Little Gwendolyn spoke, and city officials listened.
The Department of Education promised to re-examine how it distributes student “Fitnessgrams” a day after The Post revealed that a pencil-thin 9-year-old was sent home with a report calling her “overweight.”
“Really? I’m so proud of myself!” Gwendolyn Williams, of Staten Island, said after learning that her story may change public policy.
The DOE will continue to use the body mass index, or BMI, for the fitness evaluations, but a spokeswoman said the results may no longer be sent home with kids.
“We are looking at alternative means of distributing the reports so they reach parents directly,” she said.
Currently, Fitnessgrams are simply handed over to 870,000 kids in grades K-through-12 with the instruction, “Don’t look.”
But peeking is rampant, parents complained Friday, slamming the BMI as unreliable and the reports as a catalyst for bullying and eating disorders.
All the kids compare their BMI scores, said Gail Stein, a mother of two at PS 87 in Harlem.
“It’s not right that they give the information to the kids at schools. There are whole cliques going on about this, and by the time the girls get to middle school, they start starving themselves,” said Stein, whose daughter, Mia, 10, is a trim gymnast who has also been branded “overweight.”
Karen King, a nurse and parent at PS 46 in Clinton Hills, Brooklyn, said: “They all say, ‘Let me see what you got,’ and whoever has the best score would be bragging about it. If a child is extremely sensitive, it could devastate them.”
“The gym teacher is not a medical professional. Bring in a nutritionist and a medical person to be in charge and to make suggestions if there are problems,” King said.
Another PS 46 parent, Michelle Brown, said: “If there is an issue, call the parents in to discuss it. Don’t put a letter in a book bag. It’s kind of cold.
“Children are going to open it . . . They can become bulimic, anorexic and have anxiety issues.”
Schools Chancellor Carmen Fariña declined to comment Friday when asked about the Fitnessgrams and whether she herself thought Gwendolyn was overweight.
Still, Gwendolyn is savoring her small victory.
“I feel really great right now,” she said before running out to play in the back yard. “I’m very happy they may change how they do things.”
Additional reporting by Erin Calabrese