Is the Best Practice Educating Students on Body Image and Confidence from the UK or US Educational System?

The UK government is providing parents with packs with information to help their children's body image about themselves.  From BBC News:

A pack to help parents educate children on how the media alters images and to inspire them to be confident in their bodies has had government backing.

Developed for six to 11-year-olds by not-for-profit organisation Media Smart, the pack contains before and after touched-up images of celebrities such as Britney Spears.

It also looks at how ideas of the "perfect" body have changed.

The government said it wanted the pack to "empower parents".

"Young people are being set an impossible standard by images in media and advertising which can erode their self-esteem," she said.

"As parents, we are often aware of these issues, but may not have the advice and guidance we need to talk to our children. 

"I want the pack to empower parents to have those difficult conversations and open the door to discussion."

You can download the parent pack here.  It's only 13 pages but is full of information for children to understand the world of advertising and how this world is a fantasy world made up of photo retouches.

The pack explains:

• what is body image
• what shapes body image

Parents learn raise these issues and questions with their children:

• Are the images children see every day affecting their body confidence?
• Help children understand the pictures they see
• Asking their children "are the pictures we see in the media real"?

The packet details how the magic of advertising works to sell products through the use of airbrushing, digital enhancement and photo manipulation.  There are photos in the packet showing bust enhancement and digitally enhanced photos illustrating enhanced skin color and smoothness.  

One interesting fact listed is 75% of 11-21 girls diet to look more attractive.  What young woman who is "average looking" thinks she is attractive when she looks at photographs in magazines of extraordinary looking models...and those photos have been retouched to achieve that extraordinary level?  Would it help those 75% of women if they realized they were trying to achieve an ideal that is naturally not attainable?

The agency offers tips to help parents talk about their child's body image with the child, and the most important tip coming from this governmental agency is the first one listed, You are the most influential role model in our child's life.  From this very important premise, parents are asked to:

• Be positive
• Help your child accept other people's body sizes and shapes
• Listen to your child's concerns
• Don't tease them about their weight, body shape or looks
• Place value on the achievements 
• Respond to your child's concerns

This is a positive, non-punitive packet for parents to give their children information and learn to distinguish fantasy from reality.  This is quite different than the push to track children's Body Mass Index (BMI) here in the United States and to control food choices under the guise of healthy eating initiatives.  The DOEd's continual emphasis on food rather than acceptance of different body sizes and shapes may contribute to eating disorders, rather than making children healthier:

From Education News:

A new report released this week by the C.S. Mott Children’s Hospital has suggested that the numerous programs implemented by schools across the country designed to tackle childhood obesity could be going too far — and could potentially cause eating disorders.
 


Controlling what students eat and tracking their BMIs seems counter-intuitive to empowering them to make good choices when the food police is not around.   Maybe the UK's idea of  helping children accept other people's body sizes and shapes as well as their own, is more healthy than focusing on worrying about obesity and calorie counting food all day.  The UK is equipping parents and students with information for them to talk as a family and make informed decisions, rather than being "nudged" into behavior set by governmental agencies.

The Food Police in Wellesley Stike Back at Kids

Who is supposed to be setting educational policies for schools?  The state or the Federal Government?

This is a classic example of governmental overreach reported by boston.com. The food police strikes again!  Poor kids.  It's supposed to be about them, right? It's to make them fit and healthy according to Michelle Obama.  It's more as if the schools via the Federal Government mandates are starving students with not serving them enough food to satisfy them and providing expired milk. The waste of food is tremendous because it's not tasty or it's spoiled.  It's time for a food fight from parents...and constitutional pushback from these ridiculous nanny state policies:

The School Committee said the portion sizes that the children complained about are regulated by the federal government.

Why are states allowing this bullying policy?  Why are these bureaucrats so spineless they allow spoiled food and meager portions to be served to students?  Who is responsible for the education for students (including lunch food)?  The states or the Federal Government?

Does the Government Really Believe in "Choice"? When it Comes to Sex, Yes. Food Choices? Not so Much.

