Lyons Amps Up Battle Cry Against 'Fat Letters'
He's calling for reform of the Department of Public Health.
Several weeks after filing legislation to eliminate BMI monitoring in schools, State Rep. Jim Lyons of Andover is stepping up his battle against the "fat letters" and calling for "top-to-bottom reform" of the state's Department of Health.
"The DPH acts like bureaucratic bullies, when it deals with families and school children," Lyons wrote about the controversial BMI letters in a statement Thursday. "At the same time, this bureaucracy has manifestly failed to protect public health and public safety in its disastrous lack of oversight of pharmaceutical manufacturers and its mishandling of state drug labs."
A child's BMI is factored with a BMI-for-age chart established by the Centers for Disease Control, and a percentile (compared with age and gender) is determined for classification: underweight, healthy weight, overweight or obese. Those in the 95th percentile are classified as obese.
In 2009, the Massachusetts Department of Public Health adopted a "BMI initiative" requiring public schools to calculate the BMI of children and teens of certain ages and send the results to the children's parents along with instructions for parents on dealing with the child's weight issues.
"BMI screenings are part of a multi-faceted approach to address the significant public health problem of obesity," DPH spokesperson Anne Roach said. "Children with a high BMI are more likely to become overweight or obese adults and be at higher risk for diabetes, heart disease and some cancers. Helping children maintain a healthy weight may prevent serious illness later in life. The latest BMI report showed that 32.3% of students in Massachusetts were either overweight or obese."
North andover Selectman Tracy Watson filed a petition with Lyons after her son Cameron was issued a letter saying he was "obese."
Lyons introduced what he calls "An Act to Protect the Privacy of Children," which would prevent the state from mandating the collection of students' Body Mass Index information. Lyons said he took up this effort after parents contacted him outraged about receiving the letters.
State Sen. Kathleen O'Connor Ives and State Rep. Diana DiZoglio also signed on to the legislation.
And now, Lyons is targeting Gov. Deval Patrick, pointing out the recent statewide scandals involving drug labs and even calling the DPH "inept" regarding pharmaceutical oversight.
"Here is another attempt by the Patrick Administration to micromanage local communities," Lyons wrote. “Where does an Administration that has mishandled matters vital to public health and public safety have the arrogance to interfere in family life and burden local communities?"
The issue isn't likely to fade away any time soon. In addition to the several local news outlets that have spotlighted the "fat letters" in the week since the initial Patch story ran, it's now being covered by national media including NBC, Fox News, The New York Daily News, HLN, The Washington Times and The Huffington Post.
Fritz
9:13 am on Friday, March 1, 2013
Anyone bother to ask the opinion of one of the states most esteemed professional on childrens health issues?? Sion Kim-Harris can be emailed at sion.harris@chb.harvard.edu.
Bryan McGonigle2
10:13 am on Friday, March 1, 2013
Fritz - why don't you ask for her opinion and report back.
Don't forget to ask her for a cost-benefit analysis. Are parents already aware of the health of their children in this area? Is its cost effective to spend $1.7 million dollars (about 5k per city/town in MA) to collect the data and produce the letters? Is this service is redundant to those provided by primary care physicians?
Trudy Goetchius
12:19 pm on Friday, March 1, 2013
I know Cameron personally and Tracy. This BMI does not take into account how much muscle as child had or how active they are. Cameron has been recognized for his achievements in wrestling. Clearly he is fit and doing well. When I was a student at NAMS the nurse told my mother I was underweight but I was also playing sports every season and on a sports team outside of school. I just had a fast metabolism. It is no place for the government to step in and tell a parent how to deal with weight issues. There are enough pressure in society to be skinny without the school getting involved.
Bill Kelly
12:56 pm on Friday, March 1, 2013
Patch, how can a persons user name be copied as we see in this string and basically are allowed to ruin the conversation but not knowing who is who?
Bill Kelly
1:15 pm on Friday, March 1, 2013
Umm, looks like the copy cat has been purged. Thanks Patch.
Edward Wang
1:46 pm on Friday, March 1, 2013
There's got to be a way to inform parents that their kids are in danger of serious medical problems in some respectful way... though most parents of overweight kids probably realize their kids are overweight, whether or not their family is working to resolve the weight concern.
MikeA
1:56 pm on Friday, March 1, 2013
Thanks Bill. I think its my ex-lover.
Fritz
9:00 pm on Friday, March 1, 2013
Using the dph calculator for a 10 year old who is 58" and 93 lbs gives a bmi result of 19, which is within the healthy range... Am I missing something???
