RCS expanding efforts to fight childhood obesity

Parents will receive notifications of unhealthy student body mass indexes.

RCS parents will soon have a better understanding of the health and welfare of their children.

The district this year will launch an initiative to notify all students and their parents of the student’s body mass index (BMI). The effort is partially in response to a new state mandate to track body mass index, as well as an extension of a district-wide initiative to boost student health.

BMI assists health care providers in assessing whether a person’s weight is in a healthy range when factored against other variables. 

The state education mandate requires RCS and other school districts to record student BMIs and weight status categories, which are based on the student’s BMI, as part of their health record, said A.W. Becker Elementary School nurse Patti LeFevre. This will be done when student physicals are conducted – either by their own physician or by the district physician. Students impacted by the state mandate will be those taking physicals for sports participation, as well as students entering Pre-kindergarten, kindergarten, second, fourth, seventh and tenth grades.

For students having their physical appraisals done in school, said Middle School nurse Kathi Rice, RCS will notify parents when their child’s weight status classification is outside of healthy ranges.

And, because RCS was chosen by the state to take part in a survey this year, weight status classification information will also be sent to the state, though no identifying information about individual students will be sent.

In a totally separate initiative, the district’s Physical Education Department is expanding its own first-of-its-kind in the Capital Region body mass index tracking and reporting program for students.

Physical Education Coordinator and Athletic Coordinator Ron Racey said the district will now send home body mass index reports to all students in kindergarten through 12^th grade.

BMI’s were previously provided to only high school students, but the initiative is this year being expanded to middle and elementary school students – whose parents will receive the reports, Racey said.  

“Body Mass Index is one of the best predictors of different kinds of diseases and illness,” Racey said. “I have long been a big proponent of notifying parents of their child’s BMI.”