Reading, Writing, and Getting Fit

It seems that a legislator in the State of Texas wants to add body mass index (BMI) into the report cards for school-age kids. It is not clear from the newspaper article I read whether this would be a part of the overall grade or simply a notification to parents. The movie "Supersize Me" that came out last year really got to the heart of this matter and, in fact, picked on Texas. It turns out that both Dallas and Houston rank among the top 10 fattest cities in the United States - I think Houston was number 1 actually.

I like the idea of health and physical education at the primary education level and I would propose a grading scheme tied to yearly or semester improvements of BMI. Schools serving crap food and educators doing nothing about a statistic like 33% of school age kids being overweight are simply unacceptable.

Obesity is a problem because as an adult it is hard to get rid of. Society pays a toll in rising health costs associated with obesity related diseases such as diabetes and heart disease. In addition, issues related to how obesity is viewed in our society often plague obese adults. If obesity prevention can be taught and executed at the primary level, maybe - just maybe - some of this would stick and we wouldn't be such an overweight country.