Fat Report Card (renting, health insurance, home)

[LeavingMA]

Has anyone heard this story or read about this? I'm against the fat report card thing to begin with, and the BMI index is also very unreliable. It had Michael Jordan being considered fat even though he had around 4% body fat.

FOXNews.com - Mass. Parents Angry Over Kids Sent Home With 'Fat Reports'

[NEOhioBound]

I am not cool with this at all! First of all, why aren't schools actually teaching anymore? I don't care what state it is, but schools are more tied up with their time on "classes" that have nothing to do with reading, writing, math, science, ect. They are more concerned with "teaching" our children things that should be handled by the parents

And for the schools, the SAME schools, to send these out, you know, the schools that do away with recess and gym class- what a slap in the face to the students

[miu]

I didn't know about this, but I do feel that it's appalling how many young children are so overweight these days. When I look back at pictures of my classmates back in grade school, we were all very skinny. There was only a couple of kids that were overweight. Now being pudgy is normal.

Just a couple of months ago, I worked a dinner event where the husband was trim, but his wife and two young children were overweight. And the wife asked me if her children could eat off the buffet early since they were hungry. Her son had a pot belly and the body profile of a fat middle aged man. It was very upsetting to see this family. I really wanted to say something to the parents about their fat kids, but of course it wasn't my place to do so. And their weight issues do affect me as their unhealthy lifestyle will require medical treatment and up everyone's health insurance premiums in the future.

Seeing bad parenting in action always upset me.

[smarty]

When I measure my pants, it is 2 inches wider than stated. A way for manufacturer to keep us skinny and feel good.
Daily recommend calories intake... Female (1400) Male (2400)
20oz coke classic - 250 calories.
Starbucks Caffè Vanilla Frappuccino - 300 calories
DD Coffee Coolatta® with Cream small - 400 calories (Large - 800 calories)

All you can eat buffet... (Chinese or Brazilian)... you can imagine!

Pick your calories wisely!

[baystater]

Body composition methods

BMI is a joke but very cheap that's why it's still done. Calipers are also relatively cheap but their accuracy is only as good as the person using the calipers.

To be honest if the state/country really cared they would spend the money on a truly accurate method of measuring body composition. But that is expensive and as the economy stands right now I don't think any of the states but two could actually afford to do that.

Folks while I know that unhealthy/obese kids are going to lead to major problems in a lot of aspects in our society (economic, social, health related issues.) I think we know that our governments (at all levels) on this issue can only be effective as a health promotion machine (information). Really in the end it is the role of the individual families and the communities that, that family lives in to effect changes in rates of obesity of children of Massachusetts/U.S.

[ogre]

When I was a kid, we used to have annual vision and hearing screening in school. One might have had the opinion that this was outside the parameters of what schools should concern themselves with, but this was a limited involvement in students' personal health matters. Schools still had the mission primarily of teaching academic subjects, not trying to intervene in a wide variety of personal issues involving their students. We also had gym, and, up through eighth grade, recess. It seems now that schools are getting too involved in looking out for their students' entire lives, instead of staying focused on teaching academic subjects.

The expansion of what educators see as their mission into an increasing involvement in students' personal affairs is something that makes this "fat report card" different from the old vision and hearing tests. Those screenings were not part of an overall expansion into areas beyond the traditional scope of education. These BMI reports seem like an attempt by the schools to really intrude on the parenting role. At least with hearing and vision tests, the schools were alerting perents to potential problems that are not always readily apparent, so the parents might not have been aware of them. If a child is overweight, parents will know this. All they have to do is look at the child's appearance. Parents don't need the school telling them whether their children need to lose weight. The parents already know this.

Parents may not even be getting correct assessments from the schools on this matter, if BMI is the criterion for judging whether a child's weight is healthy. As has already been pointed out, BMI is not a very reliable way to determine whether a person is at a good weight, since it takes into account only weight, not the form the weight takes. At least as long as the vision and hearing tests were correctly administered, they were accurate. If a kid could not hear the beeps or read the chart, it could be assumed with good reliability that this kid had some sort of issue with hearing or eyesight. BMI as a measure of a healthy weight is nowhere near as reliable an indicator of the health issue being screened.

So, basically what you have here is schools moving well outside the teaching of academic subjects that has traditionally been their mission, taking over responsibilities that really belong to parents, telling parents what the parents already know about their children's weight if the parents simply open their eyes, and basing it all on a highly unreliable test. Yep, seems like a very fine use of the schools' resources.

[CaseyB]

I agree with you ogre - at least the hearing and vision tests were related to how well you were able to learn. This seems to be beyond the scope of what the school's role is.

This article refers to a 9 year old girl who hasn't gone through puberty yet. It's not unusual to be chubby before that happens. In a few years, she may have an entirely different shape, due to a growth spurt.

[ogre]

That's another excellent point, Casey. The vision and hearing tests related directly to a child's ability to learn in school, so they really did have a close connection to a school's traditional mission. That's another key difference between those tests and the attempt by educators to usurp the parental role of being responsible for children's overall well-being.

[HenryAlan]

Originally Posted by CaseyB

I agree with you ogre - at least the hearing and vision tests were related to how well you were able to learn. This seems to be beyond the scope of what the school's role is.

Vision and hearing are not the only health indicators that impact learning. I see nothing wrong with adding other fairly quick and easy metrics to the physical fitness component of education. BMI, of course, is a crock of ****, but it can at least indicate a trend. A lot of kids are fat because parents don't know how to make healthy choices for them. Many parents aren't even aware that they are endangering their children. The school's primary mission is education, but for many kids, the traditional 3 Rs is not enough. Shouldn't we try to help them and reach them through other means when necessary?

[CaseyB]

I saw that little girl on the news, and she's not fat.