What are we doing to our teens?

Most teens I talk to, feel they are fat, even though they are not.

Several teens I know personally, started smoking to control their weight.

Somehow we are _not_ getting across the message that smoking has been _proven_ health threatening and are concentrating on giving folks the message that obesity is _extremely_ health threatening even though there is virtually NO scientific evidence that obesity alone is health threatening at all.

How much of a problem are eating disorders among teens and pre-teens? If you look at youtube.com, there are huge numbers of videos which advertise themselves as "thinspiration". These videos either show slim young women squeezing what small amount of fat they have on their bodies in disgust or else, are slide shows of super slim fashion models and actresses. Often the songs which accompany the videos give mixed messages. One song begs "SOS me - rescue me" while another song states that no one notices that her body is falling apart.

One young woman who is 21 years old, and said her latest dieting effort began with her wanting to "get her body back" after having her son, started uploading videos in August 2007. Her first video made while she was smoking a cigarette, had her talking a lot about how she cared for her skin. But in the end of the video, she admitted that she had a problem with eating and also showed us a piece of tape covering a scar she made on herself when she was 16 ("S" for sinner, she said) and how she covered it all the time now. "Smoking is bad" she admitted but then added that she smoked a lot during her 'fasts'.

Another video made in early late 2007 by the same woman, was all text. It told how she had been in a mental hospital because of a suicide attempt. How from the age of 16 and on, she had tried all kinds of drugs in a desperate attempt to lose weight. And how she was going to rehab and get well now (but not take any prescription drugs). "I want to get my son back" she wrote, "he's 3 years old!". Another video showed a visit with a bright eyed 3 year old boy, her son. The video was entitled "I miss my son".

Sadly her rehab didn't work- a recent video talked about her 40 day fast which would end April 11, 2008. Two body shots showed that she had lost quite a bit of weight since she uploaded her first video - she looks like the typical anorexic in those shots. But this fast is not about her eating disorder, she tells us - it's to "gain control". She is allowing herself 1 glass of juice a day and the rest, non calorie drinks like coffee, tea and water. She is continuing this for 40 days, during which she will exercise and get control and save up the money (if she can get a job) to get a pole and start pole dancing. "Weight doesn't matter" she keeps saying adding how she discarded her scale.

One of the comments to this video states:

binges are bad! i was doing well, eating at the most, 300 calories a day, but, then i tried to fast and the binge monster came to me and i ate until i exploded although some people say it wasn't that much food. but all you have to do when you want to binge, is look in the mirror and tell yourself how it will ruin this progress! and then eat an apple or whatever and then wait. tell yourself if you're still hungry in 10 min that you will eat. chances are, you can control your binge better. but you are lucky if you can purge after. it doesn't work for me :(

NOTE: what she suggests in the above quote is a version of what Weight Watchers calls "the 20 minute rule". How much of this comes from our general obsession with dieting and a diet industry which makes a larger profit than even the pharmaceutical companies?

Several feel that anorexia and bulimia are more widespread than we'd like to think. It is usually blamed on fashion models and slim actresses however, most people who are dieting or restricting calories mention health as their first concern. An article in a London newspaper, suggests that there are many internet sites which encourage young women to starve themselves to be very slim:

The UK article suggested that 1 percent of teens have an eating disorder but an estimate from an Australian newspaper stated that 1 in 8 teens has some kind of disordered eating.

What is confusing is that most teens who are restricting (and often over exercising, will not admit it. On the contrary, they say they "eat a lot" while getting slimmer and slimmer. And instead of a cause for concern, slimmer teens are often rewarded with getting more clothing and perks from their family, as well as compliments from their classmates and often, a lack of concern from their medical providers while the fat teen is teased, often not rewarded by the parents and constantly battered by the media as well as medical providers to "lose weight or die". And we wonder why these teens start smoking to "control their weight"? They are following what _we_ are telling them... that _anything_ is more healthy than being overweight!

Ironically, it's the fat teen who is often much more well nourished than those trying to keep what is considered an "ideal weight" (which the CDC has said may be underweight for most people).

And again I ask - will the insanity ever end?

Obese children - what is abuse?

If we would listen to the media, we would put our kids on a diet, at the first sign of any fat we see. Unfortunately, our medical providers might agree with dieting our kids and look smilingly upon the parents for doing this. Weight Watchers has special programs where a kid can attend meetings for free with a member parent and get the same treatment which would include weekly weigh-ins and sometimes includes fat phobic advice.

