Weigh-in

Oh sorry, this ain’t what you think – come on, I’d share my weight with you people – NEVER!

I’m sure parents who have school age children know this law but for me, someone who hasn’t sent a kid to school in decades, legislation passed in 2007, and went into effect this month, was an eye opener. This requires public schools outside of NYC to collect and report a summary of students’ weights and body mass indexes as part of an effort to combat childhood obesity. Hey whatever you measure you can improve – huh?

Doctors will now be required to test students when they come in for a student health certificate (which is mandatory) for attendance in NY state schools. Now the information will be confidential and collected at school entry and in 2nd, 4th, 7th and 10 grades. The data will be passed on to the state Department of Health unless parents ask to have the information excluded. Wait a second, how can a parent ask to have this information excluded, isn’t this required by legislation? OR does this mean if I object, the data on my kids is excluded? If that is the case, this is bogus, right?

Okay, let’s say nobody objects, after all they are not going to use names, right? Most likely it’ll be by area and school districts and/or schools. So they got all this data, now what? Will spend hundreds of thousands of dollars studying the data and what, eventually get a report that says; “In the data collected, 65% of NY schools have obese students.” Well, shit don’t we know that just by looking at these kids?

Is just me or do others think that maybe, just maybe instead of waiting for some researcher to tell us we got fat kids and an obesity problem, which we all ready know, that the funds would be better spent on an acceptable educational program. One that not only addresses but allows students to get involved in programs that result in changing their eating habits and participating in fitness programs that works for everyone not just the gifted athletes?

Damn what a concept! Are we so sure only adults know how to address this issue and kids aren't smart enough to offer us valid, useful information? Hello, they are the ones getting fatter and they'll end up like are fat asses (some not all of us okay) unless we become partners with them to make positive change! Are we gonna ask our kids to wait until they are older, like us, to realize they need to lose weight, that they're asking to not only die young but suffer due to extra strain they are putting on their heart? We need to get everyone together now and do something, screw the data crap --let's stop the fat!

Well I can’t wait for the next research project, can you? Maybe they’ll come up with one that tells us what sex we are – we obviously don’t this either! Damn I wish I was smart –being this dumb really hurts!

The trouble with bucket seats is that not everyone has the same size bucket!