Pro Healthy has created overly health obsessed kids and teens

As I have grown up in a western culture different from my original root, i feel that there is a stark difference between healthy image and obsessions over healthy eating and life style. The asian countries have already started to adopt this idea but is still a few years behind western countries. However my concerns is that the KIDS, young kids and teenagers all over the world are becoming OVERLY OBSESSED by the idea of 'healthy eating' and body image.

I do believe that healthy eating, exercise and weight monitoring are one of the crucial keys to achieve good health, but aren't kids these days get a bit TOO MUCH carried away by these ideas? Primarily, we control our weights to become more healthy as we have become more sedentary over the years. We have to reduce the amount and the calorie content of what we eat since we are less active than before and the food are more readily available. Kids do pick these ideas up as they grow up, when i grew up as well. Promoting that eating LOTS OF VEGETABLE leads lots of children to think that eating just vegetables and fruits will make them healthy. These kids are naive and are not educated about nutrition.

For teens, the image of slimness causes girls to think that models are the norm and natural figures are abnormal. My sister has already started to think that having a bit of tummy means that you are fat and not taking care of yourself, the image of HEALTHY is the models on magazine covers whose tummy are as flat as cardboard. At her school, everyone are starving themselves over lunch time on a race to see who can lost the most weight over the term. Funnily I find, a very small fraction of the asian girls seems to be doing the same. Most of the girls starving themselves are the European ones, English, German and the russians. None of the chinese girls seem to care about this matter. However as the year has progressed, they more western culture these chinese girls has been exposed to, they have started to diet.

I, myself has been through a lot of this dieting and self image issues after coming to study in the UK, but before this it never occured to me that diet is such a norm that everyone is on it. All the time the kids would just be saying, i want to get healthy but undereating does not really going to do you any good. You need to eat balanced meal not just fruits and vegetables. Eating only tomatoes for lunch does not make them more healthy. 

Kids are thinking that skinny-ness makes them more healthy and thus more sucessful, more popular among friends. Because of lack of knowledge some of them they are starving themselves unknowingly.

What can we do about this, kids overly concern about their image and confused about the true image of themselves and REAL PEOPLE? I think i was like that, lost in the world of grown ups.....

I do think that the more society becomes concerned with health and being the appropriate weight, the more children and teens become obsessed as well. The main issue at hand, I think, is education. People simply aren't properly educated about health and nutrition. The diet industry is a multi-billion dollar industry that fills people's heads with a bunch of non-sense and promises of quick fixes that don't do anything to improve one's health. Real education is lacking and health lessons taught in schools is quite worthless. It's really shocking and sad to see that my health teachers know less than I do about nutrition. Doctors, too, are even misinformed. Many are the ones actually perpetuating the silly notion that the less you eat the better and that fruits and vegetables are really all you need. It's really all very disheartening.

I do have to disagree with you on one point though. I believe that Asian cultures actually put more of an emphasis on thinness than Western ones do. As an overweight child/adolescent I was constantly berated because of my weight even when I was just a bit chubby. Additionally, Asian people tend to be much more blunt about making comments about others' appearance/weight which adds to the pressure to be thin.

There's a big difference between being obsessed with body image and being conscious of health. Dont lump the two together. Eating disorders are the result of social pressures and internal stresses, not of 'wanting to be healthy'. Some people who have eating disorders disguise their eating habits as "healthy" or "moral" - as in being vegan to reach an underweight BMI. But the association between health and disordered eating is a facade, not a causal relationship.

"Health" includes a lot of subcategories: mental health, emotional health, cholesterol level, blood pressure, physical fitness, etc. All of these things deserve attention - there is no such thing as being too healthy.

If people stopped pushing a Pro-Health message in schools, girls would still get EDs. Its a fallacy to think that taking vending machines out of schools or improving nutrition value of school lunches turns people into anorexics. I think youre placing blame where it doesnt belong. If you want to find someone to blame, watch MTV or go to a fashion show.

Original Post by azirra:

There's a big difference between being obsessed with body image and being conscious of health. Dont lump the two together.

Thank you.  I was thinking the same thing.  Even on CC, I see many of the younger people asking questions that pertain to how to get a better body (better being skinny or thin) and not necessarily healthy.  All too often there's little consideration for health in the process.

Then again, I've never gone through all the post on CC to do an analysis.  I'm much too lazy! 

Interesting topic to look into, however.

