Dear Teachers, Please don’t weigh your students!

14/11/2022

Written by Dr Stephanie Damiano, Manager of Butterfly Body Bright, Butterfly Foundation

Recently, Butterfly’s Education Services team received an alarming email. It was from a concerned adult whose friend’s 10-year-old daughter experienced an incident at school that has potential life-altering implications…and not the good kind.

They shared that this child’s class teacher brought a set of scales into the classroom, made the students weigh themselves, write their names and weights on the board and then had the class RANK them from lightest to heaviest. This child was ranked the heaviest.

The problem here has nothing to do with a child’s weight, but rather that children’s weight is being used as a comparative learning tool.

Here’s why this is a problem…

In the case of this child, over the following weekend, she didn’t eat in an attempt to no longer be the heaviest child in the class.

In our weight-focused world, where high weight is misperceived as a personal failing and something that should be controlled and reduced, broadcasting a child’s weight or making them feel shame about their body weight can increase their risk of unhelpful body comparisons, body dissatisfaction, preoccupation with body weight and shape, anxiety, restrictive diets, cycles of restriction and binge eating, and overall poor self-esteem.

There is also extensive evidence that being in a large body, or very small body, increases a child’s risk of teasing and victimisation from peers (anything that varies from “average”). A recent study showed that children in large bodies were around twice as likely to be teased by peers than average-sized children, and children in low weight categories were also more likely to be teased by a peer than average-sized children (Valois et al., 2019). So, it’s not just children of high weight, as those who sit at the low weight end of the spectrum are also at increased risk of teasing (e.g., the use of stigmatising language such as being called “anorexic”). Let’s hope this wasn’t the case for children in this class who were at either end of the class list.

These factors can all contribute to increased risk of developing an eating disorder.

So, a seemingly innocent class activity can lead to a lifetime of body hatred, disordered eating and poor mental health.

The author of the email shared their own personal experience, stating “As women in our late 30’s we can remember this lesson. It happened late Primary school and it’s etched in our minds. We can all remember where we ranked, where the popular girls ranked and how embarrassed we were to not be the lightest girls in the class. We all still suffer with poor relationships with food, our bodies, anxiety and depression.” 

Unfortunately, this is not an isolated experience. In the development of our primary school body image program, Butterfly Body Bright, we conducted a survey with adults who had developed body image and/or eating concerns during their primary school years. When asked about ways their primary school could have helped them, or things their school could have done better to support them, many respondents mentioned not being weighed at school and an overall less emphasis on weight.

Here’s what a few respondents had to say…

“They did weigh us for a math activity which made me feel embarrassed and there was no teaching on body confidence or mindfulness which would have been helpful going into teen years.” (Cassandra, 38, NSW)

“We were made to weigh ourselves and take body measurements in a classroom in front of our peers aged 11-12. I had gone through puberty early, was a foot taller than any other girls in my year and weighed more than all of my friends. I don’t think this activity was wise - I don’t think we should have had to weigh ourselves or measure our bodies in front of our peers at such a vulnerable age.” (Anya, 29, NSW)

“Weighing us and then writing our weights on the whiteboard in front of the entire class was not helpful. I was taller than most of the guys yet, no one understood that. It was simply all about the number.” (Sally, 39, VIC)

Moral of the story…Please don’t weigh students at school!

Sadly, compared with pre-COVID times (i.e., 2019), the Butterfly Education Team has seen a 109% increase in enquiries from primary schools, with school staff and parents reporting a notable increase in the number of children (mostly years 4-6) experiencing body image concerns and eating disorders.

The good news is that there are ways that schools can do better (and some already are):

• Put simply, don’t weigh your students at school...ever (Here is the only exception - If a school nurse is required to weigh a student for a justified reason or for health research conducted by government or research organisations. However, it is recommended that measurement should not be done in front of peers, scale results should be disguised so a student is unaware of their weight (e.g., asking student to step on scales backwards), and feedback on weight or number is not shared with the student)

• Have a school policy to avoid weighing and calculating the Body Mass Index (BMI) of students. Ensure curriculum and school resources are reviewed so that students are not encouraged to weigh themselves or calculate BMI, so that it is not triggering or harmful for vulnerable students.

• Try an alternative. If you’re trying to teach about weight metrics in maths, weigh classroom, school or household objects. If you’re teaching physical education, there is no reason for primary school age children to understand BMI or be misled to think that weight is an important indicator of health (see more information on this here).

• Educate yourself or your school staff. To help you feel empowered to promote positive body image and have less focus on weight, register your school and access the free Body Bright Staff Training.

Butterfly Body Bright offers primary schools an abundance of resources to promote positive body image and a healthy relationship with the body, food and physical activity in children. Registered schools have access to ‘Guidelines for being a Body Bright School’, and there is a strategy (endorsed by experts and educators) that specifically addresses not weighing students at school.

For more information or to see how your school can gain access, click here.