Absolutely.
I think we've been overtaken by this panic around obesity. There is apparently an obesity epidemic. As far as I can tell, though, the rate of obesity in children is essentially a flat line. In fact, recent data from the United States suggests that in the younger groups of people, it's actually going down, not up. We keep acting like we have to do something to make sure kids aren't fat, but in our rush to do that, we are transmitting a kind of panic. What happens is that kids start to think that fat is bad, that being fat is bad.
You know, there are studies that show that kids would rather have a parent die of cancer, they'd rather lose an arm, they'd rather be hit by a truck, than be fat. Being fat is one of the most common reasons kids get bullied. Other kids feel justified when they hear from their teachers, their doctors, and their parents that obesity is such a horrible thing. They misunderstand that. We need to slow down and think about what we are actually transmitting.
I want to commend Hasan Hutchinson, who presented earlier on, for his public health work that has really worked to try to move the focus away from weight to healthy lifestyles. You can be healthy and fat. You can be unhealthy and thin. You cannot tell what someone's health status is just by one number, and yet that seems to be what we're transmitting. Recently there's been a push to look at physical education and physical literacy, but I have also heard suggestions that we should include people's BMI in their marks in gym class, as if kids have any control over that.