw a site that people uploaded pictures of themselves and their BMI in it to protest it. Then you could look at all the people who had the "same" BMI and see that some of them looked very fit, some did have extra pounds, some even looked to thin... but they were all the "same" BMI. BMI doesn't taken into account bone structure, for one, and bone is even denser than muscle! And of course there's notoriously body builders who are "overweight" and have like 10 percent body fat. It's a meaningless system and really needs to be disregarded.

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    Replies
    1. I really wish it wasn't used (or followed blindly I guess). I remember we faced the same thing when Sadie was four, so I have a feeling it may just be how our kids are built.

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  3. BMI was developed as a statistical model to determine what populations, ie large groups of people, were at greater risk for health problems-- it was NEVER intended by the developers for it to be used on individuals-- it was totally a demographics/populations evaluating tool. So now it is re-purposed to be used on individuals.

    Good trainers do not use it anymore, preferring to directly measure percentage of fat in the body weight. One thing I have learned is when I am working out with the weights, I gain weight as I lose inches until my muscle mass hits its genetic potential and only then does my over-all weight on the scale go down. So for me, my experience is I can be several dress sizes smaller and physically much more active and athletic and still fail on the BMI.

    Using the BMI chart against its design is IMO medical malpractice.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I'm starting to feel that way too.

      And on the second part of your comment I found the same thing when I started working out this time around. I found the scale stayed in the same spot when I'd lost four inches from my waist. It was a little bit frustrating because I really wanted to see the weight melting off, but at the same time I'm really glad that I measured or I would have felt like I wasn't making any progress at all!

      Delete

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