Body Mass Measurements Scratched From National Curriculums

Grade one students enjoy returning to the classroom at Lysterfield Primary School on October 12, 2020 in Melbourne, Australia. Photo by Daniel Pockett/Getty Images

Australian teachers are being warned not to calculate the Body Mass Index (BMI) of students, to record food intakes, or to use terms such as “good and bad” when describing diets.

The new food and wellbeing curriculum resource removes 340 references to the word BMI and replaces it with terminology such as “balanced nutrition.”

The update follows a campaign and petition from Eating Disorders Families Australia (EDFA), body image advocacy group The Embrace Collective, parent Kylie Burton, and eating disorder groups.

In a Facebook post, EDFA applauded the Australian Curriculum Assessment and Reporting Authority (ACARA) for removing “hundreds of references to BMI,” from school resources.

“EDFA applauds the Australian Curriculum Assessment and Reporting Authority (ACARA) for working with Kylie, EDFA, Embrace to remove hundreds of references to BMI, weight, calories, diet, and the word healthier from school resources and replacing them with terms such as balanced nutrition,” the group said.

Specifically, the framework advises teachers to avoid critiquing and comparing personal food and well-being choices and calculating BMI.

Teachers are also asked to avoid focusing on “constant improvement for all students to be healthier” and using the terms “good and bad foods.”

“The following activities should be avoided to prevent causing unintended harm: critiquing and comparing personal food and wellbeing choices and habits with those of other people, including calculating kilojoules/calories; assessing body weight and body measurements; calculating BMI (Body Mass Index); and recording food intake in food diaries,” the ACARA guidelines state.

The Australian Education Union welcomed the changes to the guidelines on food education in schools in a post to X.

“Teachers are always looking to be more equipped to deal with issues around health and wellbeing and to ensure that they can meet their teaching and duty of care responsibilities,” the AEU said.

Parent of Child with Anorexia Speaks Out

Parent Kylie Burton explained the changes to the resource in a blog post for Embrace Collective, including the removal of more than 340 references to BMI.

“There used to be more than 340 search results in the Australian Curriculum for terms such as BMI, weight, calories, healthier, class surveys, food and diet. Now there is only one - and that links to the advice for teachers to avoid these types of activities,” she said.

Ms. Burton’s daughter has been sent to hospital twice with anorexia nervosa. When she returned to school following the hospital, classroom lessons on diet advice and body measurements were a tipping point. This included students being asked to record each other’s height and weight to calculate BMI in the first lesson back.

“That very first lesson was an obvious tipping point for her. I saw her behaviour change—she came home and told me about it straight away. She and her friends were very upset and embarrassed. There was a group of them that just stopped eating lunch together at school and my daughter started relapsing,” Ms. Burton said.

“I shared a post on the EDFA Facebook page, and I started to get a lot of replies about very similar situations from families all over the country, about triggering class work in several subjects and different year levels from prep all the way through to TAFE. I realised it was a big, nationwide problem.”

BMI calculates body fat based on height and weight divided by the square of their height. A BMI less than 18.5 is considered underweight. Average weight is generally between 18.5 to 24.9, overweight is between 25 to 29.9 and obese is 30 or greater.

Eating Disorders Australia Responds to Changes

Eating Disorders Families Australia said the collaboration had secured “important changes to the school curriculum” to prevent eating disorders.

The changes to the Australian Curriculum Version 9 website, published in November, included the recommendations of the advocacy groups and Ms. Burton.

Commenting on the updates, Eating Disorders Families Australia Executive Director Jane Rowan noted the changes have potentially saved lives and protected families from distress.

“We were proud to stand with Kylie and The Embrace Collective to make a collective call for urgent action. These changes have potentially saved lives and protected many families from years of distress as they help a loved one to recover from an eating disorder,” Ms. Rowan said.

Grade two students enjoy returning to the classroom at Lysterfield Primary School on October 12, 2020 in Melbourne, Australia. Daniel Pockett/Getty Images

The Embrace Collective executive director, Dr. Zali Yager, said, “BMI was never designed to be an individual measure of weight status, let alone health.”

“Categorising students into weight categories when they are with their peers, and when teachers are not adequately trained to communicate the complexity of the science around weight, can be extremely damaging for young people.”

In October, the EDFA warned a growing number of Australian families were concerned about classroom work triggering disordered eating and impacting eating disorder recovery.

Hundreds of parents raised concerns about school work including BMI, tracking, food diaries, and naming good and bad foods, according to the release.

“It is a theme that we hear constantly at EDFA—that changes are urgently required to the national curriculum in order to protect our children from developing an eating disorder or to protect them when they are in eating disorder recovery,” Ms. Rowan said at the time.

In the United States, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention does not have a recommendation for or against BMI measurement programs in schools. However, it does recommend a safe and supportive environment for students of “all body sizes.”