<p>First of all, i do not wish to insult anybody (my dad's on the big side) but in all the brochures and videos and pics, i have never seen a fat person in the picture. I don't get it. Also in all the missions it says we do not discriminate on ethnicity, sexual orientation, handicap, etc. They never say anything about obesity. I am not fat. My friends call me pick as in toothpick. I have no problem but some of my friends are pretty big and i'm worried about them getting in.</p>
<p>I'd say that in any PR pamphlet, it looks better to have glossy pictures of gorgeous people, but I have seen overweight people in boarding school packets. That isn't a form of discrimination, because of course they wouldn't do that in the admissions process; but to the eye, people have a natural tendency to judge people based on weight, etc., so that could play in (I took Social Psych, so that's where I'm getting this from!) </p>
<p>However, the fact that you don't see any overweight people in magazines does NOT have a reflection on whether an overweight person got in or not, though.</p>
<p>they wouldnt discriminate based on that. They might, however judge you on how they present themselves. Neat and clean > sloppy</p>
<p>i had a tour with a another girl (I know, a little weird.. I guess it was a small "group" tour) and no offense to her, but she looked like a nightmare. She had baggy jeans, an unironed shirt, some really flamboyant shoes that did not match, and her head looked like a big fuzzball that needed to be tamed. Not only that, but she had a really obnoxious and snooty personality too.</p>
<p>First impressions are reallllly important.</p>
<p>Gravitationally Challenged?</p>
<p>By and large (no pun intended), boarding schools don't tend to attract overweight students, as with most, there is a significant sports requirement that tends to discourage students who aren't into exercise (and as a result carry a bit more body mass). </p>
<p>I did notice that the kids at my D's school tend to thinner than most public schools as well.</p>
<p>The WBTY Indices covers this subject in some detail, 'tho in fairness, both WSJ and Bunkel offer some insite as well. There is an obscure rating system called TBL which also has sampled this question.</p>
<p>BS's in general frown on obesity, not unlike their disdain for people with braces. </p>
<p>According to WBTY's 2006 data (I won't go back further to please Curmudgeon D'yer) here are the top five for both boys and girls.</p>
<p>Boy's Schools with BMI over 30:</p>
<p>Hyde School (ME campus)
Darlington School (GA)
Portsmouth Abbey (RI)
Peddie School (NJ)
Woodberry Forest School (VA)</p>
<p>Girl's Schools with BMI over 30:</p>
<p>Chatham Hall School (VA)
Garrison Forest School (MD)
Blair Academy (NJ)
Hebron Academy (ME)
Kent School (CT)</p>
<p>Hope this helps.</p>
<p>I never knew Peddie was called Peddie School School. :)</p>
<p>Are these just the schools with the most boys/girls with BMI over 30 out of all schools, or is it an average...?</p>
<p>Sorry for the typo. </p>
<p>The numbers are straight %, based on total population.</p>
<p>Well... </p>
<p>Sports are required, and the food sucks.
You have to change in front of your roommate.... communal showers for the locker rooms.
And parents who are, in my opinion, a bit more image conscious than the general public -- they care about prestige and make sure their kids are well dressed. They're competitive in many different categories -- academics and weight included.
Plus, your eating is done in front of your friends (in the dining hall) -- you're probably less likely to take seconds if you're in front of the whole school, and not just your family.</p>
<p>fun is fun....you just made me spit my drink all over the keyboard! Love it.</p>
<p>On a more serious note....now that I think of it, I never noticed many overweight people at my son's bs. It is particularly noticeable with girls these days, because of the tight fitting and often skimpy tops. At my daughter's public hs, there are many girls with a "donut" around their middle. This is something I never noticed at my son's school. I like Olivia's ideas about poor food, forced physical activity, communal dining and showering, etc.</p>
<p>This is weird, because my friends and I all GAIN weight at boarding school. sports are required, but club sports are not intense and don't keep you fit unless you try. but it's hard to try because we're all exhausted 24/7. The food does suck, but the dining hall's open so I go there during my free times...(I eat 4-5 meals a day, 4 during the day and one more if I'm staying up that night). all the stress=junk food and extra sugar= gaining weight. we do walk a lot though in between classes and have to stay active during school days... really tiring...</p>
<p>usually i lose the weight back at home, though... USUALLY (not this summer, sadly..)</p>
<p>Your account squares with the Bunkel Data. In this case, it helps to have more than one year's data. A running four-year dataset helps us see that overall the BMI for students has girls lower then boys -- just barely -- but girls in 2nd year of boarding school leap past boys and have a substantially higher BMI. The boys, in the meantime, have a sharp drop in BMI. The gap increases again for 3rd year BS students, but not as sharply. The girls' BMI goes up slightly and the boys' BMI goes up a negligible amount. And both genders report slight decreases for the 4th year.</p>
<p>School-by-school measures are copyrighted, of course, but if anyone is interested in buying the software, you can buy it at 10% discount from my on-line web store.</p>
<p>Blair, traditionally, freshmen usually gain up to 10 pounds their first year.</p>
<p>And then they all go on diets soph. year.</p>
<p>(my friend from Choate, who is a senior), told me that.</p>
<p>I've also heard it from teachers at my own school and books.</p>
<p>Keyly, that wasn't me, that was blair. :) Haha but I'll steal her ideas for the moment and say thanks! xD</p>
<p>Olivia, isn't it the freshman 15? LOL</p>
<p>Goaliedaughter gained a few, but didn't change clothes size. It was muscle. When I do the math on her height/weight/clothing size, I find myself scratching my head as to how she does it.</p>
<p>When I think of traditions, I think of Headmaster's Holidays, cheering winning teams at school meeting, Senior only areas and things like that. How did it become a tradition for girls to gain 10 pounds their first year? What if they only gain 7-8, or worse 12-13? Is there a punishment, or some kind of shunning? Then, what if they don't go on a diet as sophomores, another pretty wierd tradition, if you ask me.</p>
<p>It's not a tradition. Haha, it's BETTER to stay the same weight, no doubt about it.</p>
<p>It's just common, it's not a tradition.</p>
<p>Me and my friends have discussed this about a million times, and there's just no escaping it: no one at our school is overweight. It's a little twilight zone, but we deal with it. Freshman Fifteen is especially terrifying when you realize that everyone around you is thin, but yeah, then everyone goes on a diet Lower Year or loses it all the summer before. The only explanations we could come with were:</p>
<ul>
<li>mandatory year round sports</li>
<li>"eating? sleeping? what's that?" generally sets in around winter term</li>
<li>with so many fit people around, you'll naturally want to fit in</li>
<li>commons seems to move farther and farther away every year -- most weekends I don't go to lunch or dinner because I'm too lazy, actually</li>
<li>everyone knows about freshman 15 or hears about it within a few weeks, so they do their best not to succumb to the fact that boarding school actively tries to make you fat :)</li>
</ul>
<p>Thanks everybody. I was just curious on the subject.</p>