How sad that today so many parents regard healthy kids with a bit of fat on their bodies (or even a lot of fat on their bodies) as our forefathers regarded lepers or severely disabled.

I am reminded of a comment made by Jerry Lewis in trying to raise more money for the Muscular Dystrophy Association at the 11th hour of the telethon.

"Would you like to be saddled with a crippled child?" he asked his audience by way of telling them if not, they should give more money. I wonder if today's parents would ask "would you like to be saddled with a fat child?"

And of course, the ultimate we are seeing more and more often is weight loss surgery for kids at a time when they NEED all their vitamins and nutrients. Sometimes kids get a lap band which at least allows normal digestion but also, sometimes kids are given gastric bypass which causes a lifelong illness of their digestive system.

One doctor opined that these surgeries may have an impact on children's health in adulthood. Understatement of the year.

One news interviewer asked a young person who had had a Lap band placed, if she was exercising now and the parents said she was joined up with a gym but when the parents were asked if she had exercised before she got the lap band, they both said "well... no"

Often I have seen that parents and doctors do NOT seem to be emphasizing healthy food choices for kids, only LESS Food and to be slim. I have two teenage grandkids who began smoking to control their weight. Most people DO begin smoking for that reason.

Having sat on the phone with a 48 year old woman who got weight loss surgery in her early 20's, mostly because of parental pressure and having her, now, ill in bed from the repercussions, weep bitterly and tell me how her mother didn't love her because she was fat, I think the physical repercussions of weight loss surgery, liposuction and dieting for any young girl, are nothing compared to the psychological trauma she may face later on.

And as the Swedish Obesity Study has shown us, weight loss surgery patients after 10 years, had only kept off an average of 16 percent of their original body weight.

We should really question this business of dieting our overweight kids - is it a type of abuse where the parents, albeit well meaning, might induce physical and psychological trauma for life? This might well end up in the wasting of a life and all because of a bit of extra bodyfat. A girl who is not using her talents because she is so busy with the hard work of dealing with stomach surgery to maintain a weight that is acceptable to a society which values not much more in a woman than the way she looks.

Read this and weep, for our children are suffering.... Will the insanity ever stop?

NOTE: for an update of Brooke Bates, please read blog of June 16, 2008.

childhood obesity - real or hype?

An article on a science site, questions whether the "childhood obesity epidemic" isn't just a bunch of hype:

http://www.sirc.org/obesity/obesity_and_the_facts.shtml

I'm not surprised. I haven't seen any greater numbers of obese children in the schools but on the contrary, I've seen many more children whom I would call, painfully slim, in the schools.

Another article from a country outside of the USA, tells us of the alarmingly rapid rise in eating disorders seen in kids including vomiting, anorexia, overexercising and more.

The models given to these kids are NOT of normal sized people - they are of underweight and airbrushed models. And then we wonder WHY kids are uptight about food, weight and all that other stuff.

Perhaps the parents being uptight is a contributing factor. At any given time in the USA, 80 percent of women are dieting but the figure may actually be as high as 95 percent.

Somehow to see a child who is super slim already, worry about the simple pleasure of eating a candy bar seems utterly sad. Children now, are more prone to chew on plastic foods with little to no calories or nutrasweet laced chewing gum in a pathetic attempt to "fool" mother nature into thinking they are eating something.

More teens are starting to smoke now than in the 1960's before all the dangers of cigarettes were known. They mostly do it to help control their weight. And most teens, regardless of size, think they are fat. If you don't believe me, read their surveys on myspace.com sometime. Pretty shocking.

I will agree that things like fast food (like MickeyD's) are unhealthy to the point of almost being non foods but whether they even make kids fat if they do not have the genetics, is questionable. The answer to the unhealthy qualities of fast foods is NOT to make kids afraid of eating ANYTHING but to encourage kids to eat their fill of more healthy stuff.

Somehow, a 9 year old who already knows the calories in everything she eats, is not "the look".

They tell us that this generation of kids will be the first to NOT outlive their parents. If that is really so, it won't be because of obesity but because our mental mind rape of these kids (and their parents) through the media will have made them afraid of ALL food including the healthy foods which would make them grow well.