What Now: Teachers as Fat Police???????

Misses Faye and Etta,

Did y'all hear about the brain child of one Joseph Carter in the
Georgia Senate? Carter introduced a bill - a bill that PASSED the
Senate last Friday - requiring schools to track the body mass index
(BMI) of school kids by WEIGHING each student and POSTING the
information on the school or maybe the school system's web site or
maybe, what the heck, both. He wants these measurements posted for
all to see (not individual stats but aggregate, thank goodness for
small things) so we can COMPARE the weight of Georgia school children
to the rest of America.

Say what?????

Here we go again with another way the government can step right into
our lives and save us from ourselves.

I got to wondering what on earth would possess a fella to think such
a thing is a good and fine idea. Did he just lose a lot of weight?
(Cause you know how evangelical recent weight loss folks can get.)
Does he or someone he loves own a weight loss franchise? (Cause, like
it or not, an absurd-but-attention-getter idea like this means free
publicity - probably nationwide.)

Wait. A. Minute.

Maybe this Carter fella is a therapist or loves one dearly. Maybe
he's a rare long-term thinker who knows that measuring and comparing
are two things guaranteed to give students angst-with-a-capital-A and
a sense of self worth that's lower-than-dirt. Maybe he knows that
student angst borne of low self worth manifests in ways that give
parents, teachers, and other adults who come in contact with the
aforementioned children angst. And as if all that's not enough, maybe
he knows that it's that low self worth ignited and fueled by
measurement and comparison that gives students-turned-adults angst
that limits and inhibits and sends them straight to the therapist's
office.

Now I'll admit it, girlfriends: I am a conspiracy theorist from way
back. But I'm thinking this isn't about a vast any-wing conspiracy.
No, this - THIS - is about food chain, pure and simple. It has to be.

Gotta' scoot, girls - it's supper time. Time to get my daily exercise
by using that grind-it-yourself salt shaker. Yes, I'll have extra
salt tonight. It's time to start working out sure enough cause today
they may be measuring and posting and comparing students, tomorrow it
could be everybody.

Till next time,

Miz Vul