Eating Disorders in Young Children
"GIRL GIRL! Time for supper!" I yelled upstairs. GIRL wouldn't come down. Finally, after ten minutes, she came and sat at the table in front of her food. No matter how hard I tried, she wouldn't eat anything. After a while I got the courage to ask her why she wouldn't eat her supper. She responded, "I am too fat." I was shocked to hear this from a fifth-grader who was only ten years old and was closer to being underweight than overweight. She continued to tell me that a lot of her friends didn't eat much, because they thought they were fat as well.
More young girls are developing eating disorders. Many of these girls are at a healthy weight or even underweight. Why is this happening to our society, and what is the cause of this? Is pressure from the media or friends a main cause? Everyday people are exposed to advertisements, television shows, and magazines that show thin people and are conveying the message that thin people are prettier and happier. This could pose a problem when young girls look to these women as role models. Lots of girls are also ridiculed or pressured by their peers. Are these lowering the self-esteem of young girls and therefore causing them to develop eating disorders?
As I brought lunch to my brother one day, I noticed a group of elementary school girls sitting at a table. I asked my brother why they weren't eating and he commented that they never ate lunch because they didn't want to get fat. I was appalled! Why, especially at this age, would someone be obsessed with his or her weight? I began to give this issue more thought, and it greatly concerned me.
I began to notice things in the media, which triggered me to continuously wonder about this issue. Some magazines, I noticed, had articles on how important a good self-esteem was, but then also contained articles on how to lose weight. These articles also pictured thin women portrayed as being beautiful because they were thin. I would also hear stories of
In Andre Dubus’ The Fat Girl, Louise is a young adolescent with detrimental eating habits and broken self-esteem. Her lack of self-confidence stems from her atrocious emotional habitat. Louise receives constant criticism from her mother regarding her weight. Her mother states “If you are fat the boys won’t like you.” That kind of ridicule being said by a mother to her 9 year old daughter creates an atmosphere of self-hatred and self-loathing. It is not only her familial environment that contributes so greatly to Louise’s destructive behavior. She has few friends and the one’s she does have agree she needs to change. The society in which she lives also is a contributing factor; the society is laden with stigmas positioned on appearance. That manner of daily ridicule only introverts Louise even more, causing her secretive, binge eating to deteriorate. In research conducted by Ursula Polli-Potts PhD, Links between Psychological Symptoms and Disordered Eating behaviors in Obese Youths, she explains the correlation between psychological, emotional factors and eating disorders in overweight adolescents. Potts states, “The association between binge eating symptoms and eating in response to feelings of distress and sadness with depression/anxiety symptoms corresponds with the results of other studies.” Potts and her colleagues took overweight adolescents and placed them into control and variable groups to ensure correct data. The outcome of their research was that there is a direct correlation with emotional binge eating and psychological factors. Although more extensive research needs to be implemented, Potts and associates were pleased with the results of the case studies.
Many would argue that children should not focus on their weight because children should lead a youth with little worries, yet obesity affects a child much more than people with that argument think. Being overweight can cause increased risks for several serious diseases and even can result in decreased mental health on account of low self-esteem and social discrimination. Children who are overweight also are at least twice as likely to have heart disease, diabetes, and orthopedic problems (Internicola, 2009). Sadly, children are being pressured into unhealthy lifestyles even more so than adults are.
