Obese Children Are Not The Enemy?

This was the title of a message from a "working think tank" which landed in my postbox this week. This is supposed to be promoting "Integrity and Dignity". What? Where does the enemy word come from?

At the same time I met an authoress and journalist, Tanith Carey who has written "Where Has My Little Girl Gone? How to protect your daughter from growing up too soon." We had a conversation about weight problems in children.

I have it on good authority from a very good friend that it's hard being the mother of an overweight child. Everyone will look at the parents and say;
"Why don't you put him on a diet" when some of us know that dieting only makes an overweight child fatter in the long run. Much fatter.
"Don't let them eat ice cream" - when all of their slim friends are eating ice cream and no-one gives a damn. Anyway, restricting food only makes it more desirable, so how do you get the balance right?

"Make them do more exercise" when you take them swimming and they just want to waft like basking dolphins in the shallow end or play around like the other children.
"Give them healthy lunchboxes" when they ALSO go into the cafeterias at school and swap carrots for chips with their friends.
"Switch off the TV" when their self esteem is shaky anyhow and they want to be tweeting and Facebooking or following East Enders like all their other friends.

"Help your child to grow out of their weight problem by keeping their weight steady as they grow". Easier said than done, anyway do you want to be weighing the child every week and controlling everything they eat and do?

Some parents are lazy and some are thwarted by the culture at large and some are ignorant. My friend whose authority I lean on, knows everything there is to know about healthy eating and activity, and lives in a healthy environment and his very fat child loves fruit and vegetables. 

Working with an overweight child is a very, very complex task. Parents need help because they can feel like a bad parent if they have a fat child. The parent needs help and support to deal with their shame.

Experts have to stop talking in generalisations about what to do. Some children have a much  harder job than other children managing their weight and the situation is going to become worse before it gets better, if at all. If a parent is worried about their child's weight problem they need personal advice and sometimes that advice may be to do very little for the moment.

Food for thought.

Men Worry Too

It comes as no surprise that according to an article in the Times today, men talk about diets and worry about their weight. It's not just the young ones either. Most of the men I know who are old enough to be grandfathers are trying to control their weight. More than half of them are trying to exercise more. Is this really a dangerous decline in body acceptance or is it more about trying to stave off ageing. After all, now that we aren't all dying young from smallpox or famine, we have the challenge of trying to stay active and keep up with others as we grow older. The best way of doing that is to take responsibility for our health.

The Times tells us that a minority of men are trying to manage their weight by vomiting or by taking laxatives. I knew that when I started counselling over 30 years ago, so it doesn't come as a surprise either. Many men do not come for help because they don't view purging as a dangerous psychological problem or feel ashamed to have " a woman's illness".

Dieting doesn't cause eating problems but will lead to some people developing a very toxic relationship with food. Also, obesity is a clear health risk that shortens life. It makes sense to take stock of your lifestyle if you are overweight or very sedentary. The question is; how do we get the balance right and live a flourishing life?

 

To Detox Or Not To Detox, That Is The Question

I wonder how many of you out there are thinking of detoxing, exercising, doing Dukan and purging yourself of the excess food and drink that comes your way at this time of the year.

Have you noticed how many ads there are for weight control and cleansing which are in your face right now?  Weight Watchers have produced a 3 minute ad which calls directly to all the guilt buttons in people who arent a perfect size 10. The Times are running a series by some crazy person who calls upon the Fat Bitch mentality to motivate people to take on the True Grit of daily workouts.  Not dieting? Not detoxing? Not running 5 miles a day? Shame on you!

I have an Facebook page for National Centre for Eating Disorders and it horrifies me that all the ads that are on the right side of the page are for instant tummy flatteners, diet products and quick fix weight loss products that are mad, bad or dangerous.  

You don't need to detox, just take care of yourself, eat generally healthy food and go for some walks to admire the scenery not shed the calories. Its not a crime to be unfit - yes, really.  A healthy mind will promote a healthy body so focus on that first and foremost.

We need a helpline for people who feel that they are in danger of being buried by the January avalance of detoxing and bootcamping programmes. Do yourself a favour. Just say NO.

Happy New Year. Make this the year you put eating disorders behind you.

Amy Winehouse: New Poster Girl For Anorexia?

