Posted on 05/10/2007 3:00:54 PM PDT by Baladas
Four times during the school year in Campbell County, Wyo., the school sends report cards home. Anxious parents and worried students are provided with the typical grading categories -- academic performance, attendance and a work ethic score.
But here in Gillette, there's an additional grade that has some families up in arms.
It's called the body mass index, or BMI, a calculation based on height and weight that indicates whether your kid is too fat. The school chooses the word "overweight." If your child scores too high, it's the fitness equivalent of a bad grade. When Taylor Barbour came home with a BMI score of 32, seven points over the "normal range," his mother, Rosie Barbour, was none too pleased. Her anger was directed not at her 12-year-old son but at the school.
"It just doesn't have any place in the school," said Barbour. "It's fine if you want to teach them how to eat healthy, and make better choices during health class, but I don't think giving them BMI on their report card" is the answer.
'The Strong Kids Club' On top of that, the school district sent a letter in the mail inviting Taylor -- and 172 other kids with high BMI scores -- to join an exercise program three times of week. It's called the Strong Kids Club and came free to his family, with a promise that "it will be fun."
(Excerpt) Read more at abcnews.go.com ...
And if THAT doesn't place those pesky kids in lockstep to be perfect, well then we can ALWAYS toss more money at it!
Reaching Utopia doesn't come cheap!
Get a load of this one...
I should add that by having a BMI over 40, this guy is considered “Morbidly Obese”.
With a body fat percentage of less than 5%
Do I need to spell out just how idiotic is is to use BMI for *anything*?
I want military type physical training and grading based on performance.
Tell me how you would grade my child who has Asthma? So far she can run, play and is even in ballet but the chances of her ever being able to train for the military or in that style are not good. It wouldn’t be fair to kids like her that are not able to do those things. I agree a program would be good but I don’t think all children could do it.
Do the new reasons to homeschool ever stop?
I remember some kind of fitness testing we did in school back in the 60s and 70s. It was some kind of JFK-inspired program, I think.
We had to run a half-mile, do a bunch of pushups and pullups, and do the “bent-arm hang”, where you held yourself at eye-level from a chin-up bar until you passed out from the pain.
Anyone else here remember this?
It might help, but consider this:
May 6, 2007
Fat Chance By EMILY BAZELON
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/05/06/books/review/Bazelon.t.html
RETHINKING THIN The New Science of Weight Loss — and the Myths and Realities of Dieting.
By Gina Kolata. 257 pp. Farrar, Straus & Giroux. $24.
If you had to choose, would you rather be fat or blind? When a researcher asked that question of a group of formerly obese people, 89 percent said they would prefer to lose their sight than their hard-won slimness. “When you’re blind, people want to help you. No one wants to help you when you’re fat,” one explained. Ninety-one percent of the group also chose having a leg amputated over a return to obesity.
This is shocking. But it seems less so by the end of “Rethinking Thin,” a new book about obesity by Gina Kolata, a science reporter for The New York Times. Kolata argues that being fat is not something people have much control over. Most people who are overweight struggle to change their shape throughout their lives, but remain stuck within a relatively narrow weight range set by their genes. For those determined to foil biology, strict dieting is a life sentence. “I am a fat man in a thin man’s body,” an M.I.T. obesity researcher who shed his unwanted pounds years ago tells Kolata.
Rest of review is at the link.
An open question is: does it make a difference to encouraging children to avoid accumulating a lot of “excess” fat cells early in life. Maybe, like cholesterol, it’s not something that can be easily regulated by diet.
Just when you think you’ve heard it all......
c. Maximum allowable percent body fat standards are as follows in table 2. However, all personnel are encouraged to achieve the more stringent Department of Defense (DOD)-wide goal, which is 20 percent body fat for males and 26 percent body fat for females.
Table 2 Maximum allowable percent body fat standards
Age Group: 17–20
Male (% body fat): %20
Female (% body fat): %28
Age Group: 21–27
Male (% body fat): %22
Female (% body fat): %30
Age Group: 28–39
Male (% body fat): %24
Female (% body fat): %32
Age Group: 40 & Older
Male (% body fat): %26
Female (% body fat): %34
Since homeschooling is so efficient and takes so little time, these children have plenty of time to play. Play means exercise which means calories burned and muscles built. Muscle also burns calories at a higher rate.
Also,,,the mom is home to supervise snacks and to provide nutritious meals. Who knows what institutionalized children get in their schools either from the cafeteria, vending machines, teachers, and other students.
Also, those kids in daycare after school are often pacified with food by their babysitters.
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Fair. Fair. Fair.
Can’t hurt anyone’s feelings. Instead, have all the other children unfit because one child has asthma and can’t participate. ( sigh!)
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Sadly, no.
Why on earth are parents still institutionalizing their kids?
No. If the asthma is severe enough, a student should get a medical waiver and then be sent to a different class. Otherwise, he should get graded along with the rest.
It should be about perfomance, not fairness...
But its all just an exercise in wishful thinking.
I lost 80 pounds, and have maintained that weight loss for more than 2 years.
As in the article, I am **constantly** starving! I dream of food when I sleep. I fantasize about food when awake. I watch the clock waiting for the next time I can eat.
I scrupulously measure ***every*** crumb that goes into my mouth, and I absolutely can NOT eat more than 1,200 calories a day. That is equal to about 4 glasses of 1% milk, 4 pieces of bread, 2 eggs, and a banana. Try doing that for the rest of your life!
If I am starving, I know I have eaten enough.
It will be this way until I die.
Only gastric bypass has been shown to reduce appetite. Unfortunately, I was never fat enough to qualify, and I will never qualify at a normal weight.
That I remain thin require the same will-power, brute mental force, and will power that it took for me to earn a doctorate in my profession.
His mom is creating a fat ass. Congrats mom. Physical activity is good for the body and mind.
Obviously the BMI isn’t perfect. It is obvious when someone is overly muscular vs. a fat ass.
strict dieting is a life sentence
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Overwhelming hunger goes along with it. It NEVER goes away.
Imagine how you felt when you were **really**, **really**, hungry?
That is how I feel 24/7.
**Strict** dieting is my constant companion.
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