FWIW, the sprog’s pediatrician seldom, if ever, recommends a reducing diet unless the child is so obese that he’s at significant risk for something like Type II diabetes. His philosophy is that it’s better to teach the child appropriate eating habits and let him grow into his weight than it is to possibly cause a much bigger problem turning eating habits into a battle of wills. Because no one wins then.
Started my diet in January, had my physical Monday. My doctor used to harp on me in high school, when I was 270 and 5’8.5". Then I dropped to 207, he seemed happy enough. Went back up to 220, now am at 190. I just had the opposite experience: the doctor was beside himself cheery/encouraging/proud at how much weight I lost. He asked me what I did, told me to keep up the good work.
Even when I was 220+, though, I had a resting heart rate of sixty, good blood pressure and cholesterol, and did squash/spinning 5 times a week. IMO, this was more for aesthetics than anything health related. 
antonio107 and MsRobyn, I am happy to hear that you have such good commonsense docs for yourself and your sprog respectively!
BTW, in the context of this discussion this link is of some interest:
First off by providing some information that illustrates a problem with BMI. It is reasonable to consider the early 60’s as a normative time for weight, before the obesity epidemic hit. It is interesting to note that using the 25 and 30 BMI cutoffs as the definitions of overweight and obesity called over 13+% of the population obese and another 31+% overweight - by definition in that allegedly normative time a total of about 45%, almost half of the population, was defined as being too heavy. Clearly obsessing over hitting that 25 mark is not justified by historic norms (and as has been cited is not likely justified by outcomes data either). 25 was just chosen for its simplicity but it needlessly defined many as overweight who are well within the middle 50% by historic norms and not likely to be at increased risk of obesity related health problems.
Secondly and OTOH, while defining 13+% of a normative population as “obese” was perhaps excessive (the top 5% would probably make more sense) the fact that by 2005 that number went up over 35% and that the number of Americans morbidly obese, BMI over 40, went from less than 1% to over 6% (!) is notable.
And for anyone who is interested, here is an article detailing how pediatric obesity rates are leveling off and even decreasing some slight bit in some groups.
I am a bit sad that this good news does not get the press it deserves. That’s a significant number of adults to be whose future obesity is being prevented.
Also for kicks this BMI calculator is fun. It gives me a BMI of 24.2 and if I weighed just 6 pounds more it would place me over 25, officially overweight. But it also gives percentiles and tells me that for my age and gender I am at about the 25%ile for BMI and that at that “overweight” number I’d still be well in the lower third at the 30%ile. DrDeth, that may still not account for muscle mass and skeletal structure differences between individuals and hereby still only be a proxy for percent body fat but the percentile report may at least address one of your concerns. FWIW I’d need to gain 35 pounds, more than 20% of my body weight, to hit a BMI of 30 (i.e.“obese”) and there is no doubt that would be unhealthy for me. And I’d still only be at the 72%ile, still in the middle half of American males my age group.
Excellent and well researched points,** DSeid.**
This. I’ve always been heavy, but when I was at my lowest, around 140, I had a doctor lecture me up one side and down the other about my weight. To the point that I have a really hard time getting myself to go to a doctor without almost working myself into a panic about it. Which, of course, spikes my BP and then I get that lecture…
This is actually why I don’t have a doctor right now. I start thinking about going and I get the stress reaction going just from that.