Sen. Leticia Van de Putte, D-San Antonio.
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Posted on 01/20/2005 4:48:53 PM PST by Tolerance Sucks Rocks
SAN ANTONIO (Talon News) -- A Texas legislator has submitted a bill that would instruct public schools to submit a health report card along with the academic performance of their students.
State Sen. Leticia Van de Putte, a Democrat representing San Antonio and Bexar County in Texas District 26, is sponsoring the "Body Mass Index Bill," or SB205. Van de Putte said teachers and parents "should be just as concerned with students' physical health and performance as we are with their academic performance."
Van de Putte, who was elected to the Texas House in 1990 and then to the Texas Senate in 1999, has been a pharmacist for more than 25 years and has been an outspoken advocate for children and health care.
She said parents need to be educated about their child's body mass index (BMI), which measures body fat based on a person's height and weight.
Under Van de Putte's proposed legislation, if a student were deemed to be overweight or obese according to their BMI, then the school would send home information to the student's parents informing them of the risks associated with excessive body fat and poor physical health.
Concerned that over one-third of Texas students are already overweight or obese based on statistics from the Texas Agriculture Department, Van de Putte said this puts children at risk for adverse health problems such as Type 2 diabetes, high blood pressure and high cholesterol.
"I'm just trying to keep our kids healthy," Van de Putte told the Associated Press. "It might create some discomfort, but I've seen eight and nine year olds who now inject insulin three to four times a day."
Pointing to a similar measure in Arkansas that was enacted in the 2003-2004 school year, Van de Putte said it has been an effective measure to inform parents of problems so they can do something about it.
But, Eric Allen, a spokesman for the Association For Texas Professional Educators, says a weight analysis for students "doesn't have a place on a report card."
Arkansas decided to send the health report to parents separate from the academic report card because of these concerns.
Van de Putte has not addressed how this new measure will be funded.
Allen noted that it would be a significant cost to gather and publish statistics on the 4.3 million students attending public schools in Texas.
"Information is useful to parents, but do schools have the resources to put that out there?" Allen inquired to the AP. "We'll have to wait to see if the Legislature gives us those resources."
Acknowledging that changes to her bill will likely come during debate in the legislature, Van de Putte said she simply wants to bring awareness to a serious problem in the United States at an age when something can be done about it.
"My idea is just to get the body mass index out there as an indicator to parents so parents can understand what a huge health risk this is," Van de Putte explained.
Copyright © 2005 Talon News -- All rights reserved.
For the Cheeeeeeeel-run PING!
Might be one for your Texas PING list.
These are ALWAYS proposed by dem's but we elect Republicans to stop this and our republicans ALWAYS fail us.
This was signed into law in ARK by a Republican Governor...
That STINKS! I was a Skinny kid. Skin and bones. But weighed a lot. This is just stupid
State Sen. Leticia Van de Putte should know something about physical fitness. She was the leader of the Texas Demorats that fled Texas during redistrcting.
What a nut job!
Houston was rated as the *least* fit city in the country by Men's Health magazine just recently. Texas residents also have the worst collective credit rating in the country. Hm, do you think we could get (convince) Mexico to take it back?
In Pennsylvania, schools must now take student's BMI, and parents will be sent a letter if their child has a weight issue. Personally, I find it idiotic, most people are aware IF they're overweight. It isn't the state's business, it should be between the family and their physician.
These surveys fail to take into account flight to the suburbs. What remains is often unemployed/underemployed and morbidly obese. Excluding the suburbs is a way of pushing an agenda...the nanny state.
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whatta waste of time.
better return to the 3 r's.
why can't they teach sex, health, etc by cd?
make up a sex ed health ed cd, etc and let the kids take the cds home to watch on their computers and masturbate in private.
she could lose a few lbs herself.
you know what was rediculous about the flight of democrats: how many years have republicans sat silently while the democrats ran the show? and the repulicans didn't pull any stunts like that.
Houston was rated fattest city NOT on the weight of Houstonians but on how many fast food restaurants there are compared to gyms. Texas, if a country, would be the richest on earth.
She is a fat pig. I go to the gym several times a week, do bike spinning class, Pilates, weights, stepper, etc. so that I DO NOT EVER LOOK LIKE HER. What a huge pig.
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