Friday, November 4, 2011

Body Mass Index Screenings.

In my last BLOG, it referenced the opportunity for Schools to become part of the fight against childhood obesity and its impact on their quality of life and future health care costs.  The Ohio Senate Bill 210, known as the Healthy Choices for Healthy Children Act, became law June 18, 2010. The law contains provisions to combat childhood obesity in the next several years by increasing students’ physical activity and ensuring access to healthy meals and beverages at school.
The law's most immediate requirement is for districts and schools to provide students and their parents or guardians with information about student health. Beginning in the 2010-11 school year, all city, exempted village, local and chartered nonpublic schools, community schools and a district owned schools must begin conducting body mass index (BMI) screenings each year for all students in kindergarten, third grade, fifth grade and ninth grade. Districts also must report aggregate BMI data to the Ohio Department of Health (ODH) by June 1 each year.
The general public needs to understand more about the use of the Body Mass Index (BMI) measure.  BMI stands for Body Mass Index. Body Mass Index is a number calculated from a child's weight and height. It is a way of checking to see if your child has a healthy weight. The results of the BMI screening are given as a “percentile,” and the results compare your child’s height and weight those of other children of your child’s age and sex. In general, the higher the BMI, the more fat there is in the body.  Most important is the fact that as a child’s BMI increases their RISK for acquiring other chronic diseases such as diabetes and heart disease greatly increases dramatically.

 Parents and guardians are also concerned with “how will the school protect my child’s results, so that my child is not embarrassed or teased or by other students?” Schools understand the importance of privacy. Similar health screenings, such as hearing and vision tests, have been done for many years, and schools always keep those results private. The law requires that no other students or school staff (except for the health professional completing the weighing) be present when your child’s weight and height are measured. Your child’s school may mail the BMI screening results to you, or the school will discuss these results with you in private meetings. The law says that schools may share students’ “individual” screening results only with their parents or guardians.

Why is BMI screening important to public health officials and health districts such as the Lake County General Health District (LCGHD)? Simply, it is a measure of the general health of our children and allows us to measure if our publically/grant funded programs are effective.  For each school, BMI results from individual children will be combined into a summary of how many children are in each weight category. Each school will send its summary to the Ohio Department of Health (ODH). These summaries will not show results for any individual child. Only a child’s parents or guardians will know that child’s results. The summary will help ODH and LCGHD determine how children’s BMIs are changing over time in counties throughout the state. It is important for ODH and LCGHD to have accurate community-level information about this to plan its public health and prevention programs.

Unfortunately, the law allows schools to "waive" the requirement annually and represents a missed opportunity on improving our children's health.   I continue to hope that schools will opt to adopt the screenings. 

If you are a Lake County School District interested in supporting the BMI screenings, please contact me immediately to allow us to provide your district with support. 

Sincerely,

Ron Graham R.D., L.D., M.P.H.
Deputy Health Commissioner