The Case of the Politically Incorrect Teacher

There is more to know about the incident in which a high school teacher caused quite a stir by inserting questions that referenced obesity into an exam that the students were, of course, required to take. An understandable first reaction might be, “Just a moment, are we to understand that the gent educates young people about an obesity-related field, like nutrition or exercise? Is he perhaps the gym teacher?” But no: Tom Chan teaches math.

To digress for a moment from that odd discrepancy, it should be noted that the entire San Francisco United School District, where Lowell High School is located, enjoys an apparently well-functioning mechanism for conscientiously feeding children of all ages, several times per day if necessary. The menus, published via a special website, include such details as the calorie content of upcoming meals.

The financial details are unclear, but it seems to be free for most or all students. That is a topic for another day.

The intriguing question that comes to mind, the real head-scratcher, is, “How and why would a teacher of mathematics insert material, whether intended as humorous or not, about obesity, into a compulsory test?” Learning more about the circumstances of the accusation of wrongdoing and its consequences does little to clear up that question.

The status quo

All along, in the course of a more than 20-year teaching career, most of Mr. Chan’s kids have rated him highly, to the point where…

For many of us, Mr. Chan was not just a teacher; he was a source of encouragement and someone who genuinely believed in our success.

A former student wrote to the San Francisco Chronicle that Chan “went above and beyond in ways that are rare.” A report from SFist.com noted that many students “brushed his humor off as being ‘bad dad jokes,’ which the students interpreted as Chan’s way of making math more fun.” (Just to be clear, the phrase “bad dad jokes” denotes corny humor, not abusive fathers.)

Recently, for some reason, talk was going around about particular test questions that bothered some students, and consequently some parents, and the authorities. Two items were of particular concern, problems that involved “a ‘fat kid’ punted into the air and the cost of dating girls based on their weight.” As more individuals within the system became aware of the disturbance, more of them agreed that Chan’s language and behavior were perceived and received as fat-shaming, and also sexist.

When the press informed the public, the feathers hit the fan. Some students had never been comfortable with their math teacher’s style all along, and the ensuing publicity encouraged them to speak up. With public attention focused on the matter, the authorities had no choice but to suspend him pending further investigation.

Meanwhile, additional evidence was brought forward. Both teens and adults who had previously not felt that they needed to strictly follow the “See Something, Say Something” policy hardened their attitudes and added their observations and experiences to the pile. One report mentioned a 9th-grade algebra quiz question that had something to do with giving candy to a “fat kid.”

But then word got around, not only about this particular test, but earlier ones, as well as language that had been used in the classroom and elsewhere. A citizen remarked in an online forum that Chan had been known to “make gross generalizations about people who speak Cantonese,” which is not a positive quality.

Yet at the same time,

Hundreds of former and current students immediately defended Chan after the Chronicle’s coverage, signing a petition and urging officials to reinstate him.

A parent named Caimán Dorado wrote to SFist.com,

My kids, 2 girls!! …remember Mr Chan’s quirky jokes and say WAS NOT A BIG DEAL. He was popular to the kids boys and girls, a good creative teacher… These almost adult high schoolers who spend their lives online, understood Mr Chan was just trying to make calculus more creative interesting and fun.

Another parent wrote,

To be fair, when my kids were going to Lowell, the math and science teachers used a lot of goofy examples like that to keep the students engaged, although that was more in Physics and Calculus, as I recall.

But some current and former students went the other way, recalling additional details that made them uncomfortable, and sharing them with the student newspaper. Worse yet, the school authorities also cited as a reason for the suspension “other behaviors,” which various publications have mentioned, hinted at, or confirmed as fact.

It was common knowledge to anyone who frequented the same social media sites that Chan commented on some female students’ posts and sent them direct messages. (The journalist did not mention whether any male students received the same extracurricular attention.) Apparently, he had been heard to say, “Girls are either pretty, or they can do math,” which sounds pretty sexist, or at the very least, unnecessary and inappropriate.

This item does not sound good at all. As stated by SFist.com,

Some parents are also unhappy that he posted “Grades vs. Dignity” videos on YouTube of students dancing in exchange for extra credit.

At any rate, the authorities placed Chan on “indefinite leave,” and by March 25, he had resigned.

Your responses and feedback are welcome!

Source: “Find Your Menu,” SFUSD.edu, undated
Source: “S.F. teacher accused of sexist quizzes quits,” PressReader.com, 03/27/26
Source: “Lowell High School Teacher on Leave After Giving Students Quizzes Demeaning Girls, ‘Fat Kids’,” SFist.com, 03/03/26
Source: “Lowell High math teacher resigns amid probe into sexist, fat-shaming quiz questions,” Yahoo.com, 03/25/26
Image by Mohamed_hassan/Pixabay

Other Expenses, Like Shame and Blame

We have been discussing the fiscal costs to society (namely, us) of obesity. But what are the psychological costs of shame and blame, and who should bear those costs? Who should be held responsible for the friction — the administrators of a particular school, the parents, the voters, the students, or all or none of them?