I did wonder if Amy had an eating disorder and while everyone made a fuss about her drug abuse, she really may have succumbed as a result of eating disorders rather than drugs. Yesterday, writing in the Times, Caitlin Moran described how little Amy ate (just Haribos, it seems) and how much exercise she did (treadmill for hours apparently). Moran writes “with an eating disorder like that, you’d have all the tolerance for drink and drugs of a newborn baby”.

Winehouse’s eating disorder was as clear as the nose on your face, it hardly matters whether it was anorexia or bulimia, the damage can be just as bad. Drugs are nirvana for people with eating disorders because you just don’t get hungry. When you go into rehab, you just feel fat when the drugs wear off, or you get very hungry as their effect starts to wane. This makes recovery feel very unsafe, so having eating problems gets in the way of being on the wagon.

Why do I feel cross; Winehouse was the queen of cool for some people, the girl on the edge, who wasn’t supposed to care what people thought. But all the time, behind that bravado, her real pain was the pain of everyone else who has an eating problem, the wish for absolute conformity by being as thin as all the other poster girls like… Cheryl Cole. I wish she had the courage to come clean about it, to help those she has left behind.

Children With Anorexia

There is a new little girl in our family and like many people I hope that she will not start worrying about her weight by the time she is only 5 years old.
Children as young as 4 or 5 can notice the weight of other children and silhouette studies dating back for at least 30 years show that fatter children receive fewer nominations to be a chosen playmate. I have asked why this is so and haven't had any good insights from my colleagues. After all, size zero pop stars are a recent phenomenon, aren't they?  So let's just assume some atavistic reason why even young children stigmatise the overweight.
I have been aware for many years that nursery school age children can complain about their simply caused by the wish to be thin, and it generally shows its ugly face in children who are deeply anxious and burdened with a wish to be perfect in all things. Having parents who are open about their food and weight issues or dietary quirks doesn't help.
Tanya Byron writing about children and body image troubles in the Times pointed out that obesity is a major health risk to children and this should not be forgotten in the current panic about anorexia. Our children are getting more obesity and more anorexia it seems, how on earth will we get the balance right?
The BBC want to find some families with children who have had, or have anorexia. If you know someone who would be prepared to take part in a documentary, contact The National Centre for Eating Disorders on 0845 838 2040 or email admin@ncfed.com

The Death of Amy Winehouse

There is a great deal written about Amy Winehouse this week and I like many others have been drawn to listening to her music. We have had the typical musings about the waste and costs of drug addiction and the importance of rehab and other forms of treatment.

But did anyone ever consider that she may have suffered as a consequence of low weight.  I was struck by her early photos and she was clearly a very different size and shape in her teenage years - chubby even.

There is a very strong link between bulimia and addictions, in particular alcohol in both sexes. A lesser link, but one none the less, between anorexia and addiction. The presence of body image problems makes it harder for someone to recover from an addiction. When you stop using, you may gain weight or start feeling fat. This is partly because you start experiencing emotions in your body where emotions must be felt.

If you are bulimic or anorexic, the health risks of addiction are magnified. With poor nutrition, the heart can simply stop beating.

We have yet to discover more about her untimely death. But why haven't I seen any mention of an eating disorder yet? Perhaps?

Body Image, How Do You Feel About Your Body, Continued.

I have been writing about the media and bodies. How do we get the balance right between encouraging people to take responsibility for their eating in this food filled society, versus promoting eating disorders?

This quite topical, today an article in the Daily Mail proposed to have fat children put into care. One obesity expert,  Kelly Brownell said that some parents are lazy and some are thwarted and some are ignorant. So there we are.  It's a very contentious solution.

I have listened to many proposals for managing media images to prevent body dissatisfaction. They seem like small solutions to big problems, such as putting health warnings on airbrushed pictures. Or being absolutely frank about the amount of airbrushing that has been done. I do not think this will be popular with celebrities.



Some schools offer media awarness training for adolescent pupils, but these are few and far between. So, we are what we are, a culture saturated with images with bodies that can never stay slim enough, perfect enough or slim enough to measure up for long. Not all of us are suffering because of this but some people are. If you think that your thoughts about your body are driving you mad, call us 0845 838 2040 or read about body image in our time on our information page. http://www.eating-disorders.org.uk/     We can help.