Law require schools to record students BMI

I think they need to look at what the school feeds them for lunch. My 15 year old son says everything is always swimming in grease. It makes him ill sometimes.
 
I don't think it's right. What about kids who are just genetically a little overweight? I think it will give them a complex and make them feel bad about themselves. :(

My brothers always looked a little chubby when they were young. They had bellies that stuck out a little. But as soon as they grew and became teenagers, they leaned out completely. Now they're in their 30's and they are both very lean and muscular.
 
I think it's a bad idea. People in law school have enough to worry about. Their weight is the last thing to worry about in those 3 years of law school. Then again a lot of firms prefer slimmer people. Why? I have no idea. They don't care about the brains as much as appearances.
 
I think it's a bad idea. People in law school have enough to worry about. Their weight is the last thing to worry about in those 3 years of law school. Then again a lot of firms prefer slimmer people. Why? I have no idea. They don't care about the brains as much as appearances.

They double posted my post! Sorry about that :p
 
I'm such a simpleton. It's early in the morning! My friend just informed me it's a law, not law school! Yes, I agree it's ridiculous to have that law but if you look at it, a lot of kids are overweight. I was overweight when I was a kid myself. I think parents should be looked at, too because I know they don't teach their kids how to eat right. Everytime I go out, I see many families at restaurants even on sundays! Whatever happened to family time on sundays with homecooked meals and spend time with each other and relatives??
 
I think it will have very little impact on the parents and their attitudes toward good nutrition, while it has enormous potential to negatively affect the child's self-esteem--and for something that the child has very little control over.

I'm a teacher. I see school lunches every day. The main criteria, in this area, anyway, are that the food is inexpensive, easy to prepare (not enough kitchen help), and something the kids like. Healthful is waaaay at the bottom of the list. That's one strike against the kids. Also, many kids, even very little ones, are unsupervised after school, often for hours a day, and so it goes without saying that their snacking is equally unsupervised. Strike two. And in addition to all that, a majority of the parents don't eat healthfully at home. Strike three. No wonder there's a problem.

I don't think it's necessarily a bad idea to let the parents know about their child's BMI--IF the information is provided in conjunction with better school lunches and education for the children AND their parents. It may affect a few, and a few is better than none.

However, sending the information home on the grade card makes it sound as if the child is being "graded" on his/her body fat, and that is just wrong!

Shari
 
I think it's a wretched, disgusting idea that will only make the kids feel worse than they probably already do about themselves. Very, very bad idea.

Hollie
 
This law's intentions might be well-meaning, but it's follow through is terrible and as Shari put it "just wrong". My bet is that we'll see a discrimination lawsuit in the near future regarding this one.

It seems to me that BMI (or whatever measure) is really part of a child’s health record and should have that kind of confidentiality. It has no place on a report card.
 
Actually, I am not against this move. At some point the individual and the individual's parents who lay down the behaviours the child will follow and practice as an adult, must be held accountable for their own behaviours, actions, and in this case obesity.

I am not talking here of the minority who are genetically predisposed towards being overweight (and I'm not quite sure I even believe this myself, after all, we are all more or less the same at birth), but of the majority who regularly chow down on Macdonalds, drink soda all day long and take no exercise. I refuse to believe as credible the law suits these people bring against fast food outlets claiming they did not know what the consequences of the junk food diet would be.

You have to face it, the US has a major problem: it has developed a highly successful, technological, 21st century society where life, if you have the money, is very easy. And as a result, the US is slowly killing itself because that self same lifestyle leads to ill-health and disease.

Where does the buck stop?

Clare
 
I find this idea horrifying. Even though my kids' BMIs are in the healthy range, as was mine through most of school, I feel for the overweight kids. These people don't think these kids are already informed loudly and every day that they're fat?

As Shari pointed out, these kids have several strikes against them. I would like to add that no school should even consider judging a kid's weight until every single meal the school offers is healthy and until the school has recess AND PE every single day. Until then, schools are failing as much as parents are when it comes to the health of children.

Part of me likes to believe that such a law (as much as I hate it) could end up having a positive benefit... wake up a parent to the danger his or her child is in from excess weight... but I don't think that will happen. And knowing you're fat doesn't mean you'll automatically know how to fix it.

Edited to add: schools have enough problems just educating students... they don't need to take on extra missions at this point. Maybe someday, when there's more funding.
 
'As Shari pointed out, these kids have several strikes against them. I would like to add that no school should even consider judging a kid's weight until every single meal the school offers is healthy and until the school has recess AND PE every single day. Until then, schools are failing as much as parents are when it comes to the health of children.'

