Your kid's getting a B in math -- oh, and he's fat.

The BBQ Pit
81

I think I actually agree with you, here. Even to the usefulness of shame. The problem is that I believe is that there is no way to impose shame on someone from the outside. Shame, by it’s very nature is an emotion that one feels because of standards that one has accepted, and a percieved divergence between those standards, and one’s own actions. It is possible to educate, and try to change standards, but, the emphasis there should be education, not holding up people to an arbitrary, and flawed, standard like the BMI.

I don’t really see this proposal as being an attempt to educate, however. I see it as an attempt to open up more ridicule, and that has no useful purpose. As other posters have mentioned, beginning with making the school meals more healthy would be a much better first step. And don’t put this information on the report card. Mail it seperately to the parents.

82

Not everything on your wish list, but still:

83

There are some parents who see a D on a report card, and say “time for more homework in that subject.” And there are others who say “well, I guess Johnny just isn’t cut out for math.”

Likewise, there are some parents who will see a 50 BMI and say “time for more exercise and a better diet”, and there will be some who say “I already know Johnny’s fat; get off my back.”

Obesity is quickly becoming a very serious health problem in our society of plenty. Putting BMI (or some other measure) on a report card is an excellent idea. Obviously, just posting the BMI isn’t enough, guidence on how to fix a problem is important as well. And I’m sure they’re doing that in this case.

Granted some parents (and some kids) will feel they’re being dumped on (observe some of the responses in this thread), but the rational ones will be driven to do something about it, thereby improving their heath and their self-esteem.

The saddest part of all this is the people who argue against something positive like this that can improve health and self-esteem in our childrern when ironically they suffer the worst from both.

84

(bolding mine)

Do you people listen to yourselves? This is exactly the reasoning of the Inquisition:

Can you even see the similarities, you fucking twits? Or are you so blinkered by your oh-so-holy quest that you don’t even recognize pain anymore?

Oh, and Bill H.? Fuck you! Fuck you sidewise! Do you like telling rape victims that it’s their fault, too? If I’m irrational, I think I’ve made it pretty goddamed clear that at least part of the blame goes to people like you who thought pain, humiliation and ridicule was in my best interest. Fuck you and your ‘it’s just for their own good’ thinking. I hope you learn, sometime, just how painful universal opprobation can be.

Oh, and did you miss the parts where I’d mentioned that I had been at a healthy weight, scumstain? Can you explain how it is that I’m no longer there, if your universal scorn is supposed to be so fucking beneficial?

85

Jeez are we reading the same post? He didn’t mention anything about pain, humiliation or ridicule.

First off if a parent knowing the childs BMI is akin to torture to the child there is something seriously wrong there and it is not the school telling the parent.

Second off your analogy breaks down in that there is nothing wrong with not being a christian but there are plenty of things wrong with being overweight.

Again the report card is a secure form of transporting information and a childs BMI is certainly an important piece of information. The supporters of this proposal don’t want to do this so everyone can point and laugh at the fat kid. They are doing it becuase these obese children are losing decades off their lives not to mention the lessened quality of the years they will live due to disease.

86

OtakuLoki wrote

Just because you’re completely out of control in your own life, don’t assume that it’s healthy or loving to encourage others to grow up or live that way.

The fact that you learned some very bad habits as a child that drove your self-esteem into the gutter should make you try to ensure that others have a better life, not drag them down so they can wallow with you.

I feel sorry for you, but not because you’re overweight or don’t think highly of yourself. I feel sorry for you because you’re selfish and vindictive.

87

treis, it certainly seems to me that he embraces those tactics, if only implicitly. Of course, according to him, it’s my fault, because obviously, my self-image is completely the fault of bad habits I learned as a child. So, of course, whatever pain I feel is my own fault. Which is the reasoning of an inquisition torturer. The situations are not 100% identical, of course, no analogy is going to be an exact match - but, frankly, any reasoning that advocates pain and psychological torture in pursuit of its goals is evil, and not fun evil, like Scylla’s.

