Yes, good point. It’s an opportunity for the scouts to address the obesity problem in a productive way.
Thank you for saying this. When a child has known no other way of life besides their current eating habits, when their parents may not KNOW how to eat healthy or may not even be able to afford good food (since many poor families are obese), when there is ample research evidence to suggest that body weight is genetically influenced (twin studies of obesity for example), it is ignorant and cruel to try to make a fat kid feel bad about himself in the hope that he will lose weight.
Guess what? A lot of fat people already hate themselves for being fat. Sometimes instead of making someone try harder to lose weight, the self hatred makes them just give up and stop caring about themselves.
There is also newer research that suggests that obesity itself isn’t unhealthy but sedentary lifestyle that’s the real problem. Exercising regularly seems to protect against a lot of the things that we think of as health consequences of obesity (and not everyone who exercises regularly actually loses weight, it’s worth noting).
If a fat kid is taught that activities involving physical exercise are going to make him feel bad about himself and ashamed of his weight, gee, what do you think is going to happen? Do you think he’s going to grow up to enjoy being active despite his weight, or learn that he shouldn’t even try exercising because of short-sighted idiots who will use the occasion to make him feel self conscious and ashamed?
Most people nowadays have enough sense to know that alcoholism is more complicated than telling an alcoholic “Just put the beer down!”. I hope that someday people wise up enough to understand that obesity is more complex than “Just put the cheeseburger down”. There are genetic and environmental factors that people don’t have conscious control over that often are a huge part of both diseases.
Weight is critical to zip lining, but BMI is irrelevant. For example, if the max a ride is rated for is 250 lbs, then that would put the nix on 260 lb world heavyweight champion boxer Primo Carnera despite his having been incredibly ripped, whereas it would be OK for a five and a half foot tall person with a BMI of 40 and a weight of 247 lbs.
Weight is of limited significance to class I rafting, but is easily mitigated by where the other rafters are placed in the raft so as to keep it balanced. Bear in mind that fat floats and than any trip plan for young inexperienced paddlers must assume that they will not be able to self-rescue.
Obviously I was cherry picking from the activities offered at the jamboree, but then that’s the point. The jamboree should, and does, have numerous activities that very fat children could participate in without being at risk, so they should not be banned from attending the jamboree solely based on BMI.
Describe the activities and the anticipated physical demands of each activity, and leave it to doctors to make the call for each potential participant based on risk.
A jamboree is an opportunity to help grossly overweight children to be part of a more active environment, and should not be used to isolate overweight children from their non-overweight peers.
This makes a lot of sense if the purpose of working up to going to a jamboree is to have a better time at the jamboree.
This does not make sense if the purpose of working up to going to a jamboree is to avoid being prohibited from attending the jamboree, for the obvious solution at troop level would be to discourage or fail to encourage very fat children from joining in the first place, so that there would be no problem of a child being left behind when it comes to jamboree time.
Scouting should be inclusionary rather than exclusionary. It should help children develop, rather than socially cull them.
With childhood obesity skyrocketing, the Boy Scouts are in the perfect position to do something about it by encouraging these kids to move and educating them on nutrition. In turn they could go to the store with their parents and educate THEM. Teach these kids to cook healthy meals for their families. Heck, all kids could benefit from that.
Why won’t they?? What jerks for excluding these kids who probably already have self-esteem issues.
i think there are quite a few things in scouts that are optional.
a non, beginning or intermediate swimmer would not be allowed to try the mile swim.
i think parts of a jamboree are physically challenging and in a remote location. you don’t want medical emergencies or others being held back from activities because some participants are not prepared.
sure there are stories of scouts giving first aid and evacuating injured scouts but it is not something you want to do.
It seems like they could offer a few events at Jamboree that aren’t as strenuous. I posted earlier that Scouting was never a big physical fitness organization when I was in it. Pitching a tent and making a campfire doesn’t exactly require an athlete. Nor does short one hour hikes in the woods or swimming in a lake.
If they want to offer more strenuous stuff like rappelling and other mountain skills that’s great. But not everyone likes heights. People with acrophobia and the obese need activities too.
If there are activities that have weight restrictions for equipment safety reasons (like zip line harnesses), of course it makes sense to enforce those weight restrictions. But everything else should be open.
People concerned with the increasing incidence of childhood obesity point to decreased physical activity as much as dietary problems. But some of these people then want to officially ban the same kids they claim to be so concerned about from participating in physical activity!
I linked to four examples of them doing exactly that.
When I went to the Jamboree, there were no computers or “Legos”. If such abominations crept in, I assume the new location was specifically designed to exclude these events to focus on the core outdoor program.
Even a zip line can be a challenge, especially when once must climb a forty foot telephone pole to get to the start (no, there are no stairs!).
The Jamboree is being held at a new location this year. For the past 30 years, it was held at an army training facility, with a fully developed road network to allow shuttle buses, and centrally located facilities. The base was also mostly flat, because much of it was forested wetland. Large fields were clear cut out of the woods to provide camping locations near the activities.
The new location is out in the mountains, and is designed as a year round “high adventure” base. It is designed to provide a physically strenuous experience. Camps are further apart to preserve intact forest land. Facilities and events are also spread around. While I imagine there are service roads throughout, they are not necessarily appropriate for bus service, and I image they wish to discontinue the bus service to provide a more rugged outdoor experience.
Not convinced. I know nothing about jamborees but my experience with other activities let me think that what will happen is that at best people will have to be diverted from their regular duties to take care of the problem and at worst, the event will be seriously disrupted or interrupted (well…at the very worst, the strenuous effort will result in a medical emergency and evacuation, in fact).
If I were in charge of all or part of the organization of said event, I’m not convinced at all that I would try to be all inclusive. You just know that people will try to take part in things they can’t do/handle and that it is going to be seriously disruptive for everybody if you let them.
Sorry, I didn’t see that your comment consisted of four links. So have the kids work on those badges at jamboree. It’s a perfect time to go in-depth on them.
I get the impression that Jamboree is definitely not the time to work on badges like that. And reading through those, it doesn’t seem like their all that intensively-physical-camp-specific either.
If there’s a problem, you have thousands of eager scouts there to help. It’ll be a learning experience. After all, the whole point of the event is to get people to work together to solve problems. Why not give them the added challenge of helping out some fat kids?
If you’ve been rafting or on a zip line you would know that participation is restricted to people in good health, just like roller coasters.
Rafting in class l rapids hardly demands a high level of fitness.
There are no rapids in class 1. But there may be swimming and rescues if inexperienced rafters get dumped. Which requires a certain level of good health and physical agility.
Which the Boy Scouts are NOT testing for! They are simply assuming that anyone heavy can’t make the grade, and everyone who isn’t heavy can. And you know what they say about assumptions…
No, the Boy Scouts aren’t excluding heavy kids. Kids with a BMI of 40 aren’t heavy, they have a host of medical condition not the least of which is a limited range of motion and inexperience with strenuous exercise.