Science (Journal of the American Association for the Advancement of Science): The Health Risk of Obesity – Better Metrics Imperative
(Discusses shortcomings of BMI metric)
http://science.sciencemag.org/content/341/6148/856.summary

New York Times: Weight Index Doesn’t Tell the Whole Truth

Chicago Tribune: BMI measuring in schools proves weighty issue – some parents argue that fat measure can have negative effect on students’ self-esteem

National Eating Disorder Association: Get the Facts on Eating Disorders
(The section Dieting and the Drive for Thinness includes several statistics on the number of children who have poor body image.)
https://www.nationaleatingdisorders.org/get-facts-eating-disorders

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Not a lot of research has been conducted specifically on the effects of school weigh-ins on children’s psychological wellbeing. However, anecdotal evidence is compelling. Ask your friends if they have memories of being weighed in school. When I wrote about weigh-ins on Facebook, friends volunteered their stories:

“Oh how I dreaded weigh in day! I was always a fluffy child but generally healthy. I always heard snickers and whispers from the other girls and would fight back tears.”

“I distinctly remember being weighed in front if the whole cafeteria and my weight being called out to another adult to record down. I wanted to run into a closet and hide somewhere as my numbers were apparently nowhere near the acceptable range for the popular crowd waiting in line behind me. Oh what a shameful practice that is!”

“I remember exactly what I weighed in 6th grade and where all our friends fell in a hierarchy by weight. It was the first time I lied about my weight. I don’t even remember it particularly negatively… It is upsetting in retrospect how natural lying about weight to other women was for my twelve-year-old self.”

“I was weighed in gym class in the seventh grade, and it is still one of the most horrifying, mortifying memories I have in my life.”