Eating Disorder Prevention
We are not born hating our bodies. If you have ever been in the presence of a young child who has first discovered their toes, their head, their nose, you see the curiosity in their eyes as they reflect on these new wonders. Fast forward just a few years and nearly a third of children age 5 to 6 choose an ideal body size that is thinner than their current perceived size (Hayes and Tantleff-Dunn, 2010).
Exposure to the thin ideal through media and social media is a well-documented concern among those in charge of caring for children and adolescents. However, parents, teachers, and coaches themselves are also influenced by messages of diet culture and place their insecurities and fears onto children.
Unfortunately, these fears and insecurities are likely to be enhanced by a visit to a child’s pediatrician, particularly if a child is of a higher weight. Released in early 2023, the American Academy for Pediatrics, Clinical Practice Guideline for the Evaluation and Treatment of Children and Adolescents With Obesity encourages offering “treatment options early and at the highest available intensity”.
In recent years, parents and pediatricians have been focused on battling the “childhood obesity epidemic”. In a recent post on her site Kids Eat in Color, registered dietitian Jennifer Anderson eloquently notes what is wrong with focusing on the “childhood obesity epidemic”. She goes on to note that what is actually happening in the United States is a “child health crisis”.
“To call what is happening to children an “obesity epidemic” makes it a problem on the child and the family’s individual choices. The only solution is ‘less fat’ (via diets, drugs, or surgery). “Our kids (from low to high weight) now have hypertension, high cholesterol, eating disorders, type 2 diabetes, and mental health struggles are much more… in numbers that are astonishing”.
Why then, are we focusing on weight?
Anderson goes on to note that weight is focused on because “it’s convenient. When it’s a problem of individual choices, we don’t have to consider/fix systemic healthcare and food injustices.”
I would additionally state that it is anti-fat bias, and it has been plaguing the adult healthcare system for decades. I hear from beneficiaries daily that they were offered or even given bariatric surgery to “treat” their “ob*sity”, but are left with a permanently altered digestive system and a damaged relationship with food and their body. The same individuals who are readily offered bariatric surgery are often denied joint replacements. These replacements, which would greatly reduce their pain and increase their quality of life, are deemed “too risky” because of anesthesia. Where was the concern about anesthesia risk for the bariatric surgery?
