Are you wondering how the First Lady’s anti-obesity campaign might finally manifest itself on American children?  Well, we might look across the pond for a clue.  Could this be what we have to look forward to?


Today’s Daily Mail runs an outrageous story about five year-old Lucy who is, according to her mother, “sports mad, always full of energy and certainly not fat.”  In fact, Lucy might just be a model of childhood health.  Lucy’s weight is within the healthy range and her mother reports her daughter does ballet and cheerleading and enjoys playing outdoors and going with her family on regular walks.


But according to the British government’s near-Soviet sounding “National Child Measurement Programme,” poor Lucy is fat and unhealthy. 


The article states: 



Five-year-old Lucy Davies’ parents had no concern about her health.  But when she was examined at school as part of a Government initiative to turn the rising tide of obesity, they were shocked to be told that she was ‘overweight and unhealthy.’  They said Lucy may have an increased risk of heart disease, diabetes, high blood pressure and cancer as her body mass index (BMI) was outside recommended guidelines by just one per cent. 


Lucy is 3ft 9ins tall and weighs 3st 9lbs [42 pounds]- which is itself within the recommended healthy range for a five-year-old child. Her mother, Susan Davies, 38, said she was shocked by the letter she and husband Tony were sent about their daughter’s weight. 


‘I couldn’t believe what I was reading,’ she said.  Lucy is five-years-old and not fat in the slightest. She shouldn’t even be thinking about her weight at her age.  ‘I want her to be running around playing and having fun, not worrying about what she looks like.’ 


National Child Measurement Programme is being carried out in schools across the UK and results are calculated by taking into account height, weight and age.  Mrs Davies, a mother-of-four from Poole, Dorset, received the letter which said: ‘The results suggest your child is overweight.’  It added that this can have ‘implications on health and wellbeing’ and listed a catalogue of serious medical conditions her daughter may later suffer from.