Well the other day I blogged about the Commonwealth of Massachusetts (and the hearing is tomorrow…go to the hearing if you can!) Now we head north of the border to the Granite State.

New Hampshire is now considering House Bill 1479. This would require every school in the state to have the school’s nurse measure each student’s Body Mass Index (BMI) in grades 1, 4, 7, and 10.

This is being requested by the state Commission on the Prevention of Childhood Obesity, and the New Hampshire legislature is wants to back them up by reserving $500,000 over the next 4 years to do so.

For those who don’t know BMI is a measurement of what may be considered a “healthy weight” based on the person’s height. However, the BMI measurement does not actually measure body fat, so it is not a accurate measure of health. For example, we will use my dearly departed father (who incidentally would have been 82 today). At his heaviest, he was 450 lbs (205 kgs) and his height was 5’ 10” (178 cm). This would have put him with a BMI of 64.6. He would have been considered severely morbidly obese. However, he was a world champion weightlifter and his body fat was around 20% (half of a normal person with the same characteristics who was not physically fit). My father was by no means obese.

And there are several other arguments. It does not account for bone density, muscular mass and essentially puts everyone in a cookie cutter template.

But more importantly, it classifies children. As the bill is written, no individual data is required to be collected on these students. But it doesn’t prevent it either. I grew up in this section of the country and let me tell you, classifications and “tags” follow kids though their whole educational career. A kid tagged as fat will be treated as such. I was fat. I could have been easily inspired to work out by coaches in school. Instead, I was told that I couldn’t participate in some activities as it may be considered dangerous for someone of my size. If these assessments are cast upon students in New Hampshire, it could subject these children to years of ridicule and ostracization.  Add to that the fact the girls going through puberty need extra fat to help them properly develop. Thus the term “baby fat”.

And the study doesn’t even solve the issue! The issue is they want to prevent unhealthy children. And pay half a million dollars to do it!

What the New Hampshire legislature need to do is first, adopt a non-discriminatory policy for size in education (as well as other aspects of life) and then, implement the Health At Every Size (HAES) program in the school system, state wide.

I have spoke of HAES often. Its principles are simple:

• Accept and respect the diversity of body shapes and sizes.
• Recognize that health and well-being are multi-dimensional and that they include physical, social, spiritual, occupational, emotional, and intellectual aspects.
• Promote all aspects of health and well-being for people of all sizes.
• Promote eating in a manner which balances individual nutritional needs, hunger, satiety, appetite, and pleasure.
• Promote individually appropriate, enjoyable, life-enhancing physical activity, rather than exercise that is focused on a goal of weight loss.

New Hampshire is going to waste their money just to find out what everyone already knows, kids are fat. And in the process, cause a lot of heartache for the kids and taxpayers.