Fritz
9:48 pm on Friday, March 1, 2013
Dr. Elena Carbone, professor of Public Health @ UMass Amherst has given two recent presentations on the effectiveness of the BMI study...
Fritz
9:34 am on Saturday, March 2, 2013
The two inceptors of this bill are hardly role models of public health. One is clearly obese and the other is a smoker. I have given two Experts Independent of the DPH who can attest to both the doubling of diabetes rate in Mass and tripling of obese children in the last decade. This is not about a letter home to parents if they are fat. All students are required to receive a letter in the mail and anyone can opt out of the study.
The real reason for the study is to compile data on our children to get a grasp on the most troubling issue facing our children.
Also, this program is funded by the CDC and private health Insurers whose proactive stance on combatting obesity is essential to keeping health care costs affordable.
Bill Kelly
11:48 am on Saturday, March 2, 2013
OK will a non smoking person in tip top physical condition please sign on to this bill which will reverse a public policy that was concocted by a bureaucracy that has failed to protect the public( see compounding pharmacy scandal) is overreaching, and puts a burden on our public schools which are already struggling for a number of reasons to optimize educational outcomes for students.
Fritz you can attack the messengers all you want but the message is the message, regardless of who delivers it.
Fritz
9:40 am on Saturday, March 2, 2013
Coach Raf- Rather than myself being the messenger, I urge both the writer of this article AND anyone critical of this study to become educated by experts, and not some politicians who are looking for some free press. I took Tracy's numbers and came up with a bmi of 19.1 which is healthy. Sounds like Northa Andover Schools failed in numerous ways. First, by not mailing a letter to Every Child, and second by failing to calculate properly.
Fritz
10:28 am on Saturday, March 2, 2013
Also, the CDC and DPH as well as Blue Cross, The YMCA, and others have doled out a TON of grant money for obesity related projects in the past 2 years. While some communities capitalized on this and were rewarded with staffed salad bars at schools, part time nutritionists, after school activities, etc... What grant money did NA receive??? Perhaps if these politicians really cared about the health of their constituents, they could focus their energies on at least applying for this free money to improve their schools instead of attempting to sabotage a worthy study...
Bill Kelly
12:04 pm on Saturday, March 2, 2013
"Free money" nothing is free in life. We all pay one way or another.
Fritz
10:41 am on Saturday, March 2, 2013
NA also failed to notify parents they could opt out, which is clearly stated in their DPH correspondence... Google the ma bmi study and download the pdf's from both dph and cdc which clearly state these parameters. Epic fail in NA on sooooo many levels.
Fritz
11:55 am on Saturday, March 2, 2013
Correction: as I don't know the measurements of the parents, my bmi calc is not accurate... Sorry for the confusion: -)
Fritz
1:30 pm on Saturday, March 2, 2013
Bill- aside from the effort by School Administration to file grantwork, the programs are funded by private companies with an interest in child health. YMCA has always advocated for children, health insurance companies have a vested interest as they cover everyone, and the CDC is backwards funded because our congress keeps hitting the snooze button on spending. Which means if you don't apply and spend, someone ELSE does. And you have already paid those taxes federally. If the CDC doesn't spend these funds, they get reduced funding for the next calendar year...
Bill Kelly
2:05 pm on Saturday, March 2, 2013
Whether or not North Andover has applied for these grants you are referring to is really irrelevant to the discussion about the fat letters. I will say that when I was on the school committee the food services director came before us at least once a year to report on not only the food service budget but what was being served on the menu. North Andover follows all federal and state guidelines for school lunch programs and the food service director has been very innovative in getting students to eat more of the "healthier" ie. fruits and grains on the menu. Yes we do have a salad bar, we don't need a grant to tell us to do that. Take a look for yourself.. http://www.northandoverpublicschools.com/food-services/naps_menu.cfm
In addition my experience has been that towns like ours don't usually qualify or get many grants, don't know much about the grants you are referring to but I'm sure private corporations get better publicity by helping the "needier" communities like Lawrence.
Fritz
5:13 pm on Saturday, March 2, 2013
North Andover School administration made an error firing coach Raff. Does that tarnish the whole organization? Same can be said for the dph. The compounding Scandal is the ethical failure of a private company. Who was a very large donor to Scott Brown. Only time will tell as the case plays out. The other DPH blunder was an act by a sole scientist.
Here's an idea for Local Politicians. START AN "OPT OUT" CAMPAIGN... Get enough people to say no!
