Some Florida parents don’t like health report cards
Monday, June 2nd, 2008Florida parents are now receiving a health report on their child using a BMI score to measure if the child is at a healthy weight.
In Florida, parents received health report cards that were based on their child’s BMI age-to-percentile score. To learn more about a BMI score and see what your child’s score is, you can go to our parent’s tools page. But back to the article, in one county, over 1600 children received report cards that said they had “excess” weight.
- Some parents felt that it was too negative and were concerned that it may hurt their child’s feelings.
- Other parents were concerned that the score was not accurate and did not reflect their child accurately.
- Finally, some parents blamed the schools for the kind of foods offered to the children and its lack of exercise programs in the schools.
All in all, I think it is pretty natural for a parents first response to be defensive. I think that is why the healthcare community does not use terms like “obese”. They use these terms instead “at risk for overweight” or overweight. Obese sounds so bad.
But we need to look at the reality here. Kids are overweight and we are seeing the trend of childhood obesity rising not declining. Perhaps the state needs to be more sensitive and explain it further rather than send a report card.
But shouldn’t this be a discussion you have with your pediatrician. Shouldn’t the peds be doing BMI scores and talking with parents. I am a nurse and concerned that this important screening tool and discussions are not taking place in the doctor’s office. Maybe, parents will have to become more proactive and ask their child’s pediatrician. “Is my child at a healthy weight?”