I absolutely agree with this point. I would like to add that if we really want to address the epidemic of childhood obesity then fast food vendors and soft drink companies have NO place on a school campus. I work for a school district and routinely see Pizza Hut or Taco Bell offering up food for lunch. Let's see, which would a child choose, Pizza Hut or mystery meat school lunch. Not a very hard choice but one fraught with consequences. I also think soda should be removed from school campuses. Pepsi and Coke both make a variety of other beverages that are far less in calories than their soda products. Why can't they offer those in a vending machine instead?

I think the idea of putting a child's BMI on a public record is abhorant. If a child is dangerously overweight school personnel such as a nurse should invite the parents in to talk about the issue. To parade around a child's BMI could just be devastating to children who already have to deal with so much psychologically and emotionally.

BAD PLAN!!!
 
"I would like to add that if we really want to address the epidemic of childhood obesity then fast food vendors and soft drink companies have NO place on a school campus. I work for a school district and routinely see Pizza Hut or Taco Bell offering up food for lunch. Let's see, which would a child choose, Pizza Hut or mystery meat school lunch. Not a very hard choice but one fraught with consequences. I also think soda should be removed from school campuses. Pepsi and Coke both make a variety of other beverages that are far less in calories than their soda products. Why can't they offer those in a vending machine instead?"


I completely agree with this necessity. Without it, how can we say we are helping kids to learn to make good choices?

Clare
 
It seem to me that schools are being forced to take on more responsibility for "raising" children. Not only are schools supposed to educate, entertain, and occupy, but now they are being asked to monitor the health of our kids. The worst part of it is that the schools are being asked to do so much more, and yet no one is willing to give them more money to do it.
It seems so ironic that concern is being raised about children and obesity, and schools have to turn to corporate sponsors (like Coke and Pepsi) in order to get the money they so desperately need.

Tracy
 
I would like to add that
>if we really want to address the epidemic of childhood obesity
>then fast food vendors and soft drink companies have NO place
>on a school campus. I work for a school district and
>routinely see Pizza Hut or Taco Bell offering up food for
>lunch. Let's see, which would a child choose, Pizza Hut or
>mystery meat school lunch. Not a very hard choice but one
>fraught with consequences. I also think soda should be
>removed from school campuses. Pepsi and Coke both make a
>variety of other beverages that are far less in calories than
>their soda products. Why can't they offer those in a vending
>machine instead?
>

I agree completely! This move, as well as cleaning up the school lunch menu and perhaps offering "fitness for life" classes that would teach kids the right way to exercise and to draw up an individualized fitness program for themselves (rather than torturous standard gym classes, where, at least in my day, you got a good grade if you were already fit, but were never helped along much if you weren't)would go a long way to aleviating the epidemic of childhood obesity.

Unfortunately, the vending machines are a source of income, and the choice of vendors usually depends on how much % they're able to offer the school in return for being allowed to put their machines in the schools. At my university, they vending machines changed over from Coca Cola to whoever owns Pepsi because the latter offered the university a better "kick back". The only half-way decent things (I was going to say "foods", but that's a stretch) that are sold in them are water in the beverage machine and pretzels and nuts in the snack machine.

I'm a bit sceptical about the BMI anyway, as it is another measure based on weight, and doesn't take into account the difference in density between fat and muscle. A well=muscled athlete would have an unhealthily high BMI. Rather, in that "fitness for life" class, kids could learn what their fat percentage is and work on a program to lower it if necessary.

I believe that very few people are genetically destined to be obese: maybe about 5% at most. I don't remember seeing so many overweight people, especially young ones, when I was in grade/jr high/high school.
 
You made a really good point when you mentioned your brothers... children go through hormonal and growth changes at different times, and some of them carry a bit of extra fat in an in between stage. That doesn't necessarily mean that they are doing anything 'wrong' in either their diet or exercise habits. I've been hearing about more and more that studies linking weight to health conditions are being replaced by studies linking exercise and fitness level with health conditions. I think that in the end we will see a stronger connection between fitness and predisposition toward life-threatening illnesses than with weight.

It seems to me that you have a potential here to make an awful lot of kids feel miserable and possibly set them up for eating and appearance issues for the rest of their life when in some cases it may not be necessary. For the children who ARE dangerously obese, do you really think that learning their BMI is going to help much?

I very much agree with the comments about junk food in schools, as well as lack of supervision of snacks at home.

Amanda

P.S. A lot of my opinion is formed because of my own experiences. I developed extremely early, and felt basically like a freak ever since because of only a few years (4th to 8th grade) of looking differently from other kids. It's still hard for me to mentally realize that I'm not a huge, fat whale! :) I think that having a teacher tell me that I was fat would have only made the situation much worse.
 
I don't agree with this at all.As if it isn't bad enough to be sharing your reports cards with your peers to begin with, now you have to see you has the lowest BMI! Being a teenager is harder enough, now they are going to try singling them out even more.What about people that obesity runs in their family? They may be active and still on the higher end of the scale. I think that this is just going to give them more of a complex,in the end none of the results will be good.Soes anyone else remember what it wasl ike to be a teen? Even though I was thin, I wouldn't of wanted to be involved in this.
Lori
 
I have a couple more ideas to add to this discussion.

