'A humiliating experience': Quebec debates weighing students in school

A debate over whether to end the practice of weighing students in gym class has made it all the way to the province's National Assembly.

A group of parents opposed to the idea argue that it can lead to poor body image and result in bullying and extreme dieting.

"I know my daughter went to school with a girl, and she didn't eat lunch for five years because she thought she was too big," Corinne Payne, president of the Fédération des comités de parents du Québec, told Quebec AM.

According to Payne, 85 per cent of parents surveyed by her association were "strongly opposed" to the weigh-in.

The same question is now in the hands of Quebec lawmakers, after a petition opposing the practice last year garnered 4,000 signatures. The education and culture commission is discussing whether or not to put a stop to the practice entirely.

Payne says that young girls are especially vulnerable when it comes to weight insecurity and that the "outdated" practice is no way to teach better health.

"We need to teach our children to be healthy," she said.

'You don't want to be the heaviest kid'

Dr. Howard Steiger, director of the eating disorder program at the Douglas Mental Health University Institute, said the experience of being weighed in public contributes to low self-esteem.

"We live in a society that doesn't accept the normal variations that happen in weight," he said.

"That means that the majority of people in the population feel too fat, and feel like they ought to lose wight and feel badly about themselves."

In theory, the practice is supposed to help students and teachers calculate their Body Mass Index (BMI).

But Steiger says it can foster unhealthy comparisons.

"Its almost inevitable that it starts turning thinness, weight loss, that kind of thing, into something kids feel they have to achieve," he told CBC Montreal's Daybreak. 

"There is not doubt that kids find that a humiliating experience. You don't want to be the heaviest kid in your class."

Weigh-ins 'mostly done in private'

 There are, however, educators who believe weighing students is an important source of data when it comes to determining health.

"What we recommend is to do it on a voluntary basis, and to do it in a private way," said Jérôme Leriche, a physical education teacher at Université de Sherbrooke.

"To my knowledge, it's mostly done in private. I can't speak for all CEGEPs, [but] at Université de Sherbrooke where I teach, they do it at home and bring the number in."

He admits that, "it can be problematic if done in front of the class," but says the petition goes too far asking that the practice be banned.

• West Island organization offers free help for eating disorder sufferers

While Steiger agrees that private is preferable to public weighing, he says physical education teachers still need to know how to approach these kinds of discussions properly.

"The person using the weight measure has to be highly skilled in managing the beliefs that people have about weight and the emotions that generates. With all due respect to most gym teachers, I'm not sure that's their expertise."