Legislation has been enacted in the State of Ohio with the purpose to promote healthy lifestyles and combat childhood obesity. Substitute Senate Bill #210 will affect the nutritional standards of food and beverages sold in schools, it will provide for the periodic monitoring of students' body mass index, and schools must institute 30 minutes of physical activity daily for students. The Brunswick City Schools decided to request a waiver from the state that would delay the implementation of the new state law based on a vote by the school board on Monday, March 21, 2011. State legislators approved the Healthy Choices for Healthy Children Act last year. The Act requires body mass indexing be done for kindergarten students, as well as the third, fifth and ninth grades. The school district claims it does not have the adequate resources to implement the program and has received complaints from parents who do not want their children tested. Ohio statistics show one in three children are overweight by the third grade. The state government is accepting responsibility for the health of children, shouldn't the parents and schools also? The requirement of physical activity for 30 minutes a day has already been dropped from the legislation. Parents can choose to have the testing done by their family physician or elsewhere outside of the school system. All testing results are kept private. Currently state required hearing and vision screenings are being done on students. Couldn't the BMI testing be included as part of this screening process? A healthy weight is important to the overall health of a body and there is no harm in having the test done.
If young children do not learn how to live a healthy active lifestyle from their parents and the school system, how are they going to learn it? What do you think? The BMI testing is mandated by state law for a reason. Shouldn't it be enforced?!
A complete summary of the Act can be found on the State of Ohio General Assembly web page
http://www.legislature.state.oh.us/bills.cfm?ID=128_SB_210.
Thanks,
Donna
should kindergarden students really be worried about their bmi? i mean, common, seriously? plus, bmi is total BS- it uses
ReplyDeleteheight and weight, not budy fat- to test for obesity.
plus, it's a violation of privacy. i have no issue with teaching a healthy and active lifestyle, but monitoring bmi is ridiculous.