As I was reading up on some recent research I came across two related to eating disorders/weight, and while reading them I realized how many mixed messages we are sending. One was about a spike in eating disorders in older women while the other focused on the link between body weight and personality.
While I found the information in both articles interesting, there were pieces that were almost contradictory in nature. It got me thinking about the messages we send out about eating disorders. We complain about living in a culture obsessed with thinness, and often blame the media and entertainment fields for anorexia and bulimia, since they market thinness. Some of the research I read made a statement about the large percentage of 13 year olds who have tried to lose weight, indicating this was a sign of our thinness obsessed culture.
And yet, we also hear messages about the epidemic of obesity in our culture. The other article discussed research about how certain personality types are more likely to be overweight or partake in yo-yo dieting. There is hardly a day that goes by that I don’t read something about obesity rising in children and how we need to stop the problem.
So why is it a surprise that so many 13 year old are trying to lose weight? Not only are they being attacked with ads and entertainment showing beautiful, skinny people, they are also hearing how fat they are getting by the very people who want to stop it. And we adults get the message – obesity is bad, but so is being “too thin”. We want to encourage our children to be a healthy weight, without emphasizing weight too much. It makes my head spin.
I have a daughter whose weight I am concerned about. She has always been big for her age – at the age of 10 she wears a size 9 in women’s shoes. She is not obese, but she is somewhat obsessed with dessert and sweets. I have struggled with weight since my teens, so I have very few sweets in the house and buy portion control items (like ice cream in cups rather than tubs) to help monitor intake. I talk to her about not eating too much and exercising more – things I have learned over the years as a long-term member of a weight loss program. But when I go several weeks of “eating right” without losing any weight and get frustrated and question why I am even trying, she sees that. She doesn’t want to be on a diet all of the time like mommy, or have a major stomach surgery like daddy, but she also does not want to give up ice cream. I worry that these conflicts create a potential for an eating disorder.
I could go on and on about all of the things that occur that contribute to an obese society obsessed with thinness, but I won’t. This is not a unique problem to the US and that alone should show there are multiple factors in play that we may or may not have control over. But the issue of messages, especially as they relate to children, is an important one to consider. How do we balance education about healthy lifestyle without focusing too much on weight? A clear picture has not emerged yet. Hopefully the research that is occurring will help find long term answers.