When I mention Fat Letters I'm referring to your child's BMI Report Cards. The kids across the country are calling them Fat Letters, so they have been dubbed and stuck with that nickname by the press and many other online avenues.
Schools Sending Home Fat Letters - BMI Report Cards
Schools in 19 states have started to measure kids weights and BMI yearly. They then send a letter home to parents of what the outcome of their child's BMI is. This insures the parents if their child is at a healthy or unhealthy weight.
When I first heard about the Fat Letters being sent home from school I thought to myself is this over the top because of how it can affect a child's self esteem and put more pressure on them from their parents and schools to get their BMI down. Now when I think about it more I'm broken between the two because on one side I feel for the kids that have to go though this and as well as deal with ridicule from their peers who are not over weight, but on a health stand point this makes all good sense and could give the child the motivation that they need in order to start eating right and doing basic exercise. Some of this blame is on the parents, if them being over weight is not by genetics, but sometimes us parents give kids what they want to eat and let them over eat until they end up going over the normal weight for their age type. We are all guilty of this at one time or another because I honestly know that I have given the kids sweets and unhealthy food before when they demanded it and wanted it.
Measure You And Your Child's BMI Here
I created a blog post not to long ago about measuring your BMI and you can right now see what you and your child's BMI is by visiting this page. What is My Child's BMI I also have a BMI calculator for adults there too, so be sure to check and see what it is for all of you.
Additional Information About Schools Health Policies
You can find some great information about school health policies and other school health information on the CDC (centers for disease control and prevention)website at: Government School Health information
Current Video By Fox News Showing A Doctor And Concerned Parent About The BMI Report Cards
In this video you can see that generally parents are not so much for the letters being sent home, but the professional health industry is.
List of States that send BMI Report Cards Home.
"It would be nice to have the whole list of the 19 states, but this is a start".
Arkansas
California
Florida
Illinois
Massachusetts
New York
Pennsylvania
Tennessee
This is the list of states that I could find so far after spending a few hours looking, so if you know of the anymore please leave a comment and I will add it to it.
This made such an impact in the health media that even Malaysia is following in our foot steps by sending home BMI report cards or otherwise dubbed as Fat Letters.
I'm still torn by the outcome of these fat letters, so I would like to know what some of the readers thoughts are on this subject matter, so please, if you have time leave a comment.
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