‘I would hate for my kids to be weighed’: Sarah Harris slams plan to track children’s height and weight
TV star Sarah Harris has slammed a plan by nurses to weigh kids at school. Here is why.
Confidential
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Mother of two Sarah Harris says she’d hate for sons to be weighed at school while revealing she was told at age eight she was “too fat” for the front row of her dance class.
The popular television presenter and journalist is mum to Paul, eight, and Harry, six.
Earlier this month, The Australian College of Nursing advocated for school nurses to track children’s height and weight as a way of combating childhood obesity.
“I would hate for my kids to be weighed,” she said.
“I know what I was like growing up and just how the wrong comments can land. I am not a health expert but I got a really visceral emotional reaction when I read the story about it because I know what it was like to be eight-years-old and to be told that I was carrying too much weight.”
The Project presenter continued: “I was told I was too fat to be in the front row of my dance class. It was something that kickstarted a pretty complicated relationship with food, I’d say almost 20 years. Restricting calories and exercising too much, it was just insane. I’m 43 now so I eat for function. I couldn’t do the job that I do, the travel I do, and run after two boys, trying to starve myself. You can’t run a car on an empty tank … it has taken me a long time to pick apart that kind of conditioning I did on myself after getting those comments when I was a kid.
Harris, 43, is a judge in the Food Kindness Award category for the inaugural Jamie Oliver Food Hero Awards in Australia.
The awards shine a light on the people and communities across the country doing brilliant things to inspire kids through food with The Daily Telegraph meanwhile presenting the Food Educator of the Year category.
Other categories are Food For Movement, Community of School Food Champion and Food Entrepreneur of the Year.
The ceremony will be held on-board Royal Caribbean’s Ovation of the Seas in Sydney on November 13.
“I certainly don’t think I am the best cook in the world, far from it,” Harris said.
“I always try and make sure I get some meat into the boys … they are running a million miles a minute, they’re growing, they need protein. There’s got to be something green on the plate. You have to be so careful when you talk to kids about this stuff. I think the best way is to educate kids to make healthier choices because food isn’t bad, food is love in fact, it is just about making the right choices so we don’t get on that unhealthy road down the track.”
Harris is careful with the words she uses around food and weight with her children.
“I don’t even talk about what their bodies look like,” she said.
“I don’t like them using the word fat, I always pull them up on it. It is disastrous for kids to be using that language and to be thinking in those terms. I don’t even call things junk, we have treats every now and then but it is about making choices when it comes to food and not demonising it completely.”
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