Weight

At birth Kayleigh weighed 3.170 kgs, or 6 pound 13 3/4 oz ( close enough to 7 pounds!) and measured 52cm (she was a looooooong baby). As a baby her weight on the baby scale started off a little higher than the average and then flatten out to always be in between the average and the 25% percentile. As a child I neer worried about her weight, she was a very active little girl and she ate everything that was put in front of her without any issues. Kayleigh did have a preference for pasta dishes and roast dinner. as she got into her upper primary school years, I started noticing that she wasn't eating her lunch. I asked Kayleigh and she said she wasn't hungry at lunch time, but she always came home from school and ate things in the cupboard or fridge. I got a little frustrated and then told her to make her own sandwiches if she wasn't going to eat what I had made. I then found that Kayleigh didn't make her lunch at all. I approached her Year 6 teacher and asked her to ensure that Kayleigh was eating her lunch, but she never did, which annoyed me. By this stage Kayleigh was the smallest built girl in the year (and the shortest) but I think from what I know now, Kayleigh stopped eating at school because the other girls teased her and called her fat (!).

In year 7 at High School, I noticed again that she wasn't eating her lunch and I rang up her year group teacher Mr Haidon. He spoke with Kayleigh and figured out that she wasn't eating her sandwiches because they were jam sandwiches, which are high in sugar and in Kayleigh's mind, not healthy. Mr Haidon arranged with the canteen to make Kayleigh salad sandwiches - best thing ever. Kayleigh then ate lunch every day without fail. I told her that if she didn't Mr Haidon would find out and she would get into trouble, but she really enjoyed her (healthy) salad sandwiches so it wasn't an issue. (thank you Mr Haidon!)

When we got the Wii for Christmas that year, it had a BMI calculator built in, and weekly I would get Kayleigh to measure herself. She was always hovering around the bottom of the healthy weight range and many times she slipped into the 'underweight' category - most of these times were just after she grew. The worst measurement she had was 4 kilos under just after she had been sick for a couple of days. I always told her that she was genetically skinny (just look at her dad) but it was important for her to maintain her weight in the healthy category as underweight people, when they get sick, don't have the resources to help them get better faster. I also told her is she stayed under for too long I would take her to the doctor - something she didn't want to do. Kayleigh did take this to heart and tried to ensure that she was above the line.

At her passing, Kayleigh weight just 45 kgs, which with her height of 158 cm (just 4 cm shorter than her dad) put her just above the healthy weight line.