Should Parents Be Worried About BMI Screenings at School?

Source: Child on Scale/I Stock

The beginning was in 2003. Laws requiring school systems to evaluate children using body-mass index (BMI) instruments—a common approach for grouping people based on height and weight—have passed 29 states. Millions of kids got BMI report cards by 2010; tragically, some saw their weight status show on their actual report cards. By telling families and pupils about a child's weight category and motivating them to make better decisions and lower their weight, the BMI screening program's main purpose was to lower childhood obesity.

Several studies demonstrating that parents and doctors lacked the ability to determine whether a kid was obese by look alone also provided another argument for BMI screening. Among public health officials assigned to assist doctors in using the BMI tools and motivating them to do so was myself. A grant from New York State Health Department paid for the work. Looking back, I can see how poor this practice was and how damaging the policy was to adding to the weight prejudice, fat-shaming, and stigma many children endured in our healthcare and school systems.

Children identified as extremely obese, overweight, or obese at the time were of great worry to many people. Children who have untreated obesity are at risk for high blood pressure, heart disease, asthma, sleep apnea, and type 2 diabetes. Finding those kids in need of medical attention seemed essential, and BMI was the instrument of choice. Would I do things today differently? Certainly yes! We now know the BMI screening policies and weigh-ins can lead to bullying, weight bias, and fat-shaming and in some cases increase a child’s risk for eating disorders. Despite this knowledge, some states continue to mandate BMI screening while a few states have discontinued the practice.

I took part in a study in 2012 weighing kids in Californian schools. I thought the study produced no actual findings. Regarding whom, when, and how the children in the research were being weighed, there were far more questions than answers. My pragmatic questions about the research followed this pattern: Was the school routinely calibrating the child-weighing scales? Were the pupils weighed either on or off their shoes? The students' clothes when they were weighed were what kind?

My ethical concerns followed like this: The workers weighing the children asked them to turn around so they can avoid seeing the scale's number. Did the youngsters know their weight? During the weighing, were the children emotionally catered for? Was the weight taken in private?

According to several research studies, these BMI screening rules gave no guidance on how to carry out weigh-ins and can be doing more harm than good. States should stop depending on BMI tests and weigh-ins to find children who could require obesity treatments, in my opinion. Our children with obesity need better, kinder, more sympathetic healthcare practices that preserve their dignity and privacy.