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Don’t call the kids obese: Parents to get ‘prissy’ letters telling them they’re children are overweight
Jenny Hope
DailyMail
Monday, August 4, 2008
Millions of parents will be told their child is too fat in warning letters to be sent out within weeks – but officials will steer away from using the word ‘obese’.
New guidance means all parents will be told how heavy their children are after they are weighed at school – but parents of the fattest children will not get the plain truth as the ‘O’ word has been banned.
The decision to omit the word ‘obese’ and replace it with ‘very overweight’ has been branded ‘prissy and namby-pamby’.
Those in charge of tackling the nation’s obesity crisis believe the term is a ‘turn-off’ for parents.
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Dr Will Cavendish, director of health and well-being at the Department of Health, denied the word had been banned but said they had ‘chosen not to use it’.
He said research shows it ’shuts people down’.
‘There’s no point giving them a letter that doesn’t have any impact on their behaviour’ he added.
But Tam Fry, board member of the National Obesity Forum, said it was important to be honest with parents.
He said experts in the US had considered banning the word obese but changed their minds, saying the word was necessary to shock parents into action.
He said ‘I find this particular line from the Government tip-toeing through the daffodils.
‘The Americans have gone back to using the term because it’s the kind of shock word that makes parents sit up and take notice.
‘It’s a nasty word but by god it should sound alarm bells in parents’ minds.
‘I find this whole approach from the Department of Health a bit prissy and namby pamby.’
Under new guidance, primary care trusts (PCTs) are being urged to routinely tell parents their child’s height and weight as part of a national measuring programme at the ages of five and 11.
Parents will be given the chance to opt out in advance, saying they do not want their child measured, but those who agree will receive the results by letter.
Children, who cannot be forced to take part, will not personally be given the results in a bid to prevent them being bullied by other youngsters.
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August 4th, 2008 at 1:32 pm
I didn’t know that it was so hard to tell that you’re fat when you’re fat. I guess someone has to let you know now.
August 4th, 2008 at 1:46 pm
I’m not fat. I have large genes.
August 4th, 2008 at 4:22 pm
OK. LOOK. it’s not easy being a obese child. These ARE children we are talking about. Being weighed, kids teasing you and being treated like cattle that needs to be ‘put out of their misery’ is not funny. This type of thing creates widespread depression. Raises stress hormones which, in turn, cause further weight gain. “OBESE” is a very ugly word. it sounds like “beast”. Doesn’t it? Words make people. Stop treating overweight people like freaks. Any amount of dignity to give a child ,while trying to help them, is the best approach. Anything else is verbal abuse. Ask any “obese” kid.
August 4th, 2008 at 5:00 pm
You really think parents need a letter to tell them their kids are obese? If they havent done anything about it up to that point, what makes you think it was from a lack of awareness? *sigh*
August 4th, 2008 at 6:42 pm
Give children ’fat report cards’ – experts say
http://www.msplinks.com/MDFodH.....AuaHRtbA==
August 4th, 2008 at 9:53 pm
SHARI:
I have to agree with you on this one. I am one of seven siblings, and one of my four elder sisters, who was only moderately overweight as a child, was labeled and routinely called “fatso” by my verbally abusive parents. She grew up to be a very screwed up adult.
I have always believed that all children should be entitled to ‘divorce’ their parents without being required to show cause or to endure any waiting period. Yes, IT IS better to live in an orphanage than to live with some parents.
August 4th, 2008 at 9:57 pm
Also, food is a very sensitive addiction, because unlike sex, gambling, or drugs, no one can live without eating, and the compusion to eat starts on the day we are born. If you remove the appetite entirely, you have a potentially worse problem. The fact that most Britons and Americans are overweight demonstrates the commonality of this problem.
August 4th, 2008 at 10:18 pm
High fructose corn syrup, GM foods & aspartame….
August 4th, 2008 at 10:24 pm
What is this all about anyway?
“Oh s---”, parents will say, when they find out from a letter that they’re children are fat.
Of course, this will come as a f---ing big suprise, seeing they don’t have eyes in their heads. Thank f--- for Dr. Cavendish et al. Where would the world be without responsible people like them?
“Thank you government for pointing out my failures in life. This letter will help my child become thin again. Who needs nutrition classes, when a simple letter will do?”.
What a sad place this has become.
August 4th, 2008 at 10:38 pm
I can’t believe the PC BS that I hear. If your a fat slob then you need to be called a FAT SLOB! No big bones, no heavy your just plain fat and an eyesore! Kids or not, we learn from our parents…a non-disciplined parent produces a non-disciplined kid and more often than not they are fat…fat slobs. So boo-hoo to those who are inclined to give a shoulder to cry on. Tell it like it is and maybe they will break the cycle of their parents, get some discipline and live a productive life.