Not surprisingly, Attie and Brooks-Gunn assert that disturbed body image is one of the main precursors for disordered eating and dieting in adolescent and young adult girls (as cited in Serdar, n.d.). Moreover, Striegel-Moore and Franko argue that the prominence of dieting and maladaptive eating patterns has become an increasingly prevalent concern in adolescent and young adult populations; research has shown that around two-thirds of adolescent females report dieting at some point (as cited in Serdar, n.d.). Even more startling is the increasing number of girls who feel pressured to restrict their diet at dangerously young ages when their bodies are still developing. Hoffman claims that “while 42% of first- through third-grade girls wish to be thinner, a staggering 80% of girls have dieted by the time they reach the age of ten” (2004). Concerns with the development of disordered eating are an especially vital issue because such patterns have been found to be a major predictor of clinical eating disorders. “Research suggests that strict dieting to achieve an ideal figure often plays a key role in triggering eating disorders, which affect 5 to 10 million American girls and women” (Hoffmann, 2004). Early signs of bulimia and anorexia nervosa are appearing in girls of surprisingly young ages. “According to the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, as many as 10 out of 100 young women suffer from an eating disorder” (Hoffmann, 2004). Furthermore, approximately 5% of adolescent girls meet the criteria for bulimia nervosa (Morris & Katzman, 2003). The occurrence of eating disorders among college women is even more startling. “One in five college women struggles with an eating disorder, and one in three displays borderline eating disorder behavior” (Hoffmann, 2004). The prevalence of eating disorders in America poses a serious
According to Marton Reka, “In Western societies thinness symbolizes sexual seductivity, strength, and fatness symbolizes laziness and loss of willpower.” (Reka 2) Most women are unhappy with their weight at some point in their lives. Often, this starts at a very young age. Between 1966 and 1969, studies showed that the number of grade school
Growing up, I struggled with being overweight, even though I was active. As a young boy growing up on a farm somewhere in Northwest Missouri, I worked very hard doing chores the normal urbanized American would not do. My father would have me do chores every day, yet I was still overweight. Reflecting back to what what could have made me that way; many ideas began to appear in my head, so my research on nutrition began. There were many things that were argued to cause childhood obesity, however the most logical and sensible outcome that came from my research was that environmental, political, cultural, and other such factors were not to blame for my obese childhood, but nutrition was. This statement correlated with my very active childhood. My Father assigned me to do many difficult and strenuous tasks so you could say I worked up an appetite. However, this factor combined with my Mother’s inability to cook a small meal, you can imagine the amount of food I consumed on a daily basis. Not to mention the sheer fact of how much I consumed because the food tasted amazing. Mom would always say: “You have bigger eyes then your stomach”, meaning I would get more then what I needed or what I was able to eat without being uncomfortable. I would get helpings upon helpings of food, and since we did not have the money for the food to be wasted, I was forced to finish my plate. I would get in trouble if I wasted food, which is a big thing for our family.
Obesity is a modern epidemic in America and is starting to become our society’s “norm.” According to an article in Progress in Health Sciences, childhood obesity is the most frequent eating disorder (Koukourikos). There are several factors that contribute to the childhood obesity epidemic. Should we solely shun the parents of obese children for this? No, we should not. There is not one single person to blame, but several people, along with our society. Family, friends, and schools all play a very important role in teaching children about healthy food choices and exercise. Children may have a greater risk for obesity due to genetic factors. We need to constantly remind our children how important it is to maintain a healthy lifestyle so that
The proportion of overweight children (six to eleven years old) climbed from twenty percent in the period from 1976 to 1980 to twenty-seven percent between 1988 and 1994. Approximately five million children and adolescents are now classified as obese. Obesity is a complex disorder involving an excessive amount of body fat. These statistics are proof every year the rate of obesity is increasing, making obesity one of the most common diseases in childhood. Today, many children are too focused on technology that they never consider going out or doing any physical activities. Children that have obesity try not to show that they are emotionally hurting because they do not want to be teased or bullied. Many people only focus on the physical repercussions
We have historically witnesses how society has come to accept the concepts that women who are as thin as paper have the ideal body. This, in the larger context, affects eating behaviors. To some, it led to people eating less especially women. Others, however, take them negatively and instead binge into eating. As years passed, we now realize that this concept have evolved into the consideration that thin is out but fit is right. Such concept today shape beliefs in eating and so regulate behaviors that would have to promote healthy eating
Teenagers are developing eating disorders at a very large rate. There are many factors that contribute to teenagers developing eating disorders. The first reason that so many teenagers are developing eating disorders is because they are influenced by society. Eating disorders among teenagers are at an increased rate because of the huge value society places on being thin. Teenagers everywhere are under the influence that to be pretty, beautiful, happy, and successful you have to thin or a certain size. They think that they have to be a mirror image of what society thinks makes a person perfect. Society is not the only reason that teenager...
