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AJC.com > Legislature > Georgia Beat > Archives > 2005 > February > 17 > Entry
Student obesity bill doesn’t make the grade
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Faster than the strictest dieter could shed a pound, a Georgia legislator dropped the idea of making kids’ report cards cover girth as well as grades.
“I’ve heard from people loud and clear,” Rep. Stephanie Stuckey Benfield (D-Atlanta) said Thursday. “I’m still going to be focusing on the issue of obesity, but not with this bill.”
On Wednesday, Benfield introduced a bill that would have required schools to weigh students, calculate their body mass index — a measure of whether they are overweight — then put it on report cards twice a year. Parents of students with above-normal body mass would be furnished literature on diabetes and other obesity-related illnesses.
The bill had bipartisan sponsorship, but little support in Georgians’ houses. Benfield said she found out from angry calls and e-mails.
“They all hate me,” she said, half-jokingly.
She said the most legitimate concern she heard was about the potential harm to children’s, particularly teenagers’, already fragile self-esteem.
“That was certainly never my intent, but I’m sensitive to that,” said Benfield, mother of a pre-schooler.
She said she still plans to try to work on the problem of childhood obesity, but through another avenue. She’s co-sponsoring legislation for a prestige license tag on nutrition, the proceeds of which will go to obesity education in the schools.
• What do you think about the failure of this bill? E-mail reporter Nancy Badertscher right away with your comments, for possible use in the story in Friday’s AJC. Be sure to include your hometown.
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