because it's never too early to internalize a thoroughly unhealthy relationship with food

this is Karlind

Karlind is skipping meals because she's worried about being fat.

Karlind is six

Six-year-old Karlind Dunbar barely touched her dinner, but not for time-honored 6-year-old reasons. The pasta was not the wrong shape. She did not have an urgent date with her dolls.

The problem was the letter Karlind discovered, tucked inside her report card, saying that she had a body mass index in the 80th percentile. The first grader did not know what “index” or “percentile” meant, or that children scoring in the 5th through 85th percentiles are considered normal, while those scoring higher are at risk of being or already overweight.

Yet she became convinced that her teachers were chastising her for overeating.

Since the letter arrived, “my 2-year-old eats more than she does,” said Georgeanna Dunbar, Karlind’s mother, who complained to the school and is trying to help her confused child. “She’s afraid she’s going to get in trouble,” Ms. Dunbar said.

The practice of reporting students’ body mass scores to parents originated a few years ago as just one tactic in a war on childhood obesity that would be fought with fresh, low-fat cafeteria offerings and expanded physical education. Now, inspired by impressive results in a few well-financed programs, states including Delaware, South Carolina and Tennessee have jumped on the B.M.I. bandwagon, turning the reports — in casual parlance, obesity report cards — into a new rite of childhood.

The CDC has a little more information about the use of BMI as a diagnostic tool: specifically, it isn't one

For children, BMI is used to screen for overweight, at risk of overweight, or underweight. However, BMI is not a diagnostic tool. For example, a child may have a high BMI for age and sex, but to determine if excess fat is a problem, a health care provider would need to perform further assessments. These assessments might include skinfold thickness measurements, evaluations of diet, physical activity, family history, and other appropriate health screenings.

So the parents don't have meaningful information, and they haven't been told how to get it.

How are those fresh, low-fat cafeteria offerings and expanded physical education tactics working out?

Here, in the rural Southern Tioga School District, the schools distribute the state-mandated reports even as they continue to serve funnel cakes and pizza for breakfast. Some students have physical education for only half the school year, even though 34 percent of kindergartners were overweight or at risk for it, according to 2003-4 reports.

Even health authorities who support distributing students’ scores worry about these inconsistent messages, saying they could result in eating disorders and social stigma, misinterpretation of numbers that experts say are confusing, and a sense of helplessness about high scores.

“It would be the height of irony if we successfully identified overweight kids through B.M.I. screening and notification while continuing to feed them atrocious quality meals and snacks, with limited if any opportunities for phys ed in school,” said Dr. David Ludwig, director of the Optimal Weight for Life program at Children’s Hospital Boston.

but don't worry, the district is on it.

Karen Sick, food services director for the school district, has been phasing in healthier foods despite budgetary obstacles and students who prefer white bread over whole wheat. The school district has revamped its menus, eliminating Gatorade and the powdered sugar from the funnel cakes.

because I'm not a terribly subtle person I'd like to point out that those would be the wads of deep-fat-fried white-flour dough they serve to children who have been sitting in a bus for forty five minutes as breakfast before they go sit in a room for three or four hours that are now offered without powdered sugar

But it still sends a nutritionally mixed message: birthday cupcakes are discouraged while cafeterias sell ice cream sandwiches and Rice Krispie treats, which some students buy five at a time.

The district’s cafeterias recently introduced kiwi and field greens, which drew enthusiastic reviews, but because of the high cost, they are now back to canned fruit and iceberg lettuce. Officials, while trying hard to address the concerns, acknowledge that change may take several more years.

as I have not become a terribly subtle person since two paragraphs ago, I'd like to highlight that children who were enthusiastic about the salads and fresh fruit the school can't afford to feed them are being sold ice cream and white rice stuck together with butter and marshmallows in the same cafeteria their breakfast wads of deep-fat-fried white-flour dough were served in to keep their energy up so they can spend a few more hours sitting in a room, with perhaps an occasional break for "some form of physical education"

Along the same lines, all students receive some form of physical education each year. But some students live 45 minutes from school: by the time they get home, it is too dark and cold to play outside. And the administrators point out that many children with weight problems also need tutoring after school, so they have to choose between extra help and team sports.

So the authorities who are labelling these kids with a measure that isn't designed for what they're using it to do are not giving students the information they need to make the good choices that, um, aren't available to them. Still, it's better than doing nothing, right?

Not necessarily, according to the director of research and school programs at the Rudd Center for Food Policy and Obesity at Yale

The practice of reporting body mass index scores in schools has gone from pilot program to mass weigh-in despite “no solid research” on either its physical or psychological impact, and “no controlled randomized trial,” said Ms. Schwartz of Yale. “Entire states are adopting a policy that has not been tested.”

but hey, at least we can say we're doing something, which sounds like a plenty good enough reason to give a six year old an eating disorder to me

á bas illgels aliens of my country! Thsi is not Europe a shithole.

freaken' frostbacks