Psychology is a tricky subject, because definitions of responsibility and of psychological damage vary from place to place and even within a single community. Furthermore, every related expanse, to whatever degree it originates in the mind, contains the possibility of costing real dollars eventually, especially when a publicity-attracting event like a lawsuit or the firing of an administrator comes along.

When the “shame and blame” bills come due — as they inevitably will — dollars will be demanded, and paid. First in line to empty their wallets are parents, who might pay for “fat camp;” for the services of a mental health professional in person or online; for two entire sets of clothing for a child whose weight fluctuates wildly; for pricey “health foods” in hopes that a change of diet will do the trick; or who entertain the mistaken belief that a child’s away-from-home food consumption can be controlled.

On the public stage

The example might be cited of an obese child soaking up public money in order to try losing weight, and what a disgrace it is, because the funds could have been used instead for some other child who is fighting a serious infection. How unacceptable it would be for one to suffer because limited resources are being used for the other! A crudely unsympathetic adult might wonder why a kid who got fat by greedily eating everything he could get his hands on should receive help, to the detriment of a poor, innocent child who suffers an illness that she or he was not responsible for contracting.

Is that fair? Aren’t the wrong sort of people depleting public resources that more rightfully belong to the more deserving? (Apologies to the reader, but some folks do see it this way.) But to mention that view is an effective segue into the topic of blame and shame, and how much those impulses influence the entire field of obesity in myriad ways.

West Coast discontent

This issue was recently the cause of public censure when a teacher’s actions were investigated because of exam questions that some critics deemed “inappropriate.”

Lowell High School, part of the San Francisco Unified School District, is known in one context
“one of the highest performing public high schools” in California. Math teacher Tom Chan composed some exam questions that were deemed “inappropriate” because of content that struck critics as being sexist and fat-shaming. According to the San Francisco Chronicle, students were tasked with calculating “[…] how much it would cost to pay for dinner for girls who weigh 120 versus 220 pounds.”

Worse yet, another quiz question was said to be titled “Mr. Chan vs. The Fat Kid (part 2).”
The entire school system has an anonymous system known as “See Something, Say Something,” through which concerned participants can bring questionable actions to the attention of trusted adults.

Judging by its informative website, Lowell High appears to be an outstanding institution. Its language department encompasses eight languages, and the Visual and Performing Arts Department is said to be exceptional. Whopping 27 sports are practiced by 32 teams; 100 clubs and service organizations are active; and the institution boasts programs that specialize in Wellness, Peer Resources, and CSF Tutoring.

Most importantly,

Lowell endeavors to create a just and equitable society where individual responsibilities are clearly defined and personal rights guaranteed. It endorses the concept of an integrated school where cultural and social diversity enrich the lives of all students.

(To be continued…)

Your responses and feedback are welcome!

Source: “Lowell teacher investigated due to reported ‘inappropriate’ exam questions,” SFGate.com, 03/03/26
Source: “Lowell High School,” sfusd.edu, undated
Image by tanrica/Pixabay

Additives and Advertising

In discussing the causes of childhood obesity, we can start with the alphabet, and two very similar words that begin (in English, anyway) with the same sound: additives and advertising. They are fatefully connected. Probably, many substances that get into food ought to be outright banned — in which case, those particular products would either be discontinued or have their recipes changed, so in either case we would not need to worry about how they were advertised.

Similarly, if the advertising of any food containing suspicious additives were to be forbidden, that would also help a lot. However, for better or worse, we live in a society proud of its freedom, although good arguments might be made to the effect that maybe, in some cases, freedom is worse than the alternative.

Over the years, at least 1,000 chemicals found in food (or in the packaging that embraces it) have been identified as obesity-inducing, while in very few of those cases has the worrisome substance been banned from inclusion. Because obesity is notoriously multi-factorial, once these substances get inside the body it is not easy to definitively pin down which chemical does what. But there are some very shady suspects.

Salt of the earth

“The salt of the earth” has, since Biblical times, been a colloquial description for someone who is trustworthy, honest, genuine, and reliable. To be identified as having saline qualities is a great compliment. But then, during a few recent decades, things changed, and salt itself came under suspicion for apparently somehow aiding and abetting obesity.

Then, about a decade ago, a series of experiments on the body chemistry of a group of Russian cosmonauts took place, which threw all the previously assumed knowledge about salt into doubt. The more diligently the scientists investigated, the more their comfortable certainty evaporated. One of them, Dr. Melanie Hoenig, told The New York Times,

I suspect that when it comes to the adverse effects of high sodium intake, we are right for all the wrong reasons.

