We’ve told you before how schools are usurping the role of parents in banning certain snacks and sodas and putting restrictions on children’s diets that should be decided in the home. Now, the next wave: Schools are taking it on themselves to tell parents their kids are too fat — even if they’re not.
At least two school districts are sending notes home with children considered “at risk for overweight,” which in one case meant a tall nine-year-old boy who weighs 85 pounds, pretty much average for his age and height. “I took offense to it; I really thought it was totally inappropriate for school to send a letter,” said his mom. In one school district, officials slip the notes into students’ backpacks.
“I think what they should have done was notify the parents first that this letter was going to be coming out… and
explaining more in detail why they were sending the letter home,” said an offended parent. “A lot of the kids may intercept the mail, open the letter themselves, and the children are perceiving it as the school saying that they are fat.” One critic of the letters even suggests they could promote eating disorders among youth.
Not all school administrators are happy with the intrusive policy. Florida elementary school principal Lane Vick, whose school was required to distribute letters, said: “I felt like if it were my own children, I should be taking care of them.”
