Weighing kids in school

Fidgetbrain · July 2021

What do you guys think about it, helpful in combatting obesity or just breeding insecurity in children?

ninerbuff · July 2021

Well, it's NOT a prerequisite to be a certain weight at school or to take a class just as it is for most jobs that adults don't need to meet a certain weight criteria either.
Kids know if they are fat. What we NEED to teach them is better behavior on food control and how it really affects them.

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ythannah · July 2021

I vote for breeding insecurity. Occupying a growing and changing body is tough enough at times without having another metric thrown at you.

Agree with ninerbuff, kids know if they're fat. They've probably heard it already, and not kindly. Most of them aren't in charge of their own meal planning and sometimes economic circumstances force less nutritious, higher calorie choices.

Then we'll have the ones on the cusp of disordered eating who get nudged over the edge.

TwistedSassette · July 2021

I'm on the fence with this one. I think that education about being in a healthy weight range and the risks of being above or below that range is lacking. I don't doubt that many kids would have jumped on the scales at home, but they probably don't have a reference point for what that scale number means. I also think that you can't judge a child's weight based on what they look like, and I'm not sure that it's a school's responsibility to do that anyway.

I see some comments above about kids knowing if they're fat, being bullied about it etc. but let's not forget that there are many children who BELIEVE they are fat, when they're actually in a healthy weight range (or sometimes even underweight). There are, I think, many children who would benefit from being able to see where they sit on a chart of healthy vs. non-healthy weight range for their age and height. It's not about the number on the scale, so much, but about how they are tracking vs. how they believe they are tracking.

In saying that, if it is done at school (or at all), it should be on a confidential basis - i.e. not lining all the kids up to be weighed in publicly! And it should be done along with an assessment of healthy behaviours - how many serves of fruit & veg do you eat each day, how often do you play sports/be active, can you identify the emotions you're feeling in the moment, how do you feel about your body etc. - with a view to provide the child with an "action plan" of sorts for how they can improve their health. Let's face it, there are many parents who are not equipped to provide this information to their child (either through lack of education themselves, or lack of care, or thinking things are ok when they're not, or a multitude of other reasons), and if it can benefit the child and set them up with healthy habits for the rest of their life, I think it should be considered.

panda4153 · July 2021

I would need to understand the context it’s being done in. Like most things I don’t think this is a black abs white issue. Are we talking about it being part of an overall health screen like vision, hearing, and sports physicals are done at the school but by healthcare professionals , and results are only shared with the parents? Is it part of a comprehensive PE and Health Education in which kids are taught about how weight relates to health, and their weight is kept confidential to them. In both of these cases, I would be 100% ok with it.

Is the child’s weight publicly shared? Is it taken without parents knowledge? Is it taken with absolutely no context for how it relates to education? In these instances I would have concerns that I would want to get addressed with the School before having my child participate.

33gail33 · July 2021

Fidgetbrain wrote: »

What do you guys think about it, helpful in combatting obesity or just breeding insecurity in children?

Sounds ridiculous and a waste of time. I'm sure most school boards have better things to spend their limited time and money resources on then weighing kids. What would even be the point? My experience is that public schools (in Canada at least) already overstep the school/home boundary and it is irrelevant and none of their business what my kid weighs.

ythannah · July 2021

Fidgetbrain wrote: »

Yup agree with you both, I was super insecure about my weight at school cause I was a foot taller than the other girls in my class and obvs weighed a lot more even though I was still healthy. You can see if a child is obese without focusing on numbers and IMO it just leads to comparison. Health, nutrition and PE are far more useful than just gathering data and telling kids/their parents that they’re fat

Same. Although I was a tall scrawny beanpole despite eating like the proverbial horse, because clearly I was expending all my calories attaining height rather than fat.

This brought back a memory of doing some kind of fitness testing in gym class, probably 7th or 8th grade. I wasn't a sporty kid or an active kid (I was super clumsy... still am) so I failed miserably, and publicly. I remember one of the tests was a chin-up and just hanging there, unable to lift myself a millimetre. It certainly didn't motivate me to become more active and I never took phys ed classes after they became elective. In fact, it took me almost 40 years to develop an interest in any kind of structured exercise, in part because I always felt I wouldn't do it "right".

sijomial · July 2021

I disagree with the premise that children, and crucially their parents know they are fat (or overweight, or healthy weight or under weight). Some will, many will not really be clued up at all.

When I was growing up "fat kids" probably did as they were in a very small minority - not the case now where I live sadly. I find it terribly sad to see so many children growing up badly overweight and often also with a lack of movement in their lives.

Parents also seem to come up with a load of reasons to ignore what can be setting up unhealthy patterns for life - "it's just puppy fat", "they will grow out of it".
(Unless their children are eating puppies no it's not puppy fat and they may grow out of it or they might grow into being fat teenagers and then fat adults.)
Fat parents with fat kids may need a dose of reality about their child's health and their own parenting skills.

Weight has a massive influence on health and letting the children's parents know gives them the chance to take action if required. Health is a part of education and weight is part of health.

sijomial · July 2021

Fidgetbrain wrote: »

sijomial wrote: »

I disagree with the premise that children, and crucially their parents know they are fat (or overweight, or healthy weight or under weight). Some will, many will not really be clued up at all.

