A 13-year-old girl from Iowa was sent to the principal's office for refusing to get weighed in front of her gym class.
Ireland Hobert-Hoch, a junior high student, told teachers she didn't want to be weighed because her mother taught her that weight doesn't matter. She also thought that by speaking up, others who felt uncomfortable being weighed would follow her lead.
"I don't feel like it's their business," she told the Des Moines Register. "I feel like it's my doctor and my mom and my own business. Maybe not even my own because I don't need to know that right now."
Ireland's family abandoned their home scale years ago, her mother Heather told Huffington Post because, "It's very common among young girls – and even women – to become obsessed with the number on the scale."
For their part, school officials at Southeast Polk Junior High in Pleasant Hill provided Ireland with the option to be weighed privately. But Ireland, who her mother describes as a "straight-A student," refused.
The school was measuring each student's height and weight in order to determine body mass index (BMI) as part of a controversial program called FitnessGram. The program has been criticized for classifying thin or muscular as overweight and worrying parents unnecessarily.
