at my BOARDING SCHOOL we had a public weigh -in every term

[noonar]

... with those old fashioned enormous scales in front of the other boys and girls queing for their weigh in, foot and headlice check.

it was in the mid-late 80s and i was aged 12-18 while i was there. every term we faced this humiliation. and every holiday i went on a starvation diet (eg cambridge diet aged 15 )and then went back to school extra early on the last day of the holiday so i would have a smaller audience for the weigh in.

i wasnt even overweight but i was an early developper and a solid build.

i feel so sad thinking back about this and shocked that noone realised that this was inappropriate and potentilly damaging.

i found myself thinking of this earlier, as a result of another poster complaining about her dd being weighed at school

I was weighed at school but never in public, and I don't think you can compare weighing children and sending a private letter to the parents with the results, with what happened to you.

Obesity is a very big problem for our society, as well as potentially devastating for the individuals who are very overweight, and overweight children are more likely to become overweight adults. Many parents do not even seem to realise that their child is overweight.

Of course public weigh ins and humiliation is not the way to solve the problem, as you know.

Well boarding schools still weigh pupils, but it's private and I think more to check they aren't too thin than anything else (girls)

We used to have to have communal showers

If that doesnt teach you who's fat and who's thin nothing will

belgo, i didnt mean that my exp was comparable to the situation on the other thread. it just mad eme recall my own exp. agree obesity needs tackling.

we did have shower cubicles, but communal ones for games.

I was also weighed. Beginning and end of every term. I think the reasoning was in case we weren't eating properly during the term, they could keep a check on it. I never saw any malign intent, just concern for our well being while away from home.

And checking for lice etc would surely be good practice with children arriving from all over, to avoid spread?

yes we had measure and weigh in - i remember it as beginning and end of every term but maybe just beginning

I remember when I was 13 I was 4 ft 5 and 4stone 5 . Always the skinniest in my year so didn't remember it as humiliating

However when I was 16 I lost some weight and so had to sit on the housemistresses table for TWO TERMS and go into her study to eat a mars bar every evening before bed.

Still hate mars bars today.

Communal showers here too. Don't remember checking who was fat or not (we were all pretty skinny I think) but still remember the colossal size of Fiona W's tits!!!

plastic, i didnt object to the medical itself .

my point was about the public weigh in. not questioning their intentions, just the way they went about it. and pointing out the impact that it had on me personally.