In the eating disorders world, putting any child on a diet is not only unacceptable but appalling.
In the eating disorders world, a father referring to his child as "chubby" and commenting on her eating habits is not only frowned upon it is reviled.
In the eating disorder world a mother who felt her children were "perfect" should not be corrected by a doctor who points to the children's weight as altering that.
In the eating disorders world it is well-known and embraced that healthy children rapidly gain weight as they approach puberty.
In the eating disorders world it is understood that dieting is an unhealthy behavior, that healthy weight is whatever one's body ends up with when they are behaviorally and mentally healthy - a wide range of body shapes and sizes. Average weight people can be unhealthy, and non-average weight people can be healthy.
Behaviors, not weight, are appropriate health goals.
But OUTSIDE the eating disorder world none of the above is true. In fact, most people believe the opposite on every single point, and are not aware of any other way to think or that the science supports all of the above. I am sucker-punched to read that our First Family put their daughters on a "diet" because they feared "obesity" and no doubt will be lauded for it.
This is not an eating disorder issue, however, and it should not be only us who know this and speak out about it. These are medical, social, and ultimately self-defeating errors in thinking that do harm to all children and all of us. I am very sad today.
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Jan Shepherd: My Relationship with Food: A Reflection of Self
How you extrapolated this to mean she was advocating for children, including her own, to mimic the rail-thin models that abound in print and media is beyond me.
Eating disorders, including bulimia, are quite another matter from steering kids away from foods that are high in calories and low in nutrition. And to the mother whose daughter attended the same school as the Obama girls: please refer us all to your source for the statement you claim Michelle Obama made, that "being chubby is not perfect." Just to verify---thanks ever so!
Here is my message to the First Lady:
Please clarify publicly that weight loss dieting is not appropriate for children.
Consider using behavior-based language instead of weight-based language when proposing health measures.
Consider the risks of eating disordered behaviors in all health policies around weight.
I do not believe in dieting, but I do believe parents must take responsibility to provide wholesome meals, pleasant physical activity, regular sleep, and model healthy behaviors and body image. The antidote to dieting is a balanced and joyful relationship with one's body.
This obesity insanity has got to stop. I wonder how low we will go down this treacherous path until it is widely realized that we are deluded about the role body size plays in health. And now our first daughters have to deal with our national neurosis about this, thanks to a mom, who, unfortunately, is all to typical in her approach to handling an issue that should not be an issue at all--their weight.
I urge everyone of any body size who has ever dieted, thought of dieting, or thought, at any time, that they were "too fat" to read "The Obesity Myth—Why America’s Obsession with Weight is Hazardous to Your Health" by Paul Campos.
Do you let your kids drink soda and fruit juice instead of water? Eat burgers on a regular basis? If so, well, then no wonder your kids have eating disorders.
Eating disorders are biological brain disorders which patients do not choose to have and can not choose to simply give up without medical intervention. The point of Laura's article is that the threat of obesity can not be conquered by teaching kids that life is one long diet. Unfortunately parents of ED kids have a front row seat for the problems that kind of thinking can cause.
It's another kind of stereotyping. Many children who are overweight are in the cities and you don't find Krogers, Meijers etc. in downtown Detroit, Cleveland and other cities. I worked in Child Protective Services/Foster Care & Adoption. Working with families you realize these are generational , access & information problems. If you've never learned about good nutrition, and this country hasn't because of the misguided food pyramid, you don't know that you're not providing the proper balance. If you're on government hand out such as WIC or Focus Hope you take what they give you because it's food. Money is another problem because fresh, nutritious food is not in the budget. Frozen will have to do. Access is a big problem. Some people have limited transportation so access to better food is a problem. Unless you are living with people 24/7 you don't know what they are feeding their children. Even people who have money get their information from the food companies and don't understand the connection between good nutrition and health.
Many people are victims of the circumstances of their lives. So they do the best they can. Education is the key but there are so many additional layers to this problem education itself is not enough. Compassion from those is better situations would be appreciated for the efforts they do make. Condemnation only reinforces the negative.
As a society we need to stop thinking of Drs. as perfect and everything they say is gospel. They are people and come with their own bias and agenda's. How many years was the food pyramid been forced down our throats promoted heavily by Drs. and the medical profession only to find out several years ago it was created by the INSURANCE industry. The obesity problem was initiated by a industry who told people to eat large amounts of unprocessed carbohydrates loaded with MSG and HFC on a daily bases.Bad food makes sick people and sick people are profitable. Much of this was forced on the children of this country. I can't tell you how many times I've seen that pyramid in clinics, hospitals and schools.
Mrs. Obama needs to chose her words more carefully because people will jump on and nit-pick the most innocent of statements and twist it to write articles that really says nothing.
You are misinformed about what eating disorders are. They are actually physical/medical conditions (having a malnourished brain from restricting food or binging/purging) that causes psychological symptoms due to changes in biochemistry from the brain being malnourished.
And, the only way to get out of those psychological symptoms is to eat food, high calorie and high in fat to nourish the brain so it can be restored.
Each of us has a set point of where our normal weight would be if we had balanced nourishment and those who recover from an eating disorder often find that their ideal set point of weight, does not fall into the average BMI for their height.
We all need a balance of foods, protein, fat, and carbohydrate for our bodies to function optimally.
We have learned a lot due to researchers such as Walter Kaye, MD at UCSD about eating disorders that dispells the myth you are echoing.
The doctor rang out a warning shot to Mrs. Obama. Within the black community curvy women are celebrated. It is accepted/expected for teen girls and women within our community to have wider hips and a larger posterior. Traditionally black girls and women do not experience anxiety and shame about their bodies. It is estimated that only 5% or 1 in 20 black women suffer from eating disorder. So to interjct the idea of eating disorders into the conversation is in my opinion baseless.
So I say this in the nicest way possible to all the critics back off. Get the facts. As a black woman who has successfully dealt with her own weight gain issues through adolescence into adulthood. Mrs. Obama did no different than what a parent should do. She notice a problem and rectified it.
Certainly, everyone has a right to their opinion but I think in most cases, there are those who are ALWAYS looking for something wrong so, no matter what she said in her interview and no matter how noble her cause, you were looking for something wrong even if you had to make a huge issue of something that really isn't at all an issue.
When my daughter heard these same comments (being chubby is ugly, fatty foods are bad, being thin is ideal, etc) in her school lunchroom, by health teachers, PE teachers, it began a serious descent into a deadly eating disorder. She feared their checking of BMI and food journals because she did not want to be seen as "too big" or eating "too much".
By age age 11 my daughter went from being a tall, strong, healthy, athletic prepubscent girl, to a 75 pound walking skeleton.
Our pediatrician, a fellow parent at this private school, told us these toxic statements and school practices were harmful.
We saw the percentage of children suffering from an eating disorder, anorexia, bulimia, and binge eating was higher than the national norm. In my daughter's class it was at least 6% and those were the ones we knew of - since many times bulimia is not detected early since they are "within a normal BMI".
Although not all who "diet" for the"ideal weight" will develop an eating disorder do we want to give the message that you are not "perfect" with few extra pounds?
Michelle Obama do you want healthy children or their peers to suffer giving the message that being "chubby" is not perfect?.