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"Childhood obesity is obviously a concern: In 2010, more than one third of adolescents and children were overweight or obese (and obesity has more than doubled in children and tripled in adolescents in the past 30 years). And some schools are tackling the problem with &amp;quot;fat letters&amp;quot; sent home with students. It&amp;#x27;s happening across Massachusetts, where the Department of Public Health is saying that 32 percent of students in the state have a body mass index that&amp;#x27;s in the &amp;quot;overweight&amp;quot; zone. That&amp;#x27;s why the department has teamed with schools: to identify kids who are possibly obese and alert their parents to that fact. The surprised parents&amp;amp;#8212;as you might imagine&amp;amp;#8212;aren&amp;#x27;t taking it well. For one thing, a lot of them have said that their children are actually quite active with school sports teams and that BMI doesn&amp;#x27;t take into account their children&amp;#x27;s muscle mass (this is, across the board, one of the biggest criticisms of BMI). But beyond that, the letters have people wondering if it&amp;#x27;s any of the government&amp;#x27;s business (some parents cite it as &amp;quot;government interference in parenting and invasion of privacy.&amp;quot; The letters have also left students feeling &amp;quot;bullied.&amp;quot; And if I ever received a letter like that as a kid, I&amp;#x27;m pretty sure it would have plunged me into a serious state of sorry self-esteem. And if I received one in the near future, about my own kids? Yeah, I&amp;#x27;d have a problem with that. What do you think&amp;amp;#8212;what would you do? Is it up to schools and the government to determine which kids are overweight and alert their parents? More health controversies: * Should college campuses go smoke-free? * More women are having vaginal plastic surgery than ever. * Girls suspected of being pregnant were required to take pregnancy tests at this school. Photo: Thinkstock"^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.glamour.com/health-fitness/blogs/vitamin-g/2013/03/health-controversy-some-school>