Call For School Weigh ins to Fight Fat
I have noticed from this article that there are a lot of different opinions on what is being discussed. According to “experts” Australian children should be weighed and measured regularly at school to help tackle childhood obesity.
Researches from Deakin University’s World Health Organisation Collaborating Centre have been trying to gather more recent information to address the issue of Childhood obesity, but their efforts doing so have been restricted by out-dated data.
Deakin University’s World Health Organisation Collaborating Centre believe opening a federal government based program monitoring childhood obesity would help achieve to lower the rate of childhood obesity and would be a “fundamental component of prevention”.
Another positive opinion from researches who wrote in the journal Paediatric Obesity agreed this program would be a smart and helpful idea and the absence of such a good program meant Australia was falling behind other countries in measuring childhood obesity and evaluating strategies aiming at reducing it.
Obesity being a major health concern, the researchers are worried the problem will not get tracked or recognised if no data is being made. Monitoring obesity prevalence provides important data that can be used to track trends over time and identify areas at greater risk.
According to researchers led by Dr Katie Lacy there was no significant difference when height and weight measurements were taken based on a program in Arkansas in the US. Some parents believed starting a program like this could affect children’s body image, and might jump start bullying or embarrassment.
In the Arkansas program there were no increases in teasing, weight concerns or unhealthy dieting among adolescents after three years of measurements. The researchers noted that problems could be avoided by taking height and weight measurements privately, and keeping the individuals result personal.
Tim Olds, Professor of health sciences from the South Australia University said that those taking part in the voluntary program were not given individual data. Doing so avoids the downside of parents reacting or stressing about the results given from their child’s measurements. Tim Olds, involved in an anti-obesity program explains that the program wants population-level data, which doesn’t tell them much about the individual child.
A dissimilar opinion from health sociologist, Samantha Thomas states that more effort was needed to understand the causes of unhealthy behaviour in adolescents rather than just basic measurements of height and weight. ”Sometimes we can become really obsessed with numbers on a scale but what we really want to think about and encourage is healthy behaviours. Sometimes weight doesn’t reflect whether a kid is engaging in healthy behaviours or not,” she said.
It is still unknown whether the Australian government would consider a program to weigh and measure children in schools.
My opinion is I believe there are more ways other than measuring children and somewhat exposing their personal results. I think it is more so the parents job to control and help their child’s unhealthy behaviour. It shouldn’t be the government’s job to do so. Taking daily measurements of adolescents, in my opinion, isn’t going to change the child’s lifestyle and habits.
It is said that after three years of measurements, teasing, weight concerns and unhealthy dieting had stopped. This tells me that obviously before three years, there would have been teasing, bullying and weight concerns in children beforehand. Therefore, this program has been mentally unhealthy for children, making adolescents experience embarrassment and so forth. I can imagine this would cause stress and put more pressure on children in school.
An alternative suggestion might be regular weight and height check-ups at the child’s local GP. Involving schools in this issue won’t help anyone benefit from it. With schools running activities and after school programs, immunizations, and so on, there is enough for teachers to balance let alone daily height and weight measurement check-ups.
http://www.theage.com.au/lifestyle/life/call-for-school-weighins-to-fight-fat-20120826-24uix.html
http://www.abs.gov.au/AUSSTATS/abs@.nsf/Lookup/4102.0Main+Features20Sep+2009
http://theconversation.edu.au/profiles/tim-olds-2759
http://www.jpedhc.org/article/S0891-5245(02)88325-0/abstract