According to the City of New York, this kid is fat

Whenever I hear or read that one in every three kids is obese, I look around my children’s schoolyard and think, “How is that possible?” Every third child at this school is fat, they tell us, and yet 90% of them look to be healthy, normal children.

My question has been answered. Are you ready to see what bureaucrats in New York City consider to be a “fat kid?”

Here she is, 9-year-old Gwendolyn Williams:

Gwendolyn Williams (credit: WIlliams family photo)
Gwendolyn Williams (credit: WIlliams family photo)

Despite the persistent objections of parents and the lack of medical evidence that there is any value to their efforts, public schools are still sending children home with fat-shaming letters for their parents.

And that’s what happened to Gwendolyn.

Via the New York Post:

Gwendolyn Williams is a pencil-thin, bubbly 9-year-old who is a perfectly healthy third-grader.

But according to city bureaucrats, she’s practically obese.

“I was like, ‘Oh, my God! Why did I get this?’” the Staten Island kid recalled Thursday after getting a Department of Education-issued “Fitnessgram” that described her Body Mass Index as “overweight.”

“I’m 4-foot-1, and 66 pounds, and I’m like, what?!” Gwendolyn exclaimed of the school handout, which the city is sending home in the bookbags of 870,000 public school students, grades K through 12.

Aside from the completely inappropriate nature of the letter’s delivery, it raises the question: Does government have any business using the public school system as an agency to enforce the First Lady’s “Let’s Move” project? Since when was the educational system granted the authority by “We the People” to police our children’s lunch boxes?

The President’s signature policy achievement – Obamacare – creates a slippery slope for these types of policies. Senior Fellow and health policy expert at Heritage, Robert Moffitt, explains that even private insurance providers will have all key health insurance decisions made by government officials. They will control preventative medicine and lifestyle choices based on what they believe is best for you.

Like almost every other government-derived project, these “fat shaming” letters often have unintended, and harmful, consequences.

Last October, public schools in Massachusetts decided they would no longer issue the controversial letters, citing their potential to precipitate eating disorders in students. So why are school administrators in New York still trying to fat-shame and bully children into eating what they determine to be healthier options?

The real agenda seems to be steering parents and children to government websites like those mentioned in the above letter, where readers can “educate” themselves on better nutrition choices. Better choices as determined by the government. Let’s move!

Forcing choices on people by shaming them for who they are is just another example of government bullying.

The schools don’t need any more bullies in the yard.

Cross-posted at the Mental Recession

Rusty Weiss

Rusty Weiss

Rusty Weiss is editor of the Mental Recession, one of the top conservative blogs of 2012. His writings have appeared at the Daily Caller, American Thinker, FoxNews.com, Big Government, the Times Union, and the Troy Record.

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