And I’ve yet to see one person offer any argument why report cards are secure communications. We’ve had people question the claims that they are secure, but the closest claim to security was made by OxyMoron, and I’m afraid that doesn’t really stand up to the counter-claims by the teachers who have posted on this topic agreeing that report cards are not secure.

And what you, and some nameless others, can’t seem to recognize is that my opposition is based on two things: putting this information on report cards, and questions about how effectively the schools will do this measurement. I’m not claiming that some kind of measurement to determine at-risk children shouldn’t be made. I’m not saying that there isn’t a logical reason for this to be done through or by the schools. I’m not denying the adverse health effects of obesity.

All I’m adamant about is keeping this information private. Which you, and several other posters, have waffled all over the place about, with claims that report cards are private, then that obesity isn’t exactly a secret, then that even though it isn’t a secret the information still has to be sent to the parents, 'cause they may have blinded themselves to the facts.

Oh, and Bill H., way to avoid answering the question I actually hoped you’d answer. :smiley:

88

I don’t think the benefits to posting BMI on a report card are going to outweigh the negatives. Some of you are underestimating the competitiveness of children, which can be downright vicious at times and is often counterproductive to self-esteem (a necessary ingredient to losing and keeping weight off, I might add). I also don’t see it helping parents much either. If a parent is clueless about the health of their kid–especially when the kid is so overweight that type 2 diabetes is only a donut and a can of Coke away–I can’t see them having a wake-up calll just by a BMI score on a report card. If someone can delude themselves into thinking a 150 lbs fourth grader is normal, it’s quite conceivable that they will delude themselves into thinking a high BMI is simply the product of “big bones”.

Sending this information (in addition to other health-related statistics) home in a letter to the parents sounds like a better idea.

89

Whomever’s fault it is it surely won’t be the school nor is grading a child on their body akin to torture.

Lets see IIRC correctly all of my report cards at least since middle school were mailed directly home. Not to mention failing a class would be a much much larger social stigma than being overweight at least in my case. Perhaps your view is a bit distorted?

Then how do you suggest we doing it?

90

IMO, screening height and weight as suggested by irishgirl, and other health screenings are a good idea. In Washington they still do hearing, vision and scoliosis screenings (I don’t know if they still do height and weight–they did when I was kid). The information gathered in these screenings is mailed to the parents, which provides some privacy and helps ensure that the parents actually see it–when I got my kids report cards, I was looking at their grades and GPA. I don’t know that I’d be looking for health information on a notice of academic performance.

To further ensure medical privacy (hell, academic privacy as well), I would strongly suggest that student office workers not be involved in mailouts of student-specific information.

Speaking as a former student, report cards are not private. Speaking as a former high school student office worker–probably nothing about a student is really private. I saw everyone’s files; they put me to work posting test scores in student’s permanent records. I knew every comment a teacher or administrator had ever made on a student’s file or report card for that student’s entire history in the school district. In the district did things right, I knew about every school they had ever gone to. I knew everything about everybody. I especially knew what everybody thought about me. :rolleyes: (Thanks, Mr. Ruddell and Mr. K; fuck off Mr. Noell.)

Some of my student co-workers were in working the office because they were removed from a class, others were there because they were someone’s “pet” and it was an easy ‘A’, I imagine some were even there because they planned on working in an office someday and thought they might learn something. I was suspended during regular registration and ended up in all kinds of weird classes as well as working in the office–they didn’t have anywhere else to put me during that period and they thought they could keep an eye on me there. A student they thought needed watching was allowed to look at students’ permanent files; I could have tampered with any one of them (though I never gave into temptation). My high school administration may not have been filled with the brightest folks.

As a total aside, how is this allowable under HIPAA medical privacy regulations? If we are saying this is a health issue, then how is reporting this in a way that can easily be made public in compliance with those regs? Are schools exempt from HIPAA requirements? All rhetorical questions, just something to think about.

91

OtakuLoki, you’re becoming shrill and obtuse, ascribing motives where none exist.

