Teachers are now advised to rule out potentially harmful activities, such as recording and comparing students’ body weight and measurements; calculating body mass index (BMI) or calorie intake, and having students note down what they eat each day. 

The changes have been published in the Curriculum connection: Food and Wellbeing resource, which was updated to align with Version 9 of the national curriculum.

It follows a campaign by The Embrace Collective and Eating Disorders Families Australia (EDFA), and led by former teacher Kylie Burton, an EDFA member and parent of a child who has suffered from anorexia nervosa. 

“There used to be more than 340 search results in the Australian Curriculum for terms such as BMI, weight, calories, healthier, class surveys, food and diet,” Burton told The Embrace Collective. 

“Now there is only one – and that links to the advice for teachers to avoid these types of activities.”

After having been hospitalised twice with her illness, Burton’s daughter returned to school but immediately came up against a six-week maths unit focused on measurement that covered advice around diet and involved body measurements. 

In lesson one, the class were asked to calculate their BMI and plot their results. 

Burton said it “was an obvious tipping point” for her daughter. 

“…I saw her behaviour change – she came home and told me about it straight away. 

“She and her friends were very upset and embarrassed. There was a group of them that just stopped eating lunch together at school and my daughter started relapsing.

“I shared a post on the EDFA Facebook page, and I started to get a lot of replies about very similar situations from families all over the country, about triggering class work in several subjects and different year levels from Prep all the way through to TAFE.

“I realised it was a big, nationwide problem,” Burton told the Collective.

Recent research shows that 22 per cent of teenagers – 33 per cent of girls and 13 per cent of boys aged 11-19 – now meet the criteria for an eating disorder. 

Since the COVID-19 pandemic, The Royal Children’s Hospital in Melbourne has seen a 63 per cent increase in eating disorder presentations. 

In 2022, The Butterfly Foundation – the national foundation for eating disorders and body image – received an ‘alarming’ email which outlined how a teacher had brought a set of scales into the classroom, made the students weigh themselves, and then asked the children to write their names and weights on the board in order from heaviest to lightest.

The heaviest child reportedly did not eat the following weekend in an effort to change their ranking.

Danni Rowlands, head of prevention services at Butterfly, told EducationHQ at the time this wasn't a one-off incident. 

“I think the reality is, it doesn’t matter when or what stage of life (you’re in), it's actually a really, really horrible thing to have done, particularly in a classroom setting which is not a health setting, which is not in a controlled environment, [and obviously with] peer comparisons…” Rowlands said. 

Burton is keen to emphasise that the campaign for change is in no way blaming teachers. 

“Prior to my daughter being sick, I wouldn’t have had this depth of understanding, and I know how overwhelming it can be catering for all these different students’ needs, so there’s absolutely no criticism of teachers. 

“They want to do the right thing – it’s just about awareness, and understanding how those tasks can be processed by someone with body image concerns. 

“I’ve also heard from many teachers, who have found the content triggering for themselves and are welcoming the new guidelines and resources,” she said. 

For years Dr Zali Yager, executive director of The Embrace Collective and Associate Professor at Victoria University, has been advocating for shifts in teacher practice in health and physical education. 

Yager said the focus has always been on axing activities that might be triggering for those vulnerable to eating disorders, but also those that put food into ‘good’ and ‘bad/junk’ categories, as well as those grounded in misinformation and oversimplification of the level of control we have over our weight. 

“BMI was never designed to be an individual measure of weight status, let alone health,” she told the Collective. 

“Categorising students into weight categories when they are with their peers, and when teachers are not adequately trained to communicate the complexity of the science around weight, can be extremely damaging for young people.” 

If you or someone you know is concerned about their body image or eating, you can contact the Butterfly Foundation Hotline on 1800 33 4673.