What do children think about being weighed in school?

We're recruiting to this study and would be grateful for any help in recruiting people to talk to. Can all be done online!

Hello!
Thanks for visiting this page. We'd like to introduce ourselves - we're Dr Fiona Gillison and Dr Lis Grey and we work at the University of Bath.

One of the things we look at in our research is how to help children be fit, happy and healthy. This includes ways to increase children's physical activity as well as ways to help parents and children talk to each other about health.

Our research is strongest (and most helpful to others) when lots of people from all sorts of backgrounds take part. We'd love to hear from you and your child in this research!

Weight is a topic that children hear about a lot in the media (e.g., on TV programmes), on social media (e.g., by ‘influencers’ on Youtube), and in schools as they learn about health, fitness and wellbeing. Most children in England are also weighed and measured in their first and last year in primary school by school nurse teams.

We know that parents have some concerns that children will get worried about their weight as a result of what they see and hear, and that it might be harmful to their wellbeing if they do. But no one has yet done research with children to find out what they think. In this study, we aim to speak to children from a range of backgrounds to get their views, to make sure that we can take their voices into account when we think about policies that affect them – like the weighing and measuring programme that takes place every year.

So, we are running video-calls with children (parents can join too) where we will look at a story together and ask your child to say what they think of different bits of the story. We will not ask or talk about your child’s own weight, all questions will be about how children feel about being measured in general.

If your child is aged 8-11 years and attends school in England, we would love to here from them!

We are a team of researchers at the University of Bath and are interested in finding out what children think of being weighed and measured in the National Child Measurement Programme.

To find out more, visit our page on the University website (click the 'Learn more' button above) or email us. We look forward to hearing from you!