Does the Office of School Health recommend BMI screening?
Yes. Rationale: The increasing rate of obesity in our young people is now evidencing itself in a rise in type 2 diabetes and even hypertension in children. Monitoring BMI’s in schools is one of the most controversial screening recommendations and yet has the greatest potential health impact. Guidelines: NASN has recommendations for managing and preventing obesity available for purchase, but we ask you to consider following the recommendations from the New Hampshire Childhood Obesity Expert Panel of the Foundation for Healthy Communities available free. Here is a summary of their recommendations from page seven of the document. • Communicate results in terms of “healthy” or “unhealthy” BMI. Include all other screening results for that student along with the BMI results. • Communicate results of every student to their parent(s), i.e., do not notify only those parents whose child falls outside a given BMI range. • Do not communicate the results directly to the students. • Once a year obta