Around that time, a page no longer available quoted Associate Consumer Analyst Ryan Whittaker as saying,

Emulating the UK’s salt reduction program is a strong strategy. Without being overly prescriptive, this strategy brought manufacturers, action groups, and other interested parties together and achieved an 11% reduction in salt consumption. Achieving similar results with sugar, without complex legislation, would be a success for both public health bodies and the food and drink industry.

So, that would be good news — if indeed it turns out that salt reduction actually is a factor in obesity prevention. A very current article aimed at the average weight-conscious American presents an overview of current thinking on the subject, as expressed by Lauren Manaker, M.S. The author says,

While eating salt doesn’t directly cause weight gain in the form of body fat, there is evidence to suggest that consuming it in excess may not be best if you are focused on weight management.

If people were taking their water straight, that would be one thing. But the main contemporary problem is the very strong tendency, especially among the young, to drink sugar-sweetened beverages. The salty food leads directly to the sugary drinks, and oops, somebody just chugged a few hundred thirst-slaking calories. A bit further down the road, there are knock-on effects:

Ultra-processed foods and meats are linked to higher levels of inflammation, and inflammation is associated with weight gain.

As always, we are urged to bear in mind that sodium is necessary for health. But it causes fluid retention, which is not fat per se, but which does add bulk to the figure. Also, its link with ultra-processed foods is regarded with great suspicion.

The recommended fix is home cooking, where the consumer retains at least a semblance of control over the proceedings. Concerning the quest for flavor, the most highly recommended suggestion is to explore the vast availability of genuine herbs. Of course, when buying groceries or eating in restaurants and other venues, be informed about the meaning and consequences of eating ultra-processed foods, and remain vigilant.

Your responses and feedback are welcome!

Source: “Why Everything We Know About Salt May Be Wrong,” NYTimes.com, 05/08/17
Source: “Does Salt Make You Gain Weight?,” EatingWell.com, 03/10/26
Image by JUTUBE/Pixabay

Cost Covers a Lot of Territory

Aside from prices that everyone ultimately shares, like super-size airplane seats (or better yet, heavy-duty hospital beds), other obesity-related costs are apt to be distributed amongst various members of society. Some of the people who pay in one way or another are teachers; some are medical professionals, others are parents, and many are children.

Often, the expense borne by the public due to the existence of obesity is a formal tax, of the sort that buys scales for schools. On other occasions, there seems to be an informal, unlegislated sort of a tax, which nevertheless involves expense and hassle.

At the edge of awareness

What could be called the obesity tax shows up in many guises. It needs to be further explored, starting with some of the ways by which the price of obesity is collected from members of the public on a depressingly regular basis. We probably all do need to be reminded, now and then, that there are other options besides eternally paying.

Obesity has been allowed to take over and affect every American indirectly, even if the individuals themselves are not overweight. But fate does not have to land this way, nor does changing the general consciousness need to be cruel or divisive.

There is no need for society to be sucked down into the quicksand of cruelty and blame. There are ways up, and ways out; and just to see this clearly, and acknowledge the truth of it, is a dynamic starting move.

The dark side

Society has accepted that people with reduced mobility need allowances made for them, like the occasional wheelchair ramp, and on a normal day, it’s no big deal. The fate of an obese person is slightly different. Some fellow humans apparently simply cannot help feeling insulted by the existence of the overweight. From their point of view, it appears that obese people know good and well how offensive their corpulence is, and savor their awareness of being so annoying.

Even without access to overweight people’s confidential medical records, many folks on this continent still find it very easy to assume that some of our fellow Americans are using their large frames to express hostility. Their bulk is a weapon they purposely acquired and enjoy brandishing in a way that implies peremptory hostility toward society.

Just kidding!

Of course none of that is true. But some folks act as if it were a proven, immutable, and universally accepted fact that fat is not just uncomfortable and inconvenient and unattractive, but actually a subcategory of evil itself, which must be fought vigorously and without compassion.

Childhood Obesity News has explored a number of ways, in addition to physical and psychological tolls, in which the public pays the price of obesity. But why such incessant harping on crass old dollars? Shouldn’t this be a more elevated conversation?

No, not entirely, not exclusively, and here is why: Because everything that costs parents money has the indirect consequence of depriving their children of some other thing they could have had instead. New shoes, a professional clown at the birthday party, dental braces, a pet, a trip to Disney World, an adequate college fund. It’s even the difference between a summer at fat camp or at music camp. Which one is a child going to feel better about admitting to, come autumn?

Your responses and feedback are welcome!

Image by geralt/Pixabay