Here is an interesting post on HotAir about the "nudging".

JE Dyer asks, "What if government treated eating the way it treats sex?"

It’s a useful distinction to consider.  A particular moral idea governs left-wing views on social and health matters, and the left’s purpose with political advocacy is to put the power of government behind that view.  By examining the left’s very different policy approaches to eating and sex, we can discern the features of the morality at work.

.....If government treated obesity the way it treats sex, it would encourage schoolchildren to explore their enjoyment of Twinkies, Oreos, and moon pies; it would employ professionals to devise ways of suiting government policies to the principle that our bodies belong to us and we can put whatever we want in our stomachs; it would hold legislative hearings on the overriding importance of the freedom to eat what we want; it would resist the very idea of remedies that involve the individual eating less, or eating different things; it would pay for liposuction, cholesterol drugs, heart surgery, and diabetes-mitigation measures but not for programs of diet and exercise; it would encourage the development of drugs that could prevent fat formation regardless of what one eats; and it would make it a basic human right to be able to eat whatever one wants and have the consequences mitigated by the public. (emphasis added)


This is a most illuminating article on how the government wants to control the behavior of its citizens in a particular direction and it provides excellent examples of "nudging".  

In Ten Years, Maybe the Food Police in Schools will be Arrested for their Actions Which Led to...Eating Disorders

The government obsession of obesity and controlling student food choices may result in unintended consequences.

Producing fit workers for the society might just boomerang into producing a generation of children with increasing emotional problems.  While the food police is obsessing about regulating calorie and nutritional intake, these nanny platoons may be creating needless anxiety in students.


From Education News:


A new report released this week by the C.S. Mott Children’s Hospital has suggested that the numerous programs implemented by schools across the country designed to tackle childhood obesity could be going too far — and could potentially cause eating disorders.

More News from the North Carolina School Food Police

Would you send your child to this North Carolina school involved in a food fight between parents and students?

If you support the "Let's Move" program designed by Michelle Obama and the current administration, your sympathies are with this principal.  He's trying to abide by the mandates set by the Federal government.  All children will be served certain food groups from the cafeteria or their lunch from home will be supplemented with certain groups if all food components are not included.

This second story (from the same school) was published last week about another mother confirming her experience was similar to the first tale of the food police superseding parental lunch choice for children.  Included in the story was a screen shot of the memo to parents explaining the food policy:

Laurie Cockrell, a parent posting in a forum about this push back from West Hoke Elementary administration to parental authority, had an interesting perspective about the food police:

Did you read the letter from the principal? My home schooled first graders (who ate green beans and a pbj yesterday - oops, no dairy!) can place commas more accurately than those in the 4th paragraph. These are the people dictating what food groups must be included in a lunchbox? What a mess. 

Cockrell makes a valid and interesting observation.  If this memo is indicative of the actual teaching of academic subjects in this school, these students are in trouble.  It's easy to police food selections coming from home, dictate to parents what they must send to school in lunches, and inform parents the school must meet mandates to receive an "Excellent" rating. The actual teaching of academic material is not as easy and the teachers and administration must possess mastery of the subject to provide competent instruction.

The last sentence of the memo reads "Let's continue to make our program a quality place where all students are healthy while they learn."  I hope the kids, once they get healthy food from the food police (because their parents are not capable of feeding them adequately according to governmental mandates) learn proper grammatical structure and the correct use of commas and semi-colons from the teachers and not the principal.

I wouldn't trust this principal to teach students grammatical structure.  The students would fail the assessments.

 

Vote in this Poll About the Food Police in Schools

There is a 3 question poll in this Althouse blog about the food police in the North Carolina school who told a mother she did not pack a nutritious enough lunch for her 4 year old daughter.

Take the poll and see if you think the same way 90% of the respondents voted on the school's actions. 

Then visit a new Facebook Group "Stay Out of My Lunchbox".  Share YOUR stories of the food police visiting your school or district.