School Fat Letter: Mother Questions BMI Index Accuracy After Athletic Daughter Receives Official Note [VIDEO]
A mother is mad and offended after her 11-year-old daughter was sent home from school with what many are calling a "fat letter."
"This whole thing is stupid," Lily Grasso, the child in question, said in an interview with ABC News. "It's just not useful. It can hurt people. It can break their courage,"
Lily Grasso is 5'4'' tall, one of the tallest girls in her class, and weighs 124 pounds. Her mother, Kristen Grasso, says that Lily plays on her school's volleyball team and eats healthy foods. According to The Collier County Health Department, a school health screening has classified Lily as overweight based on her body mass index, or BMI, of 22.
"Lily is tall, athletic, solid muscle," Kristen said in an interview with FOX 4 Now. "By no means is she overweight."
Kristen, a Naples, Fla. mother of four, is concerned about the message BMI results can have on young children.
"Kids that see results like this test may be classified as overweight and they aren't may develop self-esteem issues," Kristen told FOX4 Now.
The mother also questions the legitimacy of the screening test, to which she agreed to thinking that it only measured hearing, growth and vision development - not health.
"You want to measure Lily's health and development, then you better be a doctor who spends more than three seconds with her, not a high school student helping administer health screenings," Kristen said in an e-mail to Orlando Sentinel.
Since the news has gone national, the Grassos have received "such wonderful support from so many kind people," Kristen told Orlando Sentinel.
"So many people don't say anything because who wants to be the family with a 'fat' kid," Kristen told Orlando Sentinel. "Well, we are ready to stand up and say it is not right."
Meanwhile, Lily is not letting the "fat letter" get to her.
"[I will] be confident in everything that I do, and never give up," Lily told ABC News.
"To give a kid a letter telling them the rest of their life they may be overweight or be obese because of a measurement you took one day, it's just not fair," Kristen told ABC News.
Check out the video of Lily Grasso below and judge the accuracy of the BMI index yourself:
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