Are parents too stupid to realize they have fat kids?
By adamg - 1/8/09 - 3:35 pm
I'm with Meredith on this one: Rather than forcing schools to waste time weighing all the kids and sending nag notes home to parents of kids who don't measure up, maybe the state should worrying about ensuring kids actually have well-balanced meals and physical activity during the day.
Just sign me,
Parent of a kid who goes to a school without a gym, where the promised regular trips to a nearby park have turned into once-a-semester field trips fro the upper grades.
Comments
Ugh. I have a friend whose
By anon (not verified) - 1/8/09 - 4:57 pm
Ugh. I have a friend whose 15 year old son was sent home with a note about being too fat and I can tell you the boy was just going through a baby-fat stage and is now pretty svelte. Their criterion for deciding who is fat seems too rigid--this kid was not in the least fat and it made him feel rotten. So insulting!
Maybe
By anon (not verified) - 1/8/09 - 6:14 pm
I agree, this seems intrusive, but look around - nope, lots of parents don't realize their kids are overweight.
I would also rather see the focus on healthy eating & physical activity than on weighing the kids, but some parents really do need a wake-up call.
I do like the idea of restaurants posting calorie counts though.
You give people way too much credit
By merlinmurph - 1/9/09 - 8:14 am
I do like the idea of restaurants posting calorie counts though.
Do you really think this would do anything??? Honestly.
Some fat guy and his fat wife and their fat kids go into Applebees, look at a menu, and are just about to order their usual onion rings, bacon cheeseburgers with fries, cokes, and ice cream when suddenly they notice the calories on the menu. So, instead, they order salads with light dressing, unsweetened iced tea, and a fruit bowl for dessert.
Yeah, OK.
Just like a smoker knows exactly what a cigarette does to their body, any idiot knows that the meal above has more calories than someone in a third world country consumes in a month. They don't need calories on a menu, they need a change in lifestyle, and only they can decide to do that.
Turn the TV off, get rid of the video games, go outside and do something.
Eh, it might work for some people
By adamg - 1/9/09 - 8:21 am
The Dedham Uno's has this touch-screen thing for looking up nutritional info on their foods. While we were waiting for a table one night, Nancy started playing with it and looked up the calorie count on their deep-dish pizza. We haven't had one since.
Whoa...
By mollynotloggedin (not verified) - 1/9/09 - 8:25 am
I swear I didn't see your comment before I posted mine. Spoooky.
Jinx!
By adamg - 1/9/09 - 8:51 am
Jinx!
Drat
By mollynotloggedin (not verified) - 1/9/09 - 9:05 am
Does this mean I can't post again until someone says my name?
Or do I owe you a Diet Coke? :)
The key word being "some"
By merlinmurph - 1/15/09 - 12:52 pm
I'm going to go waaaaay out on a limb and guess that you're not a fat dad, and from some of the Gaffin family adventures we hear about, that your family is on the slim side. Some of the pics we've seen of you show a lean, mean, blogging machine. So yes, there are some people, perhaps a lot of people, who will change their minds about their dinner choice upon seeing the calories involved.
However, there is a whole world of others out there who just laugh at the caloric content of food. They're big now, what's a few more grams of fat? And it's these people who you want to influence, but they don't care. The lean people are already conscious of what they eat and do (exercise), so you're mostly preaching to the choir when you provide calorie info to them. The people that need it the most simply don't care.
Now, I'm not saying that you should never eat a deep dish pepperoni pizza. I love my pizza, cheeseburgers, fries, etc., but the key is, everything in moderation.
The keyboard takes off 10 pounds
By adamg - 1/15/09 - 1:56 pm
If only we were slim! Fortunately, the kidlet is.
Oh, I don't know...
By mollynotloggedin (not verified) - 1/9/09 - 8:24 am
Spouse and I ordered the Shroom pizza at Uno's once, thought it was quite good. Next time we went, we were going to order it again, and then we looked at the calorie count on that nifty little kiosk, were shocked and appalled, and ordered some other, still over-caloried but not that much, pizza.
And then spent the rest of the evening discussing how deliberate ignorance might not always be such a bad thing.
deep dish pizza
By o_brien - 1/9/09 - 3:53 pm
You could still order that deep dish pizza - just don't finish the entire pizza in one sitting. Take it home and eat it the next day. Or, feed it to someone who has a fast metabolism?
...just curious, how many calories were in the Uno's Shroom pizza?
Might help me
By bph - 1/9/09 - 9:18 am
I don't know about the fat parents, but I'd like to see the calorie counts for myself.
You know, there was a time when people really didn't understand how dangerous smoking was. So the education, health warnings, etc. did have an affect.
I do think there are parents who would change at least some eating habits if they saw the calories and understood how unhealthy some foods are.
Way to go, merlinmurph!
By independentminded (not verified) - 1/9/09 - 10:18 am
It's agreed; counting calories isn't the answer; changes in lifestyle (i. e. increased physical activity, etc.), along with greater emphasis on foods that're better for people, is the way to do it.
On the report card
By Eighthman - 1/9/09 - 8:33 am
When I heard this on the news yesterday I was reminded of a time some 35 years ago when my father showed my sister and me his elementary-school report card from Lynn. Not sure why he kept them in that little lockbox in his desk. We were amused that amongst his decent-enough marks for 3rd (or 4th?) grade was a spot for "physical fitness" or somesuch, in which was noted "overweight." He's done quite well since, now closing in on 80 years old.
BMI is lazy statistical garbage for school age kids
By SwirlyGrrl - 1/9/09 - 10:39 am
Unless they plan to actually measure body fat percentage in these kids, their little nag notes are a bunch of crap. BMI is a worthless predictor of body fatness, particularly so for this age group. It was developed to measure obesity levels in POPULATIONS of ADULTS, where the misclassification errors tend to wash out.
The studies I've read where BMI is correlated to percentage of body fat in children - the real concern with fatness - BMI is an utterly useless predictor. This is particularly true in the 9-13 age group.
Does 10%-25% accuracy for predicting body fat levels sound like a good metric? Sounds useless to me. Then again, I ranked as "obese" when I was training for crew three hours a day and wore a size 8. My roommate, a size 20, was merely "overweight" by BMI standards. Useless.
My wife is in the same boat
By merlinmurph - 1/9/09 - 1:08 pm
A few years ago, my wife won a BMI test somewhere for the both of us. We sat in some sealed cocoon for awhile, and a machine spit out some numbers. I was around 10% she was somewhere around 28-30% - borderline obese. I just started laughing and she was pissed - which made me laugh even more. She's 5'-2", size 2, and is in great shape. If she had had a shotgun, she would have shot the cocoon.