When I was growing up "fat kids" probably did as they were in a very small minority - not the case now where I live sadly. I find it terribly sad to see so many children growing up badly overweight and often also with a lack of movement in their lives.

Parents also seem to come up with a load of reasons to ignore what can be setting up unhealthy patterns for life - "it's just puppy fat", "they will grow out of it".
(Unless their children are eating puppies no it's not puppy fat and they may grow out of it or they might grow into being fat teenagers and then fat adults.)
Fat parents with fat kids may need a dose of reality about their child's health and their own parenting skills.

Weight has a massive influence on health and letting the children's parents know gives them the chance to take action if required. Health is a part of education and weight is part of health.

That’s kinda why I don’t think it will work, parents of the kids who actually have a problem won’t change their habits so now the child is fat and humiliated instead of just fat.

Also not really related to your comment but “The United Kingdom's National Obesity Forum… is recommending that its National Child Measurement Programme be expanded to have 4- to 5-year-old and 10- to 11-year-old children weighed when they return to the classroom — and then weighed again in the spring — in a bid to tackle COVID-related gains.” [ https://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/936130 ] This is problematic to me, are children not meant to be growing at this age? Stigmatising weight gain at a time when a normal healthy child should be gaining doesn’t seem like a great approach. As a child, if you weighed me at say 10 years old, then 11 and told me my bmi had increased — even if both were in the healthy range, I would feel *kitten* about myself and try to get back down to my 10 year old weight 😕. Hell I spent most of secondary school wondering why I couldn’t weigh the same as I did at 12 since I was the same height even though my body wasn’t fully developed then.

No of course not all parents will take action but maybe some will. There's good, bad and mediocre parenting in all aspects of bringing up children. There isn't one solution that will "work" but maybe many solutions that might work for some and not for others?

I don't equate parents knowing their child's weight and whether it is problematic equals "humiliated" or "stigmatised" - I'm pretty sure they don't point out the fat kids at the next days' assembly or shame the parents at the school gate.

The weight measurements pre and post COVID aren't going to ignore that the children are expected to be growing when they are a year older. BMI is a height/weight ratio - if a child has grown taller and heavier proportionally between measurements their BMI hasn't increased.

Not all children have such emotional reactions to their weight as you seem to have done, I could see that giving the option to opt out of testing could be beneficial for some.

cwolfman13 · July 2021

Fidgetbrain wrote: »

What do you guys think about it, helpful in combatting obesity or just breeding insecurity in children?

IMO, that's what annual checkups with the children's Dr. is for.

rosebarnalice · July 2021

I distinctly remember being lined up in elementary school 2nd - 7th grades for the school nurse to check everyone in class for height and weight, picked with a comb to check for lice and made to bend over to check for scoliosis. The nurse would call out the information out loud and have the teacher record it.

So I annually suffered the humiliation of having my weight called out in front of all of my classmates AND being made to bend over and touch my toes--making my belly fat turn into numerous blobby rolls.

I'm all for public health checks, but PRIVATE SCREENINGS PLEASE!!!!

Jthanmyfitnesspal · July 2021

@cwolfman13 and @rosebarnalice hit the nail on the head. But I would put it in stronger terms:

Any discussions of a person's health (including especially a child) should be done in private and with great compassion and support. A minor child should have a parent present for any medical visit (this is probably the law in the US, although it may be skirted in some instances, unfortunately). Weighing students en-mass and in front of each other could be a life-changing traumatic event-- and not in a good way.

In the US, we have a stated right to medical privacy, and breaking that privacy is illegal. Yes, severely overweight kids know they are so, and have been teased and taunted about it many times. They obviously would change the situation themselves if they could. The reasons they can't are quite complex.

Kids that are unusually tall, short, skinny, or have anything else out of the ordinary are in a similar situation.

Now, when a doctor speaks to a parent and child about that child being overweight, it can also be traumatizing. It should be done with an offer of compassionate treatment.

ReenieHJ · July 2021

Weighing children should be done at the doctor's offices as part of their annual exams. Nobody at school needs to have that done. Teach nutrition at school? Fine, great. Teach sports/healthy exercise/fitness, wonderful. But what purpose does it serve to weigh in at school; the schools should already have access to a child's medical records don't they?

Let me add my thoughts about schools and physical fitness as well.

How much benefit do children get in typical gym classes where most kids are standing around watching everybody else, or waiting their turn, etc.? Maybe they do it very differently these days. It'd be more useful if children moved during gym class.

cwolfman13 · July 2021

ReenieHJ wrote: »

Weighing children should be done at the doctor's offices as part of their annual exams. Nobody at school needs to have that done. Teach nutrition at school? Fine, great. Teach sports/healthy exercise/fitness, wonderful. But what purpose does it serve to weigh in at school; the schools should already have access to a child's medical records don't they?

Let me add my thoughts about schools and physical fitness as well. How much benefit do children get in typical gym classes where most kids are standing around watching everybody else, or waiting their turn, etc.? Maybe they do it very differently these days. It'd be more useful if children moved during gym class.

Probably depends on the school and district. My kids PE classes are pretty active. Soccer, volleyball, basketball, archery, biking, running/walking challenges, etc.

Weighing kids in school

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