Obesity Police Want to Track Your Kid's BMI...

[16th ave.]

New Tool in Obesity Epidemic: Congress, States Consider Electronic Surveillance of Your Kids' BMI - ABC News

Report Calls on State to Monitor Kids' Weight; Some Parents Say 'Fat Chance'


its 3 pages long so you'll need to go to the link.
:veryconfused:

 

[Dadu2004]

Awesome, more government intervention to tell me how to live my life and raise my kids. Sweet.

 

[MorrisM]

I really think it should be left up to the parents to monitor the fitness-activity-nutrition-weight levels of their own children. They are the ones who should discourage inactivity and obesity.

On the other hand there are a lot of lazy parents who are on the weighty side themselves, and don't set good examples, or give any thought to healthy diets and exercise.

Maybe there should be a happy medium somewhere on this issue but I just don't like the government involved in everything.

 

[16th ave.]

i agree. its wrong. it sucks. the government is butting in too much again. each case needs to be handled by the family and their doctor. every family is different after all and what works for one may not work for another. and what happens in one family may not be what's going on in another.
if someone should step in i think it should be the doctor to report that the family isn't even trying to keep the weight issues under control and not some federal watch group or something other...

 

[ElliottCarasDad]

Awesome, more government intervention to tell me how to live my life and raise my kids. Sweet.

[sarcasm]
But we want the government involved in our health-care right?
[/sarcasm]

:biglaugh:

 

[16th ave.]

give us what they got.

 

[IADad]

yup, sure would be easier just to hand over the paycheck and then let them tell me what I can have, and what's right or wrong for my family.

We've already created a cluture that can't determine what's dangerous unless it has a label, so we're well on our way to giving up control of everything.

BTW, they'll be needing to track my obesity, which of course they'll want me to do so they can keep me healthy and generating want that check coming every month...

 

[flores16]

Why are some parents opposed to this? I think its a wonderful idea b/c it will educate parents. Then again, there are those who will take it as "don't tell me how to raise my kid" mentality, go figure!

 

[xox.ilu.xox]

I may be overstepping my boundaries here, but I came across it before a mod did. lol.

Please no posting on threads that are older than 30 days, it bumps old threads ahead of new ones that people may be needing answers for. Thanks!

 

[GymSensei]

This is an unfortunate epidemic in our country. Unfortunately, I don't believe BMI is the correct statistic to measure. BMI is based on the percentage of fat/muscle to body weight. As a child approaches puberty he/she has the ability to develop lean muscle mass. Because muscle weighs more than fat, an athlete or student that has decent muscle tone is many times deemed 'overweight' by this statistic. This approach may work for kids that don't have involved parents (so New York may be a good test city in some areas), but for parents that are hands-on this statistic may have limited importance.

 

[St. Nobody]

Why are some parents opposed to this? I think its a wonderful idea b/c it will educate parents. Then again, there are those who will take it as "don't tell me how to raise my kid" mentality, go figure!

Old thread, but since others have resurrected it, I think it's still okay to comment.

I think that there's a very real difference between education and monitoring, and there's an even bigger difference between education and mandating dietary changes or exercise changes in a child's life.

Aside from the staggering tax cost of implementing such a program, we're also talking about a government that relentlessly subsidises the production of corn so that our foods are saturated with corn, corn syrup, high fructose corn syrup...you get the idea.

There will always be a difference in opinion between individuals about what the government should do <I>in loco parentis</I>, but I think that a program such as this would be expensive, difficult to implement, and would probably not do a whole lot of good.

 

[IADad]

Old thread, but since others have resurrected it, I think it's still okay to comment.

I think that there's a very real difference between education and monitoring, and there's an even bigger difference between education and mandating dietary changes or exercise changes in a child's life.

Aside from the staggering tax cost of implementing such a program, we're also talking about a government that relentlessly subsidises the production of corn so that our foods are saturated with corn, corn syrup, high fructose corn syrup...you get the idea.

There will always be a difference in opinion between individuals about what the government should do <I>in loco parentis</I>, but I think that a program such as this would be expensive, difficult to implement, and would probably not do a whole lot of good.

excellent post and glad you are aware of the rules and have a reason, since it's not that old, it's okay. You get the point.

I think you have the cause/effect relationship on the whole corn production thing a litle sideways. Corn production isn't subsidized in order to ruin the health of the people, it's necessary, in the absence of free market foodk production to maintain agricultural prodcution, basically we can't let farmers go under, and the public would reolvt if they had to pay free market food prices, so we subsidize it, then what to do with all that corn? leads to the HFCS market (as I see it) Just saying there are a lot of cogs that need to be fixed, not just ending subsidies.

Same thing happens in the ethonal industry, it takes more energy to produce ethanol than it provides.

 

[St. Nobody]

Oh, I'm not against ending all subsidies, and I understand it's not a conspiracy. However, I don't think corn is a very good food source for much of anything. Being a somewhat created species, it's not a very natural food source. I would rather see subsidies and other incentives on healthier, more useful foods.

I also agree with you on ethanol.

 

[iamperfet]

BMI is a very pool tool for measuring health. It doesn't take in to account lean body mass. What an atrocity.