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Parent tells Linn‑Mar board health lessons and weighing practices worsened daughter’s eating disorder; urges curriculum review
Summary
During public comment a parent said middle‑ and high‑school health lessons that emphasize weight and require students to log meals in a weight‑loss app contributed to her daughter’s restrictive eating. She urged the board to review curriculum and adopt developmentally appropriate, body‑positive nutrition education.
A parent told the Linn‑Mar Community School District Board of Directors on March 31 that the district’s health lessons and a school practice of weighing students contributed to her daughter’s eating disorder and asked the board to review the curriculum.
Heather Kroske said she spoke as a parent of a daughter who developed an eating disorder after middle‑school health instruction. “I'm coming before you as a parent of a daughter with an eating disorder that had its seed planted in middle school health class,” Kroske said. She described lessons that she said required students to download an app called FatSecret, a weight‑loss app, and to report the foods they ate in class where classmates could see the entries.
Kroske told the board she is concerned that students were being weighed on campus “in front of their classmates” and that lessons showed examples of only severely underweight people when discussing eating disorders. “Most of the patients fall into a hybrid of behaviors, not just either starving themselves or binging and purging,” she said, arguing the instruction misses more common presentations of disordered eating.
She cited research in general terms during her comments, saying eating disorders have a high mortality rate and asking the board to adopt developmentally appropriate nutrition education, body‑positive curriculum and material that teaches a healthy relationship with food for children rather than adults.
Board response and next steps: Board members acknowledged the public comment as part of the audience communications portion of the meeting. No board action was taken on curriculum during the March 31 meeting; staff did not provide an immediate response on whether the district will review the specific materials Kroske mentioned.
What was said (selected): “I'm deeply concerned that our school is weighing students on campus and doing so in front of their classmates, as well as making them download an app called FatSecret... where they're required to enter and report in front of their classmates all the food that they've eaten so they can be critiqued,” Kroske said.
The district did not provide curriculum documents or confirm which specific lessons or materials are used in Wilkins or other schools during the meeting. The board’s audience communications procedure notes the board will receive and acknowledge comments but will not engage in dialogue during that agenda item.
