This is my 12-year-old daughter Alice who is brave and powerful and body positive. She lives proudly with mental health issues and neurological stuff, including chronic migraines and OCD, and stands up and speaks out for important things. She is a dancer with Open Arms Dance Project, a multi-generational and disabled and able-bodied dance studio here in Boise, and is a star softball pitcher.
She also recently spoke up and out about fatphobic content, including the promotion of diets and intentional weight loss, in her 7th grade PE class to her teacher.
It didn't go well.
I waited until the quarter was over, the class ended, and her A+ grade was officially submitted before I took the teacher, the principal, and the PE curriculum content administrator (aka the Athletic Director) to task. Only after my daughter led the charge herself and couldn't get anywhere. And only after everything was over because last time I complained in the middle of the class and my other daughter was treated unfairly and unkindly as a result.
I've been fighting this battle a long time.
Four years ago my oldest daughter, Lucy, also came home from her 7th grade junior high PE class telling me she got weighed and had to figure out her BMI at the beginning of the semester so they could keep track and check it again at the end of the semester for a GRADE ON HOW IT HAD LOWERED. And I wrote a few strongly worded emails to the teacher, later the principal, then some leaders at our local school district office I know personally and at the end of that academic year ended up in their office schooling them on Health At Every Size, eating disorders, Intuitive Eating, body image and their own curriculum and state standards.
It also didn't go well.
As a body image activist and educator for the past 12 years, I am concerned about the message this sends to our children, especially our teens - that arbitrary numbers that are out of their control are a form of assessment in an educational setting and a factor at all in enjoying physical fitness and moving their bodies. It's also a slippery slope that often leads them to disordered eating habits and the belief that their "health" can be measured in pounds and inches and often does more damage than good.
It's disappointing and worrisome to me that this is still district-wide occurrence in junior high PE classes and hope that eliminating this irrelevant (and potentially dangerous) idea of fatphobia and promotion of dieting and intentional weight loss to children is amenable. I know this is possible because there are many other programs in junior highs around the country that do not focus on weight loss or dieting but still achieve the same goals of making fitness fun and a lasting love in students' lives. Additionally, removing these two small parts from the curriculum will not inhibit the Idaho Department of Education PE Content Standards for grades 6-8, but may in fact enhance them: https://www.sde.idaho.gov/academic/pe/.
I told the leaders in our school district as much in an email four years ago and I told them the same again in an email last month. I thanks them for their time and care when teaching our children valuable content during perhaps the most vulnerable times in their young lives. Like me, I know they hope to provide them critical thinking skills necessary to become informed citizens in our world and help the grow to reach their fullest potential and health in the diverse bodies they have.
And after a little pushback and hard conversations you know what did happen? They took my advice and suggestions to heart and as far as I know, no 7th grade PE class since has taken weight or BMI measurements.
And in October of this year, a week or so after my email was sent outlining the offending material in Alice’s online PE course and how simply eliminating those pieces wouldn’t detract from the overall positive message of moving our bodies for fun and mental, emotional and physical health and eating a variety of foods, I got the following email from the Athletic Director:
"Hi Amy, sorry for my delay. I have been out of the office.
I appreciate you getting this on my radar. As you know, our instructional program has changed, and we are doing more on line for kids in a school for them to do online all day. ALL Covid related of course.
The program we are using called Fuel Ed has a curriculum we have adopted. I overlooked this part. I will adjust this with our teacher for this semester as she is the teacher again. That is, and was, an oversight on my part. I will correct that in our plan for the future.
Again, I appreciate that conversation to work on this together. Best regards."
Here's to teaching our kids to think critically and ask questions and stand up when they think something is wrong. It's what all parents and educators should aspire to teach our young impressionable ones. And here's to having a mom who's a well known body image activist and teachers and curriculum creators who are doing their best but are perhaps inadvertently using outdated and/or damaging content but are open to feedback and making positive change.
Here are some resources and links I shared with my school district and have given out to other parents and leaders in communities around the country when fighting similar battles of their own.
They may help you as well.
EVIDENCE AGAINST USING WEIGHT AS A MEASUREMENT OF HEALTH
Important things to note:
When we talk about fatness as the only real measure of health, we bypass many other pieces of the puzzle: nutrition, heart rate, blood pressure, sleep patterns, mental health, family histories. We ignore precise, important measures of health, collapsing all that complexity into the size of someone’s body, believing that to be the most accurate and trustworthy measure of a person’s health.
Fifty years of research shows that eating disorders are the deadliest form of mental illness. Weight stigma and the supposed “solution” for fatness, dieting, are more likely to lead to eating disorders and depression than better health.
The more you enjoy movement the more motivated you will be. Moving our bodies for fun rather than fear should be our first priority in PE classes in junior high. We’re inclined to take better care of something we love rather than something we hate.
Boys and girls with higher body dissatisfaction are more likely to diet and engage in unhealthy weight-control behaviors, including reduced physical activity in girls, and more binge eating in boys.
According to the American Academy of Pediatrics, approximately half of teenage girls and one-quarter of teenage boys are dissatisfied with their bodies; these numbers are higher in overweight teenagers. A shocking number of kids aren’t happy in their bodies and it’s making them less healthy, physically and emotionally.
Books:
Health At Every Size + Body Respect by Dr. Lindo Bacon
Intuitive Eating by Evelyn Tribole, M.S., R.D. and Elyse Resch, M.S., R.D., F.A.D.A.
Anti-Diet: Reclaim Your Time, Money, Well-Being, and Happiness Through Intuitive Eating by Christy Harrison MPH RD
Big Fit Girl: Embrace the Body You Have by Louise Green
Every Body Yoga: Let Go of Fear, Get On the Mat, Love Your Body by Jessamyn Stanley
My favorite websites and resources for body positive feeding/food ideas for kids and families:
Educators:
The Body Positive provides training for teachers, leaders and students on how to create more radical kindness and compassion in schools
Me! I also speak often to classrooms and entire schools on positive body image and whole health in easy, palatable ways for kids and teens of all genders.
Films:
The Student Body, 2016 documentary following a high school student who challenges her school’s taking of their BMI
Miss Representation, 2011 documentary
The Mask You Live In, 2015 documentary
A couple of recent important scientific studies + news articles that help corroborate the fact that using BMI is irrelevant at best and dangerous at worst. And in 2016 the American Academy of Pediatrics changed their guidelines for doctors regarding the dangers of discussing weight as a barometer of health with children:
BMI mislabels 54 million Americans as 'overweight' or 'obese,' study says, LA Times, Feb 2016
Why the New Rules for Talking to Kids About Weight is a Really Big Deal, Rebecca Scritchfield, RDN, Sept 2016
Preventing Obesity and Eating Disorders in Adolescents, American Academy of Pediatrics Journal, study about concerns that obesity prevention efforts may lead to the development of an eating disorder, Aug 2016
Gym Class Is So Bad, Kids Are Skipping School to Avoid It, The Atlantic, Jan 2019
Plan to cut PE test — and its body-fat measurement — in California sparks debate, March 2020
Are Schools Teaching Kids to Diet? New York Times, Nov 2020
Leave Fat Kids Alone: The “War on Childhood Obesity” Has Only Caused Shame, New York Times, Nov 2020