Weight Measurements in School: Setting and Student Comfort

A scoping review of school‐based anthropometric measurement

“…It is important to distinguish between training for accurate AM and training for sensitive AM, as well as to question whether sensitive AM is achievable, regardless of who is performing it. The finding that teachers are undertaking AM is alarming, yet also unsurprising 99 . In the studies included in our review, it was uncommon for researchers to explicitly state that teachers who were reportedly conducting AM had been trained.…”

“…Teachers are in a position to assess the academic development of students, and the explicit (i.e., your weight needs evaluation and classification) and implicit (i.e., you can do better) messages sent when a teacher is evaluating the body are potentially hurtful and harmful to the student, the teacher, and their relationship 100 . Evidence indicates that students are more comfortable being weighed by nurses than teachers 99 . However, regardless of who is performing AM, the act of AM can send a message to the student that body weight is an important characteristic by which individuals can be assessed and categorized, that lower body weights are desirable, and that higher body weights are undesirable 101 .…”

“…Poor reporting regarding the privacy and sensitivity of AM hampers drawing definitive conclusions regarding whether current practices are placing children at risk during AM in school settings with respect to privacy and sensitivity. However, a recent study found that only 30% of students reported privacy during AM, 99 indicating that privacy may not necessarily be standard practice. Overall, we only identified three studies explicitly reporting that measurements were private and conducted in a sensitive manner 85,103,104 .…”

“…Though complicated by poor reporting, the findings of our review do suggest that there is considerable room for improvement when it comes to the procedures and practices of AM conducted in school settings. Eight safeguards regarding BMI measurement in schools were recommended by an expert panel convened by the CDC in 2007, 23 though implementation of these safeguards is inconsistent 99,106,111 . Building upon these safeguards, we recommend the following best practices, which also double as conditions that should be met before AM takes place in school settings, as detailed in Table 2.…”

School-level self-reported versus objective measurements of body mass index in public high school students

“…Using self-reported and objective BMI data from an individually-matched sample of NYCDOE students to develop appropriate BMI correction models could be an important next step, as prior evidence shows that correction models can improve the accuracy of BMI estimates from self-report data in youth ( Ghosh-Dastidar et al, 2016 ). This work would have the additional potential benefit of reducing the unintended consequences associated with objective BMI measurement programs in schools ( Madsen et al, 2021 ; Altman et al, 2022 ).…”