Sweet Violet, I see what you are saying but personally I haven't found that to be the case. I know grownups who stil eat the healthy vegan diets that their parents raised them too. Yes there are bad influences out there but overall we can make a difference by train our kids right. I'm a firm believer in that. I also homeschool but my kids spend days away with their friends sometimes. What I don't like is how kids are taught that they need to snack,snack,snack,snack,snack all the time. That's a little hard for my kids because we don't eat in between meals. Our stomachs need a rest, not to be constantly working. We also don't watch TV so they are commercial free most of the time. I rent and check out programs from the library for them to watch.

The school shouldn't be bothering with this nonsense. It's unrelated to instruction and best left to parents. If bad parenting is a problem, I'd say the government intervention is a poor response.

Children, unfortunately, do not always respond in the way we would prefer them to: if you provide nothing but "healthy food," they'll just cadge cookies and sweets from the mothers of their friends.

if you don't conform you get labeled bad

1984 IS HERE! its just prettier looking and not as bleak, if it was so bleak it would be obvious and we'd stand up for this

Being fat isn't healthy but there's so many guidelines now with smoking (I'm not a smoker either) on how someone should be and if they aren't part of those guidelines they are heretics...or aren't normal like rest of the robots

Additionally, the person spearheading this in the UK come across as an incredibly obtuse and offensive fellow who doesn't care if his message alienates the parents or emotionally damages the children: parents who are alienated will not heed the message; emotionally wounded children may well become further obese through comfort eating.

The original "A View from the Other Side" blog post is at http://sweetvioletsa.blogspot.com/2008/08/its-officialyoure-fat.html

I was eight months pregnant at the time. This survey obviously didn't take that into account even though I selected the "pregnant" option.

Yes, I'm overweight, but not THAT much overweight, and I'm short. I'm the type of person that really does have big bones, wide hips, and big boobs. I've got big feet and wide shoulders, too. My BMI has always indicated I am obese even when I wore a size 6. *sigh* I miss my hourglass figure. oops, I'll stop rambling now...

And I think this is a good idea. If you look at someone everyday you dont really realize theyre weight, especially if you love them

I don't have a problem with the BMI thing, but I don't need it to tell me that one of my kids is skinny and the other is fat.

...Spoken by someone with no parenting experience.

Sometimes you have to pick your battles.

Doing that publicly today wouldn't be tolerated. Thank goodness.

My own parents let us kids eat anything and everything. And yes, we were terribly spoiled, and literally ruined with love. My brother was allowed to have a horrible diet, with the excuse that he was a "picky eater".

Thanx mom n dad. Idiots.

Parents that let their kids get to this stage obviously lack the backbone to do whats right for their kids. instead of enforcing and establishing appropriate habits... they do whats easy. Allowing junior to stuff his face with Captain crunch because he throws a tantrum otherwise.
How will a note from school change anything? These parents are just taking the easy path of least resistance.

Since luckily I'm in before the first "BMI is flawed" comment, let me say this: yes, BMI is really just a rule of thumb that can be useful for the average body type. Super-buff people may lie on the overweight-to-obese end of that scale, but really it doesn't make much of a difference in this case. If you're the parent of a ten-year-old bodybuilder (not likely), you likely know enough about your child's health and fitness level to disregard a misleading result spewed forth from a simple weight-to-height ratio.