Children and Teens Face Weight Crisis

The following is a conversation with Frances Berg, a licensed nutritionist and family wellness specialist. She is the publisher of "Children and Teens in Weight Crisis," and the Healthy Weight Journal, 402 South 14th St. Hettinger, ND 58639.

Q: Why do you think children and adolescents today are caught in a weight crisis?

A: Clearly it is a national crisis when harmful attempts at dieting are common in the third grade. It is a crisis when one in five high school girls takes diet pills. More than two-thirds are dieting along with one-fourth of high school boys. Many young girls and boys use laxatives, diuretics, fasting and vomiting in desperate attempts to make their bodies as thin as possible.

Severe eating disorders affect children as young as nine years. An estimated 10 percent of U.S. teenagers have clinical eating disorders. Concerned teachers and parents' groups observe weight preoccupation and disordered eating affecting younger children each year.

Malnutrition is a very real problem for teenage girls, who have the poorest nutrition of any age group. Disordered eating, binge eating, fasting and dieting are causing a disruption of their natural growth for many children. It is not just physical harm but many mental health and emotional effects can be attributed directly to severe dieting and eating disorders.

Q: Such as?

A: Apathy, moodiness, depression, low self-esteem, difficulty in concentrating, perfectionistic behavior, social withdrawal and obsessive preoccupation with weight, just to name a few.

Q: On the other hand, don't we hear a lot about growing obesity among children and teenagers?

A: Obesity rates for children and adolescents have increased sharply in the past decade. More than one-fifth of adolescents are now overweight, with much higher rates among ethnic and racial minorities. This suggests that obesity rates for adults will be even higher in the future. Numerous health risks are associated with these high rates of obesity.

Many youth aren't getting the exercise and activity they need. Research has shown that heavy TV viewing is related to childhood obesity.

Q: How do you account for the rise in eating problems among youth?

A: There is unrelenting pressure from the media to be extremely thin. This batters their self-image when they don't measure up to false media ideals of perfect size and shape. Some of this advertising now features appearance and body image for young men.

Also, youth encounter severe prejudice against large children. The combination of media influences and peer pressure drives many youth into lives of disordered eating and chronic dieting. It also doesn't help when their parents are chronic dieters.

They are willing to do almost anything to lose weight, often at severe risk to their health and well-being. Their efforts are largely unsuccessful and may cause binge eating and weight gain.

Q: In other words, are you saying that our culture is to blame for the rise in disordered eating among children and teens?

A: One leading expert in childhood eating disorders believes that children are not taught to enjoy a broad range of food and to respond to internal cues of hunger and satiety. Instead, she says we teach them to restrain eating, manipulate food and over-indulge.

Children are taught to fear and ridicule fat and to view body size as an important currency of worth. As a result, some children conclude that to be valued and loved, they must disrupt their normal feelings of hunger and fullness.

Q: You mentioned new pressures on men and appearance. What about the cultural and media preoccupation with female beauty?

A: Body image issues are especially severe for adolescent girls today. In a difficult choice, our society prescribes for them extreme thinness and, at the same time, high career aspirations.

Many girls try to comply with both demands. They idealize emaciated, vulnerable, passive and child-like role models, while trying to become strong, competent, caring women. Our culture exhibits only anorexic females as role models - thin gaunt-eyed young women with bony clavicles - when many young girls are dying for this look. All I can ask is why?

Q: Who else do you see as responsible?

A: The promoters of ineffective and dangerous weight loss products. Many teens use these products destructively. Many of these are available to teens over the counter. Their sales should be regulated to teens in the same way we restrict access to smoking and alcohol.

Q: Is there any other group of young people who have a high risk for eating disorders?

A: Athletes are high risk for making harmful attempts to control the size and shapes of their bodies. High risk sports for boys are distance running, wrestling, and bodybuilding. For girls, they are distance running plus gymnastics, ballet dancing, and figure skating.

These athletes use dangerous weight control behaviors such as vomiting and laxatives to control weight. Their coaches often encourage or turn a blind eye to such practices.

Q: Any final thoughts?

A: In childhood, the stage can be set for a healthy lifestyle throughout life. Youth need to live actively, eat in naturally healthy ways and feel good about themselves - knowing that their natural shapes and sizes will differ and that is OK.