Student's Body Fat % on Report Cards

[kddani]

heard this on the radio this morning, found a *very* brief article http://www.kxan.com/Global/story.asp...1&nav=0s3dVVLw

statelawmaker in Texas is trying to get a student's body fat % put on their report cards.

What do you think?

[PhiPsiRuss]

Is there a public fat circling ceremony? There really needs to be one.

[Lady Pi Phi]

Has humiliation ever helped anyone lose weight? I would really like to know the statistics on it. If it's such an effective tool, no one would be overweight because they woiuldn't want to be put through such pain.
All humiliation does is cause warped eating habits. A person will starve themself in public and binge in private. I personally feel that humiliation will cause nothing but an eating disorder.
Why do people think this will work?

[PhiPsiRuss]

Originally posted by Lady Pi Phi
Why do people think this will work?

Maybe because its easier than pulling candy vending machines out of schools.

[carnation]

The cheer coach at my daughters' high school was real big on trying to humiliate them into losing weight. She'd weigh them in and loudly announce their weight. One girl developed anorexia during her senior year and last I heard, still has it....hottytoddy, if you see this, you know who I mean.

There is NO reason to humiliate people.

[KillarneyRose]

Originally posted by carnation
The cheer coach at my daughters' high school was real big on trying to humiliate them into losing weight. She'd weigh them in and loudly announce their weight. One girl developed anorexia during her senior year and last I heard, still has it....hottytoddy, if you see this, you know who I mean.

There is NO reason to humiliate people.

Reminds me of the drill team at my high school. The choreographer/director was some washed-up never-was Rockette type who allowed the dancers to weigh 100 pounds for five feet of height and 2 pounds for every additional inch.

Several of my friends were pretty, healthy girls who turned into walking skeletons for the "honor" of shaking their sequin-covered asses during halftime

[Munchkin03]

Originally posted by carnation
The cheer coach at my daughters' high school was real big on trying to humiliate them into losing weight. She'd weigh them in and loudly announce their weight. One girl developed anorexia during her senior year and last I heard, still has it....hottytoddy, if you see this, you know who I mean.

There is NO reason to humiliate people.

That sounds like my rowing team in college. Because I worked out 4 hours a day after class, and because I ate (and drank!) with all the rower boys, my "freshman 15" was more like 30 lbs. of muscle. When it became evident that I wasn't really going to drop anymore weight...things went downhill fast.

[DeltAlum]

Originally posted by carnation
There is NO reason to humiliate people.

Which is all that needs be said.

[James]

Would it humiliate people? The kid dosn't have to show the report card to anyone but his parents.

Is it more humiliating than a F-grade?

It seems more like an invasion of privacy issue and something that is not what schools are there to do.

[33girl]

Originally posted by James
Would it humiliate people? The kid dosn't have to show the report card to anyone but his parents.

I remember always comparing report cards though, and if you made a big deal out of not, everyone would bug you about it.

This would be much more humiliating than getting bad grades, IMO. They need to go back to decent lunches and disallow kids from drinking pop in school.

[Lady Pi Phi]

Originally posted by 33girl
I remember always comparing report cards though, and if you made a big deal out of not, everyone would bug you about it.

This would be much more humiliating than getting bad grades, IMO. They need to go back to decent lunches and disallow kids from drinking pop in school.

I agree...but it's not just pop. Juices have just as much sugar in them as pop does. They need to remove the junk food from the cafeterias. My highschool serves Pizza Pizza (an Ontario pizza chain). Other highschools had Tim Hortons and other fast food outlets. They are loading up the cafeterias with corporations and they aren't serving healthy lunches. I think schools should only offer healthy lunches or get rid of a cafeteria all together. That way kids are forced to bring their lunch or go off campus. And if parents are the ones providing the lunch money they might be less inclined to give them money so they have to leave school on their lunch hour.

[sugar and spice]

The problem with the "There's no need to humiliate people" argument is that plenty of parents DO NOT realize that their kids are unhealthy. Or how unhealthy they are. Especially if the parents are obese themselves.

I totally understand the paranoia about enforcing unhealthily low weights, or publically announcing weight in gym class (I was weight-conscious by age 9 -- I still remember comparing my weight to every other girl's in the class when our gym teacher announced weights out loud in fourth and fifth grade). But this isn't something that public, nor is it designed to humiliate kids or promote anorexia. It's designed to let people know that having a BMI of 32 at age 12 isn't safe.

The problem with healthier lunches and removing soda machines is that it doesn't matter what you're providing when the attitudes towards food are coming from home. Many school districts have mentioned that they've tried to serve healthier lunches and KIDS WON'T BUY THEM. Or kids are bringing their own unhealthy lunches from home. It's not the school's fault -- by the time the kids get there, they've already been inundated with messages (mostly from parents) on what's acceptable to eat and what's not.

[carnation]

I think that most parents won't care about the BMI. If their kid is overweight, they either know it already or they're so deep in denial that they'll ignore it. I can't think of one set of parents who would go, "Whoa! What a shock! Could my kid be overweight?" if they got a card that had a high BMI.

Sad, but true.

[James]

You could just make it a peer-vote. Have three categories:

Too-skinny
Average range
Fat

The teacher could hold up silhouettes as examples and have a show of hands.

Then they just add that notation to the report card . . . and send it home.

[sugar and spice]

Originally posted by carnation
I think that most parents won't care about the BMI. If their kid is overweight, they either know it already or they're so deep in denial that they'll ignore it. I can't think of one set of parents who would go, "Whoa! What a shock! Could my kid be overweight?" if they got a card that had a high BMI.

Sad, but true.

This is what you'd hope, but it's not true. There have been plenty of studies done that show that many, many people who are overweight or even obese think that they're perfectly healthy, and that often this carries on down to their kids (people who are overweight and don't realize it usually also don't realize it when their kids are overweight). They just look around and think, "Oh, he looks like half the other kids in his class, so he must be normal," not realizing that half the other kids in his class are overweight too.