Posted on 10/12/2011 11:42:48 AM PDT by MichCapCon
Gov. Rick Snyder recently proposed an unprecedented plan to have doctors report the Body Mass Index of individual children into a state database and tracking system (the Michigan Care Improvement Registry). Contrary to the governor’s claim, this is not anonymous reporting. The records in this database would be accessible not just to doctors and nurses, but also to schools, day care providers and insurance companies — all without parental consent. Specific children could be tracked over time, as could their compliance (or lack thereof) with a doctor's recommendations.
The scientific and statistical reality of this intrusiveness is impossible to ignore. The data gathered will be spotty and incomplete; Black and Hispanic children will be disproportionately affected; BMI reporting will not decrease childhood obesity; and the community wellness programs this would presumably facilitate do not have a record of decreasing childhood obesity.
Finally, from a purely practical standpoint, the time spent reporting is not insignificant. In a typical office with 10,000 MCIR patients, at a rate of one minute per record, a full-time nurse would spend more than one month each year just reporting BMI data.
But all those details pale alongside the deeper ethical issues involved. Gov. Snyder is asking and expecting doctors to violate our Hippocratic Oath...
(Excerpt) Read more at michigancapitolconfidential.com ...
It appears even the ‘republican’ politicians in Michigan are leftist, nanny-state, big-government liberals...
The BMI is crap. Any athlete, regardless of how low their body fat % actually is, scores as obese on the BMI scale.
BMI is crap you have to lower somepony into the water and get out the calipers to accurately measure “BMI” and even that is hit or miss.
It also violates the Hippa laws.
another Republican Governor securing his future job as a lobbyist for Merck I see....
BMI means “Bullcrap Metering Instrument”. Dunk the RINO governor instead. His brain is clogged up with fat..
bump
I think this BMI report card stuff has been floated since 2001 or so. I know in San Antonio awhile back, the USDA gave 2 million bucks to monitor students in four (?) schools under some research idea.
90% of the parents gave their consent to have their child monitored.
and eventually it will end up being accessible to CPS, who can look at doctor’s recommendations, see if they’ve been followed, and use that as grounds to remove children claiming abuse/ neglect.
At 17 my son had 6% body fat. At 5’6” and 160 pounds, he was considered ‘overweight’. The gym teacher singled him out to show the class how crappy the BMI standard was. The weird thing was, with his lean frame, my son looked thin. (He’s lost weight over the last year and gained an inch. BMI says he’s ‘normal’ now, but his dr says he’s sick and underweight. Still has 7% body fat.)
My husband, a soldier, at 5’8” 200 pounds and 10% body fat was considered ‘obese’ by BMI standards.
My dr wants me in the ‘overweight’ category in order to survive a serious operation that I’m going to need soon. (Losing 20 pounds after this operation is normal due to the physical stress of recovery.)
When you look at the history of the development of the BMI chart, it’s pretty obvious that it’s an outdated, unscientific method. It should be scrapped ASAP. Any doctor that holds to it should be fired.
Link brings up a different article for me. “Prediction of ‘Unprecedented’ School Cuts Results in Fewer than 5 Teacher Layoffs” and I can’t find the original on the site.
I hate crap like this.
He’s an Ann Arbor “republican”.
I doubt you would find many Michigan FReepers who voted for him in the primary.
What has childhood obesity have to do with the economy and what is with these politicians who take up every possible issue rather than focus on the task at hand? There’s too much reaching out going on and not enough getting down to business.
I would think that a really great leader can make plenty of time to just close the door, roll up his sleeves, sit down and work the problem. Morning ‘til night, day in, day out.
Let’s cut the crap and all of this namby-pamby screwing around with so many of these “issues of the day”.
How much more time will they waste in deciding where on the dinner plate to place the damned parsley???
Both of my teenage children are highly athletic with very little body fat. They both are in the 90th percentile for bmi for their age group. You are right. It is a well known fact that bmi breaks down with athletes
.
However, it’s problems aside, its no ones business, especially the governments, what my kids bmi is ( or mine for that matter )!!!!
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