Is it sucky because you were teased because of your weight as a child? Yes.

Does that have any bearing on if a program designed to get parents involved in the health and well being of their children is a good idea? No.

While you, personally, may not have benefited from such a program, based on your descriptions of the horror of your childhood, I can’t imagine such a program would have made it worse any worse.

However, for someone else, this program could be very beneficial.

If you could quit focusing on yourself for two minutes and actually think about this rationally, you would see that.

92

Actually I was thinking about this too. Obviously privacy sems the major concern here. I would suggest that whoever is actually doing the measurements (who I assume would be a medical professional of some sort) keep his records separate from the school and merely submit sealed records for inclusion in a report card mailing.

Problem solved??

93

Schools certainly have access to some medical records, such as vaccination records and results from annual physicals, etc. But those are provided by the parents. Possibly they would need to get written permission to take whatever measurements they are taking.

94

Sounds good to me.

95

I just had a physical a few weeks ago. My BMI 25.8. The doctor marked off borderline overweight. The very next line of the report had %body fat- 8.7. :dubious:

I run 5 miles a day 5 days a week. Lift weights for about an hour 6 days a week and play hockey for 3 hours twice a week. The doctor never lifted his eyes off my chart to actually look at me and said,“You probably need to start getting some more exercise.” I laughed and walked out.

My point is not only that bmi sucks but that doctors don’t necessarily pay attention when they do a hundred of these every day.

96

This happened to me, too, after I had run my third marathon, although my doctor was smart enough to actually look at me. My BMI registered at 28%. I’m a 5’9" woman and fit into a size 10-12. My doctor told me that, even though my BMI suggested I was heavy, he couldn’t classify me as overweight because of all the exercise I did and the way I looked. I’m not exceptionally ropy or anything, but I have a lot of definition in my legs, and my stomach has some cuts (though I’ll admit in the last year they’ve become less visible due to slight weight gain - something I’m working on correcting).

He admitted that BMI is often an inaccurate calculation of fatness, especially in adult athletes because people who are very athlethic can sometimes be far heavier than those who are very sedentary because of sheer muscle mass. I imagine that children would be more accurately measured by BMI simply because they don’t usually have really developed muscles from endurance training. Still, I’m not a doctor and that’s just my opinion.

I think it’s important for parents to be aware of their children’s health, though I’m not certain I’d expect the schools to make them aware of it. Perhaps it’s a good idea since so many parents expect schools to basically raise their children, but it sure seems like it ought to be the parents’ responsibility to maintain their kids’ health, and not the school’s.

97

In Ontario I would probably have a physiotherapist do an overall assessment- more appropriate than an MD for this task.

98

Normally I would go to a physiotherapist or something similar on my own but this was a work related required physical. Not much choice of where I go so I don’t put much credence in it. Apparently neither did he.

99

Here in NY the school sends us things in the mail all the time. Things like:
*
Dear Parent:
The last immunization record we got on your kid says he hasn’t got all his shots. Show us he’s had them or we kick him the fuck outta school.
*

Ok, not exactly like that but that is the message that they are sending and they mean it. I don’t see why there can’t be a similar letter–
*
Dear Parent:
Your kid’s BMI is 19%. He’s getting too fat. We thought you should know.*

Putting it on a report card is pretty much the stupidest way to disseminate this information. The most stupidest being to post it on a billboard.

The only thing you accomplish by shaming fat children is making fat kids feel bad. Maybe a little boost to your ego and a good laugh thrown in. Plus maybe a punch in the head if you tried to shame this fat kid. Even worse, people in this thread are advocating these children’s parents to heap a little shame on their fat kid’s heads. And then chastise the fat kids when they get defensive! Anyone who thinks shame is a good idea is wrong.

It is bad to be fat. Fat people know this. Really. Now let’s start doing things that we know work and not continue to do things that don’t.

100

Two questions: Does verbalizing worry about weight = shaming? Should parents feel guilty about acting on their child’s “shape”?