Monday, February 05, 2007

The Childhood Obesity Hysteria only makes our kids unhealthier

On a show in October, Tyra Banks, host of "America's top models" featured two children with eating disorders. One of them, started in when she was five, eating paper to avoid eating food.

"I would eat a little bit of breakfast, a bite or two at lunch and a bite of each thing that my mom gave me at dinner and then the rest was paper," Justine Galleger, now 14-years-old, told Tyra. "I had a little baby fat on me and I saw other kids being teased, and figured if I didn't put on weight then I wouldn't be made fun of."

During her period of fullblown anorexia, Justine only weighed 32 lbs.

Another child Tyra had on the show chews food, then spits it out to avoid gaining weight.
Tyra who has gotten in the news lately, by allowing herself to gain up to 161 lbs which puts her in the low part of the "normal BMI range", has been trying to bring a message to the public which they need to hear ... our obsession with size and "childhood obesity" is very badly affecting our kids... for anyone who thinks these kids described above are exceptions, keep in mind that many of the kids I know personally, even those as young as 9 years old, are totally calorie conscious, can detail how many calories and how much fat is in most foods (they read labels of most of what they eat), consider being fat as horrible, ugly and negative, consume large amounts of green tea and/or water and chew gum to avoid eating and try to exercise off any food "indescretions". Since most of them do not eat healthy, I suspect that they, regardless of what they weigh, may be poorly nourished. They drink little to no milk, they take no multi vitamins and they don't eat much in the way of veggies but they all eat a lot of fast food and junk food.

In school, most teachers who taught in the 1980's and are still teaching now, have commented that the attention span of the kids, is markedly less now than it was 20 years ago when they were better nourished and not so fat phobic.

We can hope that Tyra gets through to the public where others have not.

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