To complain about teacher weight comments

[jd88123]

My Daughter is in S1 aged 12 and was in biology class. Her teacher made them all weigh themselves.
My DD went through puberty age 10 and has boobs and a bum. Her BMI is 22 which is normal.
She said the teacher told them to "put 50kg down if you don't want to put your real weight as this is normal".
I am fuming about this as my DD is already weight conscious and has said she is going on a diet which I don't condone as she is healthy.
I think the teacher was very irresponsible to comment this and I sent a complaint about it to her guidance teacher which they've said they are looking in to.
I feel it's so wrong for children to compare themselves to each other as everyone is different. It's so damaging to their self esteem and at this age all girls especially have so much pressure to be thin and beautiful from the media.
Would you have complained?

So did this teacher.

I suspect though the teacher did not come up with this lesson plan by herself - at high school most subjects have lesson plans agreed by the head of the department so all of the year receive as much as possible the same lesson.

so if you are to make a complaint make it about the lesson being on the curriculum rather than the teacher given that I think she did try to help by saying put 50kg (which is 91st centiles for both boys and girls at 12 so hardly shaming)

I know DD did around that age st school (for physics thiugh) as did her friends at other schools so it is sadly more common than it should be as I know I would have hated it

I have just put the numbers in the bmi child and teen bmi calculator and for a
Girl of 12 she is on the 80th centile!
I think you are the one who doesn't understand BMI s luv!

As did this teacher

This isn't about your daughter in particular, but having fat kids should be treated as a form of child abuse in most cases and its absolutely right for schools/teachers to get involved, just like they would for any other case of abuse/mistreatment

This isn’t part of the UK curriculum

I wonder why teachers hate their jobs so much these days. Their mental health is apparently in tatters.

OP this is ridiculous to me. I don't think anyone should be weighed if they don't want to. In fact weighing and fixation on weight is associated with dysfunctional approaches to fat loss etc in younger females. I think it's awful the biology teacher did this.

As you well said, girls have completely different rates of development - what is normal to a kid who hasn't been through puberty yet is not normal for a girl whose been through puberty but the difference could make her hugely self conscious of the difference.

Honestly don’t think it’s unreasonable teacher bashing type behaviour to raise this. It doesn’t have to be done in an aggressive confrontational attack the teacher type of way. The teachers on the thread agree focussing on pupils weight is not common practice now now anyway.

I would absolutely complain.
about the weighing, about the comments, about the entire experience . What were they thinking?

My daughter spent six months eating nothing but apples after her Year 6 class took part in a university study of exercise patterns and food intake. Parents were not given the full picture of what was involved until too late. resulted in a major complaint to the university’s ethics department, and I have never allowed any of my children to participate in any form of research study since then

We weigh as per of the NHS though in year 6 which I hate!

but as I said I think this is a curriculum at the school issue rather than the teacher who I am fairly certain wouldn’t be teaching it under her own steam

Until you’ve experienced it you won’t understand. But believe us who’ve been through it this sort of thing can lead to very very damaging behaviours. I know it makes no sense. Be grateful if you’re blissfully ignorant of it.

This! I wouldn’t wish it on anyone, it’s a total different kind of hell

Teacher was aware, and covered herself, by giving those who are sensitive a ‘get-out’ option: ‘just put the number 50 down if you don’t want to say your actual weight’. What’s wrong with that exactly?

Your complaint gives off the vibe you are looking for things to be offended about / enjoy taking offence or playing victim. Stop being dramatic.

Indeed.

Why on earth do people want to complain about everything! It’s ridiculous.
Why don’t you use it as way to teach your child resilience - that’s much more important and useful.

Wow, that's MAJOR.
So parents did not see the full ethics approval nor the full study details and thus (parents) could not give informed consent? Or did they deliberately mislead you?

"Dear god what the fuck is she thinking? This could trigger an eating disorder. I am normally on the teachers side but they need to not do this. It’s extremely dangerous."

Get a grip, and don't be so hysterical.

The teacher is clearly aware some pupils will not want to weigh themselves. If you think the teacher quoting a figure could "trigger eating disorders" you should hear what some of the kids in the class would say (in class, at break/ lunch/ out of school on social media!).

I wager the teacher would also have pointed out the limitations of the BMI measure....

If the point of the exercise is to get a normal distribution bell curve surely allowing them to put a nominal weight of 50 is going to skew the data and render the whole thing pointless. It won't be mostly those in the middle of the curve who feel too self conscious to use real data.

Surely there's better data to pick than weight? Hand span was mentioned by someone, maybe a better idea .

Getting kids to weigh themselves in class is a horrible thing to do. We can all shout “there’s healthy and not healthy” until we’re blue in the face but it doesn’t change the shame society places on those who are not at a healthy weight and how being put in this situation this will make some children feel.

ETA: I’m a teacher. I would never do this.

I am an experienced teacher and I agree. This could trigger an eating disorder. There are so many other ways of doing this data exercise.

Loving the “teach your child
to be more resilient and not have and ED” posts. Do you also tell depressed people to just cheer up?

That is absolutely shocking. I would have complained to the university and the British Psychological Society. Totally unethical unless you gave informed consent.

"Loving the “teach your child
to be more resilient and not have and ED” posts. Do you also tell depressed people to just cheer up?"

Well if you catastrophise and treat everyday experiences like they are extremely traumatic, and worthy of censure due to the apparent lifelong trauma inflicted your child may pick up on it and make them LESS resilient and a bit of a snowflake.....