In an attempt to fight obesity, the government could force schools across England to weigh and measure their students.Under a suggested policy from No 10, children would jump on the scales and have their middles taped once a year. If they qualified as overweight, they’d be subjected to extra gym classes and a school-imposed programme of weight loss. Schools could be judged on their ability to help students shed pounds, creating some sort of perverse competition based on the shrinking waistlines of pupils. A hierarchy of schools based on shaming pupils into losing weight is alarming and bizarre. Do they get extra funding if they make the kid cry? A bonus for every child who develops an eating disorder after having to stand on the scales in front of friends? A gold star for pushing students under their care into a lifetime of yo-yo dieting? This is precisely the wrong way to go about combating the country’s supposed weight problem. It is a terrible, ill-advised, short-sighted idea and one that could be quite dangerous.
One in five kids are obese by the end of primary school, which is alarming but to shame them into weight loss simply teaches them to equate their worth with a number on a scale, and sets them up for a lifetime of thinking their size is some sort of indication of who they are. We cannot, and should not, be teaching teenagers that their bodies are shameful and don’t be mistaken, that would be the inevitable result of a schoolyard weighing programme. Children and teenagers are fragile enough already, without the humiliation of having to disclose their weight to someone at school or worse, be subjected to a special programme none of their friends is doing. Can you imagine the taunts? Society cannot, and should not, humiliate a person into weight loss; this much we should know by now. Obesity is incredibly complex, and often the result of inequality, lack of education and emotional distress.
Chastising someone for being overweight a child already vulnerable to playground bullying based on appearance is not going to inspire them to adopt a healthier lifestyle. It’s more likely to push them to pick up another packet of chips or begin to deny themselves food. Weighing kids publicly pose a very real risk to people who may be vulnerable to eating disorders already. The idea of having to step on a set of scales at school makes me as someone who had anorexia as a teenager feels physically ill. It would have sent me reeling into an even worse bout of starvation. With children as young as six developing eating disorders and more teenagers than ever admitted to the hospital, we cannot be preaching that weight is what matters here. The only way we are going to make any progress solving the obesity and anorexia epidemics in the UK is to address our dangerously fraught relationship with food, eating and body image.
The obvious service a school can provide is education, often the thing lacking when a person is under- or overweight. Schools should be teaching kids about nutrition and exercise, yes, but they should also be encouraging a healthy, functional attitude to food that includes separating a person’s worth from their weight on a scale. They shouldn’t be preaching calories and kilos; they should be teaching children and teenagers to feel happy, strong and informed enough to live as healthy a life as possible. That means eating for their physical and psychological well-being; it means doing a physical activity they enjoy; it means knowing what confidence in their bodies feels like. Exercise shouldn’t be doled out as a punishment for exceeding a certain number on a scale it should be essential, hopefully, joyous and fulfilling part of someone’s day. It is not a school’s place to scold a child into weight loss or force them to run off extra weight in the gym. How will that encourage children to exercise as they become adults?Teaching kids to shrink themselves on the command of their school, especially based on some sort of ranking system, is perverse. If children need to lose weight, they have to come to that decision on their own, with the aid of helpful, science-based, trauma-informed, compassionately shared information, from parents and teachers.