BTW Ron Paul is a Mason…WAKE-UP
August 4th, 2008 at 10:41 pm
Fear and guilt, Fear and guilt. It is a fact that US and British kids are healthy and more law-abiding than at any time in recorded history. It is a fact that the brain-dead sheeple, including most on this site, believe the opposite.
Edward Bernays would rejoice in seeing such a perfect deployment of his theories. Fear and guilt. The sheeple can be made to accept any falsehood as true if it plays on these weaknesses, and is consistently pushed by the mainstream media.
Will British parents opt out of Blair’s ‘nazi youth’ scheme in great enough numbers to make a difference? Of course not. The meme of obesity as a ‘growing’ problem has been well seeded, and the ‘chattering classes’ too moronic to even look around to notice a lack of difference between now and an honest recolloection of their childhood times.
Sometimes, I think that Blair must have dropped the IQ of British citizens by 50 points somehow. For you americans, British parents with schoolkids obsess over something called SAT’s. You might think you know what this is, but you would be mostly wrong. Blair, years back, introduced a program of school testing, by testing kids of all ages. In reality, using fear and guilt, he was introducing an abusive and anti-educational scheme whereby all education, for all years, would focus on student aptitude tests. These tests would be to no purpose, and earn no student progress, because in the UK we already have a system of exams called GCSE’s and A-levels (the latter replace your USA SAT exams).
You see, the initial excuse for UK SAT’s was to allow the school to be judged, but Blair knew that parents would demand the results for their own kids, allowing the program to morph into something vastly more insiduous. Now SAT’s ‘test’ the kids, pretty much each year. Real education was wiped out, and love of learning exterminated.
The next stage is the constant physical monitoring of kids. The nazis did it. The soviets did it. Blair is way more ambitious than either of these two hyper-authoritarian regimes.
There is the truth, and what the sheeple think is the truth. In politics, only the latter counts. So when you abuse power, you abuse the minds of the sheeple. You see the same with ‘Global Warming’. You SAW the same with AIDS propaganda, at the beginning of the ‘epidemic’, when the sheeple of the First World were told the lie that AIDS would have a major effect on the ordinary heterosexual population. Remember back then, if you dared stand up and say “that is a lie”, you faced being lynched by an angry mob of brainwashed sheeple.
Today, try saying “kids are more law-abiding than ever before”, ‘kids are healthier than ever before’, ‘man made Global Warming is a myth’, “Blair and Bush have murdered near ten million Humans in Somalia, Afghanistan and Iraq”, and once again discover that the sheeple will try to hang you.
August 4th, 2008 at 11:03 pm
These are school kids? Right? So why not educate them on what is and what is not healthy food and drinks. A thing like it is good to drink water that is not flavored and sweetened. So what if there are no bubbles to tickle your nose.
Things like fresh vegetables are healthier than snacks from the local fast food outlet. Home cooked meals are better and cheaper than all the take-away meals. Often they are quicker to prepare as well. That is assuming that there is somebody in the household that does know how to cook.
Teach them how to read the labels on packages. That way they have an idea of what they (and the rest of the family) are eating.
If these students are in an area that has land available to do it teach them how to grow their own vegetables either at the school or at home.
These ideas have and are working in other countries so why not here?
A letter telling parents that their kid is overly fat (or obese) is not enough. Most parents will know that but some I know are too busy to notice or are obese themselves so they think it is normal for their kid to be that size.
August 5th, 2008 at 12:35 am
Well does that mean that Blair’s fat daughter will be getting one? Blair’s daughter tried to kill herself with razor blades three f---ing times! And he and his party thinks he can lecture us on how to bring up our kids. SCUM!!!! We can only imagine the emotional abuse in that family!
August 5th, 2008 at 9:16 am
I bet MacDonald’s is sponsoring this program. Or some equally ironic twist.
August 5th, 2008 at 9:55 am
vein:
I like reading your posts.
However, AIDs has been a predominantly heterosexual disease in Africa for the past couple of decades, and about a decade ago AIDs became a prdominantly hetero disease in the USA. Also, there is evidence that AIDs was originally manufactured by Western labs to target Africans of all gender identities.
August 5th, 2008 at 9:58 am
vein:
I like reading your posts.
However, AIDs has been a predominantly heterosexual disease in Africa for the past couple of decades, and about a decade ago AIDs became a predominantly hetero disease in the USA. Also, there is evidence that AIDs was originally manufactured by Western labs to target Africans of all gender identities.
February 5th, 2009 at 11:56 am
It is the thin edge of the wedge. Get people accustomed to notifications from school. Then point out that people aren’t taking action to help their children even though the government has informed them of their child’s “health risk”. Finally, they’ll dictate that you mus t get your child to a certain weight or you will be considered guilty of neglect.