And what about an "adult obesity bill"? Why stop at kids? And there are a lot of obese pets out there, too. (I've read it on the net - about cats that are obese cos they eat those cat biscuits which are just basically grain and they get addicted to them and then fat). So, I say we need an "obese pets bill", too.

My husband is a school teacher here in Germany and he has the same problem: what with having to have meetings about "conflict management" and "building social competence" etc etc, he has hardly any time left to get on with teaching the actual school subjects (history and English), he's supposed to teach!

Let the teachers and schools do the teaching of kids and the parents do the raising of kids is what I say! This state interference just makes some parents lazy: they think they don't have to do anything any more cos the schools will do it all!

amandawood

Amanda, I would hope they use the results of the weigh ins to improve PE classes and health education. When I was in grade school, we had PE class for 1 hour everyday. Now, my 3rd grader has it for 20 minutes 2 or 3 times a week. That's not enough! The problem is that the schools pack so much carriculum on these kids now, they don't have time for all the classes. My 6th grader has PE everyday but it's not a full hour.

Luckily, my kids are in sports and karate to help keep them active.

Here's a question: if you see a classroom with 30% of the kids overweight then why do you need to weigh them to find out if they are overweight? Did people suddenly become blind? I don't think so.

There are already tons of statistics showing that kids are overweight and getting more overweight. Weighing kids at school won't change that, nor does it address the problem.

If you want legislation that addresses the problem then that legislation needs to be geared towards school nutrition and activity, not at simply getting more numbers to tell us what our eyes already see and is shouted by headlines and news broadcasts. Instead, the argument here seems to be support legislation that doesn't address the problem and hope it will lead to something positive.

Exactly - it's data collection with no meaningful use of the data to solve the problem....much like glucose monitoring - if you merely collect the data (do blood sugar testing) without making effective changes in your diet, the data collection is a useless, time consuming endeavor that doesn't do anything but waste your time despite giving you something to create an action to solve (change the diet). Data alone is useless unless you do something with it!

Weighing kids is data collection too - with no meaningful solution proposed on how to use the data, it's a time consuming endeavor and a waste of resources (both human resources and financial) that could be better spent elsewhere in the education system - a system which constantly reminds us they're already financially strained and in dire need of more personnel....yet they're going to waste resources on this? Ugh.

All these people that are okay with this data collection on their kids - would you be okay with that data being collected on you, too? Let's introduce a bill where you have to be weighed each annually, say when you renew your driver's licence. No self-disclosure, we'll take you privately to a back office to weigh you. It's private and I'm sure the nurses we hire at all the locations won't make smart aleck remarks to you about too many Twinkies when they weigh you. Then various government bodies can have access to the data for whatever they want it for.

There's no difference, is there?

That would be silly ValerieL, but I wouldn't care. I can defend myself if I need to. I don't understand all the complaining about ammending a curriculum to help stop an obesity epidemic. Why would it be so awful for a parent to possibly be made aware that the diet a child is on can cause pain, abuse and health risks ? Why would it be wrong to change your lifestyle to positively benefit your child by maybe taking a walk together instead of feeding them a cinnamon bun? I like the idea of it being made more personal. Numbers submitted by a government without educating the parents won't change the food rewards given by parents of overweight children. What I don't understand is, if everyone makes fun of an overweight child, when they are tormented daily, why isn't it a top priority as a family to change habits so their child doesn't have to endure that? To me it isn't any different then treating a child for cancer. The sad bottom line is that many parents would rather give their kid a treat than to change anything because it is easier.

There is one thing certain: when 'management' begins collecting specifics, it is because they intend to do something with them.

Currently, we already have general statistics; around 30% of the children are overweight. Currently, the BMI is based on an actual scale -- a simple piece of paper you can send home saying, "If Jenny is 4'11" and she weighs more than 110 lbs, she is overweight." (Or whatever.)

In theory, Phys Ed would be doing this already. Except my kid doesn't have phys ed any more. I had to choose between art and Phys Ed. Seriously -- we didn't do the signup for classes like I did, her middle school was like this:

Classes
Band or Choir
Art or PhysEd
those were the only choices.

At the moment, if your child misses too much school per semester -- and since money is tied to this, the schools have gotten more fanatical about this -- you can be on the state list of child abusers. It's "educational neglect." Is this because they are concerned your child can't read? Hardly. It's because the schools make money when your kid is there, so they want them to be there.

Now, imagine that you've got a specific list of every child in the school and exactly "how much" beyond the BMI-On-Paper they are. Does it come to declaring all those parents "child abusers" for alleged "nutritional neglect" because their children are fat? Can the school system then petition for 'extra money' for 'education' related to nutrition, which in practice might amount to little more than yet more indoctrination, like they've been doing to my kid for years, on why she MUST avoid fat and eat ALL the whole grains and fiber she can?

The point of collecting general statistics is for making general decisions such as, "We should improve school lunches," or, "We should definitely not remove physical recess."

The point of collecting specific per-student statistics is far more likely, in the long run, to be specific power, not to make them skinnier, but to have leverage against the state for money, and against the parents for supporting whatever action (such as medication, which costs the school zero) will help get them money.

