You probably heard a couple of months ago that the state of Arkansas decided to start providing the parents of school children with “report cards” on their kids’ weight. School children will have their “Body Mass Index” (BMI) measured at school, and the results sent home. What I just learned today, from this MSNBC story, is where the funding originated for the obesity report cards: “The BMI test came into existence as a result of a cash windfall to the state from a tobacco lawsuit settlement tagged to fund public health programs.”
It’s particularly ironic because decreased smoking, apparently, is one of the major factors promoting the American obesity epidemic.
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