In a magazine ad for Barbie, in 1965, Barbie is in a box with a scale and a little book. On the front of the book it says, Want to Lose Weight? and on the back, Don’t Eat!. The scale is set at one hundred and ten pounds. This also puts expectations of an unrealistic body type into young girls’ minds. This is a huge problem because girls want to look like Barbie.This is still a problem today. In the 2011 article Get The Facts On Eating Disorder, they say, “Forty to sixty percent of girls in elementary school, age six to twelve, are concerned about their weight or about becoming too fat.” I believe this is a very high percentage for such young girls, and it could be a result from them seeing unrealistic body
Eating disorders develop during adolescence and normally peak within girls at the age of 15-16. Disturbed eating behavior are very dominant within the adolescent woman in our society. The number of adolescent woman struggling with such disorders is upwards of 40%. The most common of these disorders are bulimia nervosa, anorexia nervosa, and binge eating. There are various factors within our society that influence the development of such disorders. Deleterious eating behaviors are all to common in and the prevalence of them are so high that they are becoming less and less of a rarity. Eating disorders are not precluded by one solitary source but are rather brought on by the many factors that exist within our society. Medias unrealistic portrayal of what a “perfect” body image is, along with early adolescent puberty, are both factors that can both result in the adolescent woman in our county to develop eating disorders. Professional all have different viewpoints on what exactly is to blame for causing such detrimentally harmful eating disorders such as anorexia nervosa, bulimia nervosa and binge eating in adolescent woman.
Foods and body types are labeled in polar terms such as good versus bad, right versus wrong, and fat versus thin. Through use of scare tactics, students are taught to a negative standpoint rather than a positive one. Telling children what not to do is not only less effective, but also creates a consequence of guilt if they don’t do what’s ‘right’. Even if balanced nutrition is taught in the classroom, interactions between school staff outside of the classroom often model food obsession. Through their own actions and insecurities, teachers many times unintentionally encourage food restriction and judgment of bodies seen as ‘fat’ (O’Dea et al.). Extreme-based educational processes, along with the grossly exaggerated claims on nutrition and body ideals that saturate society, foster defensive and guilt-ridden relationships between children and food. Reshaping nutrition education to encompass a whole-health based curriculum that teaches balance, self-acceptance, and the overall view of food as a source of life, is a vital step in ameliorating societies’ overall relationship with
This problem has fueled debates and court cases. Most of the time parents of obese children are obese themselves, and if it is not a medical issue it could be a mental health problem that causes them to eat everything that they eat. “Defining childhood obesity as abuse would put a tremendous burden on obese children’s parents”. (Yam)
The overwhelming idea of thinness is probably the most predominant and pressuring standard. Tiggeman, Marika writes, “This is not surprising when current societal standards for beauty inordinately emphasize the desirability of thinness, an ideal accepted by most women but impossible for many to achieve.” (1) In another study it is noted that unhealthy attitudes are the norm in term of female body image, “Widespread body dissatisfaction among women and girls, particularly with body shape and weight has been well documented in many studies, so much so that weight has been aptly described as ‘a normative discontent’”. (79) Particularly in adolescent and prepubescent girls are the effects of poor self-image jarring, as the increased level of dis...
It seems like every little girl dreams of becoming a model. They want to be thin and pretty like the models they see on television and in magazines. Often the desire becomes an obsession and young girls see "thinness" as being a needed characteristic. For many girls, the teenage years are spent trying to acquire this look. Females are trying diets and are exercising like it is a competition to see who can lose the most weight the quickest. The obsession of many young girls over their appearance or weight has led to a growing number of people who have developed an eating disorder to try to deal with their lack of self-esteem or other related problems.