1) we all seem worried that the child will be traumatized by the BMI being recorded on their report card. Why are we assuming this? How can this information, recorded on a document shared only between the school's admin staff and the parents, maybe also the gym teacher, possibly become public knowledge and therefore a source of public shame?

2) schools have been actively involved in a broad spectrum of care for children for the last 50 years. Schools face federal/state laws to have children's eyes and ears tested at regular intervals and those findings reported to parents on confidential letters, in a sealed envelope, just as report cards arrive in the parents hands, in a sealed envelope (at least they do here in Michigan). So in addition to the school's attention to privacy of communication, we have here the school actively involved in maintenance of good child health. I don't see a whole lot of difference between BMI being recorded and deafness in one ear or chronic short sight being recorded (which has happened to my child). They are both statements to the parents of health concerns that need to be addressed for the child's optimal health to be restored.

3) Why, since schools have already been involved in maintenance of child health, are we so concerned now that they should not be so?
Hilary Clinton believes "it takes a village": whether you like her platitudinous sentiment or not, she has a point: parents alone do not create a healthy citizen of tomorrow.

4.) many schools already police the food and drink offerings available on their school site. My children do not have access on school to either candy, soda, chips, or any junk of that nature.

5) Even if it were available, this parent has no intention of ever giving her kids the money to buy such items. Parents do have control over their children's actions, we do not have to throw up our hands and claim it's not our fault/responsibility or whatever.

6) You cannot lay the blame entirely on schools for the fact that children choose junk food and become obese. I regularly accompany my children on field trips through the school and I am appalled at the contents of the sack lunch of many of the other kids.

In June, I took a discreet, good look at what the other kids were eating: one kid had 3 pouches of capri sun with all the sugar that contains: she drank them all and ate nothing of her sandwich because she was too full. Another kid had an enormous bag of chips, and that's all she had time to eat, in 20 mins. Another kid, sporting, at age 6, a mouth full of metal, pulled out of her lunch a bag of M&M's and shouted "yeah! candy!!" and guess what she ate for lunch? She shunned the rest of her "Lunchables" pre-packaged meal in favour of the candy. This is criminal.

I talked to some of the teachers after the meal was over at the kids' museum field trip and they, mostly mothers themselves, were disgusted, but have no control over what these kids eat for lunch. How can they have?

These kids are learning lessons from their parents about what foods constitute a lunch: chips, candy and sugar drinks. Our example, i.e. what we make available to them routinely, is what they learn from and what they will practice when left to their own devices.

I applaud schools' recording BMI on report cards.

In June, my kids' report cards featured a special 2 page supplement from their gym teacher who I admire and love and chat to on a regular basis. He detailed the fitness tests the kids had taken throughout the year, their aerobic capacity, their strength, agility, balance, co-ordination, and THEIR BMI!!!!!! I was so pleased to receive a report card from the sports teacher. I have talked to him about his sports/gym policies and watched classes in action and I am pleased to report that this man is a model: he teaches gym the way it never was taught to me. The emphasis is on movement, fun, they listen to great blasting pop music throughout the session, kids run about screaming with the fun, the effort, the exhilaration of his lessons. He offers stations arounds the room that target different aspects of fitness: some coordination (throw the ball at this target), some strength (can you shimmy up the rope?), some speed (fartlek short distance speed running), agility (can you spin this hoop around on your hips for a minute?) etc, etc. And if a kid can't shimmy up the rope? No matter, you get to swing on it instead: the mantra: GET MOVING AND DO SOMETHING PHYSICAL NO MATTER WHAT!

We need more gym teachers like this man, and we need schools to get involved on our kids' behalf, because some parents just are not invloved enough. It's the truth.

These are my opinions, I stand by them. You can of course respectfully disagree, but don't blast me for them!

Cheers

CLare
 
I have to reply to this. I live in Benton which is just outside of Little Rock in Arkansas. I was quite suprised to see this in a school newsletter. I do think the overall goal is to keep parents informed. The response has been completely negative from the mom's I have talked to.

I can tell you it blows my mind to see the kids walk by me in line. My son is in third grade and he has many classmates bigger than I am. I realize there are self-esteem issues here and I am sympathetic to these. However, overweight children are the norm here not the exception. There are no candy or coke machines in his school. Parents are not allowed to send fastfood or soda. I think the lunch menus are o.k. they always include a veggie and or a fruit. They could certainly improve.

I am trying to lead my children by example. They know mommy works out because it is important and fun for me. They know I would rather have a nice salad thank junk food. I limit the sugar that is brought into the house to a minimum. It is still a battle to get them to eat healthy.

It will be interesting to see what happens here. I will let you guys know as things occur.
 
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