Yep, I'd piff the scales. Just throw it away. It's not a good indicator of health in kids, in my opinion (or adults often enough!!).

I'd talk about it in terms of energy - is he happy? Healthy? Active? Enjoying things? Doing a variety of activities? Sleeping well? Those are the things I'd be focussing on.

If he's a particularly visual person, it might also help to look at other people's shapes and sizes. Compare a footy player's build to a rugby player's, to a tennis player's, to a runner's, to an actor, to a teacher, etc. They might all have completely different body shapes and wear completely different sized clothes, but it doesn't mean some of them are healthy and some are unhealthy - who knows? They're just different. Health is about so much more than the numbers on the scale.

Coming from someone who has been fretting about being too big or too small since I was 6, I wish my parents had just chucked the scales away, and not brought up my weight at all, because I now look at photos of me then, and realise I was an average sized girl in an average size bunch of kids who was perfectly healthy but always thought there was something wrong, and now I'm trying to unlearn 26 years of mixed pop science and fad dieting tips and absolute rubbish, and get out of the concepts of food being "good" or "bad" and exercise being a chore.

By all means, encourage sports and whatnot - but in terms of activities which are fun and good things to do for general reasons - whether it's social or releasing energy or getting your competitive on, or getting fresh air and sunshine, or whatever.

Completely take the "weight" and "fat" notions out of the equation.

And if you and your hubby are working on losing weight too (and hey - DH and I are doing the 12WBT together this cycle, so I get it!) I'd be trying to not have him exposed to that side of the conversation either. Unless there's something medically wrong, or he's grossly obese (which you're saying isn't the case) I just don't think it's helpful at his age.

Don't beat yourself up about it - you had no way of knowing how he'd react - but a 7yo shouldn't be trying to (let alone getting excited about) losing weight.

Hope you're able to find some good solutions soon - and good luck with your and your husband's steps to get healthier too