If a specific example Dinosaur mentioned is not an exception, and an average size kid told to be “in danger of becoming overweight” happens to be a pre-teen or a teenage girl, could it be just what she needs to become anorexic? This is of course completely uninformed concern – not being a doctor and not having kids, what do I know.

In general, I don’t have that much trust in this type of bureacratic solutions. Like zero tolerance policies for example, they often have completely unintended bad effects. Like in a modern Russian saying “we wanted to make it better, but it turned out as it always does”.

Wouldn’t a good physical education program and better school cafeteria menu as well as no vending machines with soda do more good? What is the point of checking kids BMI if the only thing sold in the cafeteria are french fries and hamburgers and soda?

Now lets talk about infidelity. You want to talk about fat kids, I want to talk about what diseases you are out spreading about that my premiums and taxes are paying to cure. I want to know exactly what you do every time you leave your house. if you go out drinking and get in a car accident…Sorry, I dont want my premiums or taxes paying for injuries you received from getting drunk. If you get yourself a case of STD I also dont want any part of my health ins premiums to pay for your cure. Actually, if a person is found to have repeat STDs I think that should be monitored and put in a public record. They are a health risk and the public has a right to know who you are.

In other words mind your own business. The size of any one’s child is not your business. Clean up your own health first. good God, are we so sorry that we actually think we have the right to do this to children.

Most of us, including my self, were rather unremarkable slender but adequately nourished specimens in reasonably good shape.

I remember just feeling so sorry for the fat kids. Extraodinary weights of the fat kids were a source of amusement. Weights were keenly observed by kids and comparisons made, and the standouts made to suffer a good deal of humiliation. “big Bertha’s” and “fat Fred’s” scale readings, called out for recording, for all to hear, became the chatter of the day, whispered among the politer children, but with plenty of howling jeers and derisive hoots from the raucous bad boys among the ruder children who made themselves important calling out the official heft of the fatties.

The tooth decay kids also had a hard time of it.

Kids compared and were so brutal to the ones the adults were trying to single out.

I don’t think it did anyone any good, except for maybe the ones with blet marks and ricketts.

You think report cards won’t get compared, or that crafty mean girls won’t make sure to find out martha dump-trucks weight and have some fun with it?

Now the question is whether the school has any business dictating the size of a child. If somehow they do, the question becomes how to identify children who might actually need such a dramatic intervention. If they find some foolproof way of doing that, then there is the question of whether they can design a program that actually helps the child’s fitness (and prevents the horrific bullying a child would receive if it were widely know the child attended such a program).

Has there been any meaningful discussion of the first question? Not really, school districts just jump on the bandwagon without discussing this with parents. Then they test children by arbitrary and deliberately broad measures to “prove” the necessity of the program. Then they force/encourage children to attend workshops that are shown to make little to no improvement to whatever “weight problem” they might have been said to have.

I find it sad that so many people out there seem eager to have schools judge a child on his or her physical attributes instead of intellectual ability. What I find even sadder is that they want to do this without any clear evidence that the children will benefit from these shame-inducing programs.

If you pay all your medical costs by cash out of your own pocket, don’t plan to recieve any public assisted disability, then go for it and stuff your face with the rest of the gluttons down at the Chuckwagon.

uh, wrong.

if you’ve ever worked in primary care you know that you should NEVER assume that anyone, even at 300 lbs., is aware that they are overweight and that this has health implications.