Anti-Obesity Crusaders Devise More Ridiculous Tests to Humiliate Fat Kids

Nanny State Liberation Front; July 26, 2010 — for more fresh news and unique views, visit our blog and Facebook page.

It’s not enough for a fat kid with a bulging belly and triple chins to be standing right in front of an anti-obesity crusader to reach the obvious conclusion. Common sense has clearly gone out the window and, these days, it’s about driving the point home to parents with ‘irrefutable’ scientific data by subjecting their pudgy children to humiliating measuring techniques.

Most prominent of the obesity measuring tools are the Body Mass Indicator (BMI) calipers that pinch folds of fat on various parts of kids’ bodies. Anyone who’s been in gym class over the past two decades has probably come in contact with the BMI pinchers while standing in front of their classmates. And, if you were a heavy kid, chances are you didn’t feel comfortable wondering if others were looking on and laughing while the gym teacher pulled cellulite away from your extremities.

Commenting on the subject of BMI caliper tests in middle school, “bethmiller” wrote on the “Shapely Prose” blog, “When I was in middle school they made us take the ‘fat test’ in front of the whole class, it was one of the most embarrassing moments in my life. When I first learned that this was a legitimate ‘test’ I was mortified by it and then tortured with it for three years.”

Recently, it’s been revealed that fat inspectors aren’t quite convinced of the accuracy of BMI tests, so they’ve devised another measuring method that will tell the ‘tale of the tape’ so junior can be branded beyond a doubt as an official porker. When school commences in September, gym teachers, school nurses and pediatricians administering back-to-school physicals will be using tape measures to check the circumferences of kids’ necks.

According to CBS News, measuring neck sizes is will enable parents to finally get the “truth” about their kids’ obesity risks because unlike BMI tests, the tape measure “doesn’t lie.” An added bonus, the State-Run Media outlet says, is “getting your neck measured is a lot less embarrassing than undressing.”

Kids talk. Once they figure out that there’s one among them with a larger neck measurement than the rest, the kid with the ‘big neck’ will likely be the talk of the school because everyone will soon know that big necks mean they’re fat. If administrators of neck size tests are smart, they’ll keep the information hidden from the kids and pass it on to the parents … but, that’s a big “if” and chances are the gym teachers and nurses will probably be incapable of silently writing down their findings without announcing them within earshot of their test subjects. You know, like, “Smith 14. Jones 12. Murphy 13 …”

Now, we’re learning of another ‘definitive’ obesity indicator that has the potential to further stigmatize and humiliate young children. Reuters is reporting that examining kids’ feet is another fool-proof way to weed-out the couch potatoes from the string beans.

Believe it or not, Australian researchers are using “ultrasound tests” to examine kids’ feet for certain tell-tale signs of obesity that a bulging belly in plain sight just can’t confirm to anti-obesity crusaders. The costly tests revealed “obese children did in fact have more fat padding the soles of their feet. But they also tended to have lower arches.”

Next time you see a bunch of kids in the playground looking at each other’s feet, you can be sure the kid with the biggest, flattest feet will become the target of fat jokes, because we all know that fat, flat feet make for one fat kid.

All of these tests make every healthy kid a target of the anti-obesity crusaders in their efforts to promote a widespread crisis and mass hysteria. We’re not doctors and do not proclaim ourselves to be medical experts, but instead of roping-in every child in school and inspecting them to determine if they’re obese, what about first observing kids from afar for obvious tell-tale characteristics of obesity like bulging bellies, triple chins, sagging arms and thighs, stretch marks, etc. and then discretely approaching them and their parents to discuss perceived signs of obesity?

None of these tests noted above are 100% accurate, yet they are being administered and promoted as such to the detriment of kids’ self-esteem and even their reputations among peers who, as we all know, can pounce on the slightest vulnerability and turn the most popular kid in to the biggest loser in no time flat.