The Student Body Page #4

But... i mean,

I'm not gonna give up.

I really wanna have

this conversation with him

and this is gonna be

a lot harder than I thought.

Now, there's so many emails.

Well, not everyone shies away

from this heated topic.

In fact, meme Roth

has been one of the more

outspoken voices

in the debate over obesity.

And so, schools,

for a long time,

have taken a role

in child health and welfare.

They see a bruise

or there's sort of,

maybe repeat broken bones.

You know, they say,

- "look, let's look into this."

- Uh-hmm.

And I feel that on the spectrum

of vision, health, um,

hearing, scoliosis,

and all the way

that is your problem

in the home,

maybe there's some

abuse going on.

Somewhere in that spectrum,

I think the BMI screening fits,

even though I understand

people are conflicted

about them.

But seriously,

nobody takes your BMI

and send you to surgery.

Like, there's a big gap

in between.

It is free.

It is non-invasive.

There's no blood.

There's no... not...

There's no spit.

It's literally free,

fast, and easy.

Uh-hmm.

And it's just

an initial screening.

Uh-hmm.

So, it just says,

"hey, um,

"your child might be

a little overweight

"it seems here.

Go check that out."

Or, "hey, your child might be

a little underweight,

go check that out."

If it takes

the government to intervene

to help preserve

a healthy life for these kids,

then I don't love that.

But I'm willing to concede that

if that's what it takes.

At first glance,

you might not think

someone like meme

can truly appreciate

the struggles of obesity

until you learn more

about her own

personal experiences.

I come from a family

that's overweight,

multigenerational, aunts,

uncles, grandparents.

My... both of my parents

are very obese.

My grandmother

was put into a, uh,

24-hour care facility

because her weight

got so immense.

And I think about

that obesity killed her well

before she died.

Imagine yourself

unable or unwilling

to get out of your bed

because you're so heavy

that you're willing

to just go to the bathroom

in your bed.

That's where obesity

takes people.

So, it's really hard for me

to call obesity beautiful.

It's really hard for me

to call rolls of fat curves,

because that's not

what curvy is.

I know what curvy is.

And I think that people

who try to normalize obesity

or glorify obesity,

they mean well.

They want people to feel good

about themselves.

But really,

it's not helping anybody.

But are fat letters

from our government

helping anybody?

And if so,

where is the evidence

to show this?

Hello, senator Kearney's

office, this is Leo.

It seems the one person

who should answer this question

is the only one

not willing to talk to me.

I called a few weeks ago

and, um, I also send an email

and I didn't get a response.

So, I'm calling again

to set up an interview

with senator Kearney.

We won't be able to actually

schedule an interview.

Um, but if you want

to email us your questions,

we can try to share those

with the senator.

Okay.

Well, I did send an email

a couple of weeks ago

and I didn't get a response.

And plus,

this is a video project,

so just answering on email

won't really work for me.

Uh-hmm.

Yeah, I understand that.

But unfortunately,

it's just that

with an interview

like this, it's...

The more they turned me down,

the more determined I was

not to take no for an answer.

So, I just kept calling back.

Uh, so, I'm calling back again,

but I forgot to ask

the question.

Can you give me a list

of any of the places

senator Kearney will be?

Anything on the schedule,

any luncheons,

or public speeches?

Uh, currently, no.

So, there's nothing

on his schedule?

I don't have any...

Anything like that

scheduled at this time.

Oh, can... so then,

can I just schedule

an interview?

No, if you want

your questions answered,

you need to email them to us.

It was official.

The battle of wills

was in full swing now.

Hello, senator Kearney's office.

This is Leo.

Hi, Leo. This is Bailey again.

I'm calling again

because you said

that there was nothing

on the schedule,

so I would like to schedule

a private luncheon,

and how would I do that?

I think what you're getting at

is if can you show up somewhere

and ask him your question

and have a conversation

with him.

The answer is no.

I tried the confused angle.

No, there's no schedule?

I tried to be assertive.

He's willing to speak for us,

but not to us.

No, if you want

your questions...

I even resorted to sarcasm.

So, is senator Kearney

a public official?

Is he a public official? Yeah.

So, as a public official,

when will he officially

be in public?

So, when you think

about our lawmakers

and everything they do,

it's all scripted.

Hearings, they're scripted.

They're reading off a speech.

Um, commercials, scripted.

They're reading off

a teleprompter.

Everything they do is scripted.

And when I called

to have an open conversation,

they said,

"no, we can't do that,"

but we can send an email.

Well, no, that's scripted.

They always are wanting

like students

to be more involved

in government

to learn about it, be interested

and, um, and I'm interested,

but they said,

"no, this is all the question.

"The senator

cannot have a interview

or a conversation

with a citizen."

Do you wanna call again?

The BMI to notify them.

But not all lawmakers

were silent on the matter.

Senator Gary Cates

was more than willing

to talk to me

about the BMI law.

So, I can tell you

from personal, uh, testimony

that there are times

when there are bills

that come to legislature

that sometimes,

you vote for something

even though you don't think

it's the right thing to do

because you're worried

about negative consequences

such as bad newspaper stories.

Commercials and campaigns

saying that you hate kids,

you don't want them

to be healthy.

But sometimes,

even if you're the only

person opposes to it,

if you think it's

the right thing to do,

you got to do that.

And senator Cates did just that.

In fact, he was one

of the few lawmakers

who raised concerns

about the BMI mandate

during the senate hearing.

I would tell you

the approach we're taking here

is completely wrong.

And so, the last thing

we need to be doing here

is to get involved with this,

have our schools

involved with this.

I was trying to convey

to my colleagues

is that think

really hard about this.

We're gonna regret this.

And I can't help but to think

that the school district

is gonna be jumping

up and down saying,

"yippee, now,

we have this to do."

We can't do everything

in the schools.

There are some things

that have to remain

within the family nucleus

- and I think that...

- Senator Cates

was not alone in his descent.

Some school officials

also stood firm

in opposition to the law.

I took it to the school board.

We had a discussion and we said,

"no, we're not

gonna force our children

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