Obesity report cards put brakes on bad habits

updated 6:46 p.m. ET June 6, 2006

LITTLE ROCK, Ark. - It’s been two years since Arkansas schools started sending letters home to parents with their kids’ report cards — letters telling them if their children were fat.

Plenty of parents weren’t happy. But a lot of them did something about it.

Suddenly there were more visits to the pediatrician for talks about weight problems. Fitness class attendance is up. Diet pill use by high-schoolers is down.

And more states are following Arkansas’ lead, including California, Florida and Pennsylvania, which have adopted similar programs.

Dr. Karen Young, medical director for the pediatric fitness clinic at Arkansas Children’s Hospital, told of a mother upset when she got word from school that her child was overweight. The mother wanted a second opinion from Young, but in the meantime, she cut sweets from the family diet and slimmed the child down before the appointment.

“Even though she was upset with the letter and felt it was wrong, she still changed the family’s lifestyle,” Young said. “A lot of positive things have come out of those letters.”

The letters record each child’s body-mass index, the same weight-height formula used to calculate adult obesity. The first batch went out in the 2003-04 school year.

Across the state 57 percent of doctors said they had at least one parent bring in their child’s letter from the school for discussion during the last school year.

Young said she’s had more visits from parents seeking help for the entire family.

“I don’t care what size their siblings are or their parents, everyone in the family should eat healthy and exercise,” she said. “What’s good for them is good for everybody.”

A local TV news report on Young’s clinic led Marsha Simon-Younger to enroll her 11-year-old daughter Nasirah in fitness classes. Since Nasirah joined this spring, she’s felt better and is eating healthier, her mother said.

“At first, my daughter was really reluctant to go because she thought of it as a fat camp,” said Simon-Younger. But once Nasirah arrived, she saw a friend from church and Girl Scouts and felt at ease.

“She has more self-esteem,” and she tries different foods, the mother said. “Sometimes we might fall off the wagon, but we get right back on.”

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