Well this social pressure to be thin could be harming folks at any age. But to really destroy lives starting in primary school is just well, tragic. And it’s happening.
Fortunately lots of good people have been researching this and what we can all do about it.
One of them is Frances M. Berg. A licensed nutritionist, family wellness specialist, adjunct professor at the University of North Dakota School of Medicine, and author of 10 books.
One of which is:
Children and Teens Afraid to Eat: Helping Youth in Today's Weight-Obsessed World (Berg, Francie M. Afraid to Eat Series.)
In this book she, using a wealth of nicely noted references. And her own over 16 years of experiences reporting research and information on eating and weight. She is the founder, editor and publisher of Healthy Weight Journal.
The book I mentioned on Nov. 6th post of this year. Kelly Bliss was kind enough to suggest this book to me. I wrote her of my concerns about my, then 6 year old, daughter. My daughter told me she did not want to eat because she is afraid of getting fat.
Well I finally got my own copy and boy is it hard to put down! I bet if I had ever tried to diet to loose weight it would have been impossible to put down.
This book tells us that my little girls fear in not unusual. That many children and teens develop some of 6 major eating disorders. To rather long term ill effects, including death. If it does not kill it reduces the quality of their lives. And that is an UNDERSTATEMENT.
The book has lots of other info too. But perhaps because I’m a parent, I’m kind of stuck on this aspect.
For instance it puts in proper perspective the apparently taken to be gospel on diet now by many. That Meat is bad. No it is not.
And that cutting your intake of calories, and exercise will make you the size some height and weight chart says you aught to be. Quite possibly not. So relax and stop driving yourself crazy. Just aim for health and happiness! It’s a great goal!
She promotes a concept called Health at Any Size. Self and other people acceptance. Communication. A normal diet including a variety of foods, avoiding none really. And taking up healthy activities because you enjoy them. And doing our best to make this culture accept people of all sizes.
Naturally this book is largely about what we can do for the children and teens. But it’s gonna help us all.
Here, rather than tell you about the book, I’m going to make it my mission to act on some of the things we can do.
The book suggest plenty. Read the book!
Here I’m gonna put attention on magazines, TV and other media that get my attention regarding:
Good examples of all size friendly publications- Examples of the beautiful full figure women, Hey I don’t want to be bias against the slender. But I can’t let my daughter grow up in fear either. Besides slender women have gotten lots of attention anyway.
- Places that we can give our feed back to regarding this size issue, I’ll be posting one of these tomorrow, if it checks out to be true.
I also brought another one of her books:
Women Afraid to Eat: Breaking Free in Today's Weight-Obsessed World
but it will be a bit before I get around to reading it. Well I like to have something to look forward to. I do that a lot. Like to have a little something put by for later.
But read the book. Get informed and start helping yourself and our youngsters today! We can do a lot to take the pressure off people for simply being large. Find out how!
We can make the move toward a more pleasant tomorrow for all! Well perhaps it’ll be hard on those loose weight fast pill folks. But really they’ve had a long run of making a buck selling unworkable solutions. Lets make a better future for all. They’ll find a better thing to do too!
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