Parents Receive Letters About Students Body Mass Index

ALTOONA, BLAIR COUNTY - Cute, active, and friendly are all adjectives you may think of if you've met Domenic and Sophia Roefaro.  Overweight likely would never cross your mind.  Obese may sound ridiculous.

"It is the wording.  I think that parents don't like to throw that word around," their mother Nicole said.

A state-mandated report of where the children fall on a national body mass index chart was sent home with the kids.  It uses height and weight data collected from school.

"I think they're healthy kids.  They're not couch potatoes.  They're well-rounded kids.  My sons a year-round athlete.  My daughter is involved in dance," she said.

Altoona School spokesperson Tom Bradley said not to let the letter alarm you.  Only a doctor can assess each individual child.

"As everybody knows this whole obesity issue is a major national issue right now.  This is something that the state of Pennsylvania is requiring to help make parents a little more aware to start taking some action if their physician would concur with that," Bradley said.

He said it's a guideline that doesn't take all factors into consideration.

"If they're heavily involved in athletics or dancing, they could have a higher weight and its more muscle than fat," he said.

Letters to parents of secondary students are sent via U.S. mail.  Some parents said they wish they all would be sent that way so the younger kids don't open them and read them themselves.