Several readers sent me news stories today about how Massachusetts schools are now testing the Body Mass Index (BMI) of students and sending letters home to parents letting them know if their child’s BMI is “too high” or “too low” and suggesting that they see a medical professional to help their child get to a “healthy weight.” Charming. Let’s look at some of the many, many reasons that this is a bad idea.
First of all, putting the focus on kids’ weight is a horrible idea. According to research from the University of Minnesota “None of the behaviors being used by adolescents (in 1999) for weight-control purposes predicted weight loss[in 2006]…Of greater concern were the negative outcomes associated with dieting and the use of unhealthful weight-control behaviors.” In the last decade hospitalizations for eating disorders for kids under 12 are up 119%. Kids. Under. Twelve. Kids are plenty focused on their weight – they don’t need the Massachusetts government’s help. Dr. Yoni Freedhoff, an obesity research, said “I don’t think that it’s the role of the school to be the schoolyard bully. These six- and seven- and eight-year-olds who are going to get letters sent home, they’re not suffering from an epidemic loss of willpower. We’re not dealing with that here…Simply putting it on the kids is putting them at increased risk for bullying and increased risk for pressures at home.” I agree.
A focus on weight as a substitute for health does disservice to kids of all sizes because of the “healthy weight” fallacy. When we try to make body size a middle man for health we tell fat kids that their healthy habits don’t make them healthier unless they make them thin (which is not what the evidence suggests), and we tell thin kids that they are healthy because of their size and regardless of their habits (which is also not what the evidence suggests.)
The use of BMI is another issue here. BMI is always problematic as a health measurement predominantly because it’s, well, not a health measurement – someone’s weight in pounds times 703 divided by their height in inches squared is NOT a health measurement. BMI was created as a tool for statistical analysis of the average body size of large populations. It was never meant to be used as a health measurement at all, let alone for individuals. As a simple ratio of weight and height BMI doesn’t take into account any actual health measurements, body composition (Tom Cruise is obese based on the BMI scale), or anything other than weight and height. So again, even if someone believes that being fat is bad, BMI would still not be a good tool to use.
It’s even more problematic with kids than with adults because it completely fails to acknowledge not just a natural diversity of body sizes and body compositions, but also natural fluctuations in kids’ weight. If a kid gets their BMI report card taken when they’ve put on weight before a growth spurt, and their parents take them to a doctor who puts them on an diet and restricts their calories, how does that affect the kid’s growth and health? Since dieting hardly ever works, these programs are using other measures of success, one of which is an INCREASE in kids who are indicating that they are concerned about their weight. Since research by Peter Meunnig from Columbia found that women who were concerned about their weight had more physical and mental illness that those who were fine with their size regardless of their size, this seems like a pretty questionable measure of “success.”
Even if someone believes that all fat kids would be healthier thin, we do not know how to get it done; and saying repeatedly that we do is just a lie that has been repeated so often that people believe it’s the truth. Dr.Freedhoff has called these “non-evidence based interventions.” The CDC has admitted that there isn’t sufficient evidence to recommend these BMI Screening programs. There is not a single statistically significant controlled study where even a simple majority of kids were able to change their weight long-term. Anything that is prescribed to kids for weight control is experimental medicine at best, and at worst it’s an intervention that’s been demonstrated by research to fail – and it’s typically prescribed without the consent to the child or the parent, violating the ethical principles of evidence-based medicine and informed consent. Can you imagine the uproar if kids who were actually sick were shamed for being sick, prescribed treatments that studies had shown to not work, often making the sickness worse, lied to that “everyone who tries hard enough” gets cured on these treatments, and then were blamed and shamed when the treatments didn’t work. To be very clear, body size is neither a disease nor a diagnosis but if the medical establishment is going to treat it that way then the least they could do is practice ethical medicine.
Parents are allowed to opt-out but many are saying that they were not notified in advance and so kids were forced to submit to a weigh in at school that their parents would have vigorously opposed.
All of this is another dangerous example of people substituting what they think is “common sense” for actual evidence. Let’s be clear about what’s happening here – lawmakers have decided that kid’s body size is such a big “problem” that they should just start “doing something about it” and what they should do is the first thing that comes into their heads – even if there is no evidence basis for it, even if evidence exists suggesting that it’s actually dangerous and likely to cause harm, they believe that their common sense is a better guide than science when dealing with the health of kid’s. Yikes.
This entire thing is completely unnecessary. We could have a complete discussion about health and healthy habits for kids without even once bringing up weight. There aren’t different healthy habits based on body size, and so there is no need to pull weight into the conversation, let alone force kids to participate in weigh-ins. We can do better. Let’s.
If you are in the Massachusetts area can come here me speak, these are free and open to the public:
Wednesday:
The Positive Body” @ 7:30pm in Gamble Auditorium, Mount Holyoke University
Thursday:
Every Body Dance Workshop @ 3:00pm in Recreation Center, UMass Amherst
The Positive Body @ 7:30pm in Student Union Ballroom, UMass Amherst
Like the blog? Here’s more of my stuff:
The Book: Fat: The Owner’s Manual The E-Book is Name Your Own Price! Click here for details
The Dance Class DVDs: Buy the Dance Class DVDs for Every Body Dance Now! Click here for the details
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I do size acceptance activism full time. I created a membership program so that people who read the blog and feel they get value out of it and want to support the work I do can become members for ten bucks a month To make that even cooler, I’ve now added a component called “DancesWithFat Deals” which are special deals to my members from size positive merchants. Once you are a member I send out an e-mail once a month with the various deals and how to redeem them – your contact info always stays completely private.
