Friday, June 8, 2007
Ad Busters
This magazine is out of Canada and is apparently not censored. It's pretty interesting and comes out every couple of months. It ran a story about elementary schools that send home weight report cards along with the childs regular report cards. It graded the childs body mass index and recorded whether it was good or bad. Some parents felt thankful for the help, others were afraid it would traumatize their child or that is was way too invasive. I am torn. I have the thougth that the school system sees these kids 8 hours a day 5 days a week and should be upfront with their parents. On the other hand, shouldn't the parents be upfront with their kids? They raise them and see them everyday. I don't have kids so I am not familiar with the fight of how to get a kid to eat healthy or how to deal with a kid that is considered "obese"...I guess I'm not the right person to lend any advice. I just know how I feel on this end.
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Very interesting concept to have a weight report sent home. I agree that the school has the kids for the majority of the day and is responsible for most of their learning but they can only do so much. Eating habits start in the home and it starts way before the kids go to school, so I believe it is a parent's responsibility to shape the way their children view food. I think it's never too early to start talking to your kids about healthy food choices, and often you as a parent are a role model for that. My husband is a Pepsi addict and my kids would often complain and ask why they couldn't have it like dad! So we explained that dad is already full grown and how it would affect their bodies (their growth, bones etc.) so it's funny now cuz my older son is 8 and he loves to play basketball so he will often pass up soda when it's offered to him cuz he wants to get as tall as he can so he can play basketball. And its not like we forbid him to ever drink it. for parties or special events it's ok but just not daily, and he's taken that and made his own decision about it and drinks it even less than we expected. We are always talking about which kind of foods are good for your body in what way...like meat is protein and gives you energy and oranges have vitamin c which protects you from getting sick too often and carrots have vitamin a to help your eyesight... etc etc etc... :)People think it's gonna go over their heads cuz they're "just kids" but they pick up on things and they're smarter than we give them credit for. Often parents make mistakes by using food as a reward or a bribe and then kids get into patterns that carry on into adulthood. So much can be said about this subject, but I think if a parent takes their child to get regular checkups then they are in tune to whether or not their child is above/below the acceptable weight for his/her height.
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