I'm not suggesting schools are evil, I am suggesting they are a very, very, very big business, and business operates like the earth elemental it is: it exists to make money, first and foremost.

Build in incentives and business will end up taking them.

PJ

This only tells us that either the intent for use of the data has not been declared yet, because it might weigh against the idea passing into reality, or that once the process is in place, the authorities can think up literally anything they want to use the data for, and there won't be much that can be done about it.

I think where this debate confuses me is the idea -- to me, this is soooo optimistic that it literally just confuses me -- that knowing to the % how overweight a specific child is, vs. in general by looking at them, is going to make some big difference to the parents, the teachers, or the children.

What it might do, if such things were recorded, is create a database. Then advertisers could hound me with weight loss drugs and products. Then maybe employers could see if anybody applying was fat. Don't hire them, it must mean they're lazy and they might have health problems. A whole host of possibilities opens itself up. Lest the safety of medical information seem sure to you, please know that all kinds of medical databases have already been shared with the power gov't corporations illegally including RAND and several others (this is an issue in the immunization world. The attempts at tracking the population, requiring annual exams, etc. proposed in the initial Hillary Clinton medical plan, which sank it like a stone, have basically been re-geared to push through one by one as part of the immunization sector, that way it is "for the children!". The provision of medical information to mega corps, despite existing policy, makes some feel that the information collection aspect of all that was the important part to somebody high up, much more than whatever was allegedly to be helped once that information was in hand).


I think there are really three questions here:

1. If this information was collected, what could be done based on that?

2. What could be done to the same ends, *without* collecting that specific information?

3. Does the collection of this information, including its political and financial potential, privacy concerns, and confidentiality concerns, outweigh whatever factors that (1) has, that (2) does not?

PJ

There is nothing in this bill aimed at stopping the obesity epidemic. And Valerie's point is dead on -- weight has nothing to do with education or with whether one can drive. This bill is an invasion of privacy without any goal other than data collection.

Again, we have the data that is needed to know there is a problem. This bill does not address the problem.

Meh...whatever....I don't agree.

It's not any sillier than weighing the kids. And they generally *can't* defend themselves.



They aren't amending a curriculum, they are collecting data. And how is weighing your kid going to get you to feed your kid better? Parents know their kids are fat, they don't need to be told. And if the kids are fat and still being fed cinnamon buns, getting a letter from the school board saying your kid's BMI is too high isn't going to change that. I truly don't see how weighing a child in school is going to get the family to change their habits.

Putting aside the issue of children not getting regular health care because they are uninsured, wouldn't the child getting weighed at his annual physical, in a private room, with his/her mother present to defend agains insensitive comments from other children or unfeeling nurses/school officials, where the doctor can talk directly to the parent about the dangers of obesity be a better way to get the change you want that mass schoolroom weighings?

Yes, because everyone knows that doctors are completely above making derogatory comments, and just because the parents are present means it will eliminate any seeds of doubt or embarrassment at the hands of a physician. Give me a break. If parents don't need someone to tell them that their kids are overweight, then why aren't they doing something about it? Anyways...I'm done.

That's assuming they aren't doing anything, that little Jonny and Janie eat whatever, whenever they want, and heck, they even do all the grocery shopping.

Sorry, that don't fly with me.

I see parents everyday making the choices they're told are good and healthful for their kids - the wholegrain cereal for breakfast, the skim milk, low-fat yogurts, low-fat whole grain cereal bars for snacks, small portion sizes, 50-50 water-juice dilution and limiting that to no more than 4-ounces of juice, lean meat, fruits, vegetables and lots and lots of grains - pasta, whole grain breads, brown rice, etc. - all as they watch helplessly as their kids gain more weight doing what they're told should work.

Oh, and don't get me started on the kiddie-gym programs and sports the kids are getting shuttled to and from everyday!

I live in one of the fattest states in the nation - and it just keeps getting worse by the day....and we keep recommending the carbohydrates - now they're whole grains, but they're still excessive to a growing body and limiting the intake of what is actually needed - nutrients, essential amino acids and essential fatty acids. But it's the parents fault, right?

The problem is, once a kid is presenting with clear and present insulin resistance, the dietary recommendations given the parent, that are being followed by them, are exacerbating the condition and making things worse.

This makes homeschooling look more and more appealing.

Here in Canada, at least in Montreal, the recommended diet is 180 grams of carbohydrates per day for a adult male diagnosed with diabetes type 2.

180 grams of sugar per day.


Then there's more recommendations on exercise which is absurd because with all that sugar going in with that insulin resistance, there ain't much energy coming out. So, people have less energy, feel less like going out, stay home eat more, have even less energy, feel even less like going out, stay home eat more, etc. And round we go.

Then at some point, they are prescribed insulin injections to take care of the increased insulin resistance but what does that do? Make them grow fatter and fatter.

Then later on when they are so obese that it becomes critical to make them grow lean, they are put on a low fat calorie restricted diet. They get sicker by the day. They starve and all they can think of is food. It grows worse and worse.

What a life.