I'm sure you're well aware the DPH/Harvard/Childrens/Joslins connection. Lots of IVY league leaders in their fields of children's research. Do you really expect statewide support? I get that this program doesn't really benefit NA to the same degree as needy communities. And that most parents feel like they don't need to be told. But until we demand an end to corn syrup and other harmfull substances which make up the majority of our diet, I feel better that at least our brightest minds are given every bit of data they need.
Bill Kelly
10:17 am on Sunday, March 3, 2013
The failure of DPH led to the death and injury of many people, the drug lab scandal led to thousands of convictions being subject to reversal and the release of many criminals from jail, the state will have to spend millions to address this problem. Yes the whole organization is and should be tarnished
Fritz
9:22 am on Sunday, March 3, 2013
http://www.slate.com/articles/health_and_science/science/2009/07/beyond_bmi.2.html
Fritz
10:32 am on Sunday, March 3, 2013
Really Bill?? NA School dept has grabbed headlines a few times for some ridiculous behavior these past few years... People in glass houses shouldn't throw stones. Please tell me which DPH heads you feel are corrupt? Evidence would be nice also. Because everyone implicated is low level...
Bill Kelly
10:48 am on Sunday, March 3, 2013
We are talking organizational failure, failure to supervise, failure to enforce regulatory oversight, these failures led to death and millions of taxpayer funds needed to correct the problems. The school dept news you refer to are tempests in a tea pot by comparison
Fritz
11:04 am on Sunday, March 3, 2013
Only because you weren't in charge of Public Health. Just teaching and keeping our kids safe. Please clarify if there were any failures in keeping your kids safe? Cuz I got a couple including a WHOPPER which was sickening...
Fritz
11:25 am on Sunday, March 3, 2013
Your Logic Bill. Not mine. I'm not so quick to slander an entire organization because of a few bad apples. Now if you have Names Of Dept Heads and Evidence of their deplorable actions, I'm all ears.
In the meantime, we can all agree that dph is a pain to deal with and the beaurocracy is frustrating, but dismantling such an organization is ridiculous!
Fritz
12:52 pm on Sunday, March 3, 2013
Here's an Organizational failure... After one scandal involving the safety of your children from a teacher who awaited SERIOUS felony charges, a member of your own school board hired this former staff member to re-roof her house! Now that's pretty juicy stuff right there. Care for me to name names??
Bill Kelly
1:17 pm on Sunday, March 3, 2013
Don't you have anything else to do today? By the way the person you were referring to was not a teacher please keep your facts straight. But I will leave this conversation now with one last comment that the fat letters although motivated by a good goal to improve health of young people is still a poor public policy forced on our public schools who need to be working to improve their core mission of educating students not being dragged away on the latest 'great idea' from a state agency
Fritz
1:34 pm on Sunday, March 3, 2013
Bill, It's amazing how social media makes this discussion so simple. It really takes no time at all. Even less when you know what you're talking about : -) Good luck in your quest to squash this study. I'm sure being a rich town in a Democratic state will garner a boatload of sympathy... 5 bux a student's pretty steep.
Guess you'll really have your panties in a bunch when we propose including waist circumference to more accurately measure body mass.... It's gonna take your nurses an extra 30 seconds...
Fritz
2:13 pm on Sunday, March 3, 2013
Oh sorry Bill, I most certainly don't want an error in the facts! I am ALL ABOUT THE FACTS. The FACT is it was a staff member. Leave it at that. A leader of students in your school. Which, by your logic, makes you a complete failure.
Don't worry though Bill, I wouldn't ever subscribe to that notion. But I do think you might want to get caught up on all the DPH correspondence for the last four years. It's all available in PDF form on their site. They even have grant listings if you decide to get a salad bar which uses local farmers. Or taking advantage of the slaughterhouse in Haverhill. Local food is the key to health Bill. But until the food business shapes up, I demand SOLID SCIENCE on how these criminal corporations are poisoning our people.
Fritz
3:45 pm on Monday, March 4, 2013
http://m.washingtonpost.com/blogs/worldviews/wp/2013/01/28/how-japans-revolutionary-school-lunches-helped-slow-the-rise-of-child-obesity/
Look no further than Japan for ideas to combat obesity. For thirty years, they have been serving healthy meals to their students. These days, school breakfast and lunches are relied upon by so many as our laborforce works more and earns less. AND ONLY $3 A DAY!!
Fritz
3:47 pm on Monday, March 4, 2013
Even third world countries like Honduras, Nicaragua, and Guatemala have outlawed corn syrup, yet in AMERICA It's in EVERYTHING!