It sounds like you're more concerned perhaps with teens being overly image obsessed and perhaps developing eating disorders than being concerned with actual health.

If young people were actually concerned with health, the incredible obesity rates might be a little lower. I think concern for health is a really positive thing - like others have said, it's not the same as having poor body image.

I don't think this has much to do with healthy eating.  My perception is that the children who mostly fall prey to the extreme messages - whether to do with body-image, drugs, alcohol, early sex, gangs - are the ones that are the least confident in their own skins and the least well-equipped to deal with life.  The common denominator is 'approval', the desire to fit in, be part of the group and be loved.  Children who feel confident and who know they are loved are less likely to seek approval by engaging in unwise behaviour.    

Parents play a big part in all this - not least in supplying children with the tools to make better judgements and the support to make mistakes.   It's our job as parents to interpret the wider world and not rely on magazines, websites, peers or even schools to educate our children.  We know (or we should know) our children better than anyone else and should be able to tailor the information to a level that they can deal with.  

Comming from a vegen school I can say that I know people who litterealy eat just fruits and vegetables. (Some eat just fruits and nuts, and some wont eat anything cooked above 150F).  While it is true that I know some people who are dangously underweight, and are alittle lunny from their diet. Some people do the all fruits and veggie thing right. I know people who look like bodybuilders, or are 100+ that are Eden vegens, so it's a matter of knowing how to take care of your body.

Original Post by merylwhite1:

If young people were actually concerned with health, the incredible obesity rates might be a little lower. I think concern for health is a really positive thing - like others have said, it's not the same as having poor body image.

here here! especially in the U.S....

Original Post by risabella:

Many many people are aware of the rising obesity rates. We hear about it all the time.  And many people believe that the way to avoid obesity is to diet, eat less, avoid eating, restrict calories, or however it is they look at it.  Teens, like everyone else,  believe this is the only way to beat obesity, that is to reduce food intake. It is not.

I will be the first to tell you that you can lose weight by dieting.  But having regained every ounce I ever lost by dieting, and then some, I will also tell you that weight lost through dieting is only temporary. Oprah, Kirstie Alley, Kelly Clarkson and Janet Jackson are celebrity examples of this fact.  They are actually overweight because they diet.The weight-loss industry has us hooked.  Weight Watchers even has a lifetime program so when you regain lost weight, you can go back, and back, and back again....because the weightloss is only temporary, and they know it, thus the lifetime program.  And when you gain it back, you will most likely gain back more than you lost.  If diets worked permanently, wouldn't we all be thin and stay that way?  If diets really worked (I mean, don't we know a zillion people who have dieted or are currently dieting) wouldn't there be less and less obese people, instead of more and more?  There are more dieters now than ever, and also more obese people than ever. 

Here is the correlation:  Dieting has been on the rise for the past 60 years.  So has obesity rates.  Dieting=Obesity. 

Fat people know they are fat.  Most want to not be fat.  But what they are taught is that they eat to much.  What to do?  Diet, of course.  But they've chosen the wrong path, because diets are famines to the body.  The body slows down metabolism when it is in famine mode, and the body conserves fat because it is unsure when it's next meal will be.  But when you are not eating the amount your body requires, it will sense this deficit and it will make you binge, sooner or later.  That's right, your body causes you to binge.

One key way to avoid obesity IS eating less. People may not like not super-sizing their portions, but it's the truth. Eating less does not necessarily mean putting the body into famine. It means eating sensible portions instead of the huge portions that many people now are used to.

Although chronic dieting and over-restriction does lead to binging, I think the rise in obesity is due as much to an increase in the size and power of the food industry, its advertising, lobbying, availability, super-sized portions and low prices, as it is to dieting.

Original Post by risabella:

 

I will be the first to tell you that you can lose weight by dieting.  But having regained every ounce I ever lost by dieting, and then some, I will also tell you that weight lost through dieting is only temporary. Oprah, Kirstie Alley, Kelly Clarkson and Janet Jackson are celebrity examples of this fact.  They are actually overweight because they diet.The weight-loss industry has us hooked.  Weight Watchers even has a lifetime program so when you regain lost weight, you can go back, and back, and back again....because the weightloss is only temporary, and they know it, thus the lifetime program.  And when you gain it back, you will most likely gain back more than you lost.  If diets worked permanently, wouldn't we all be thin and stay that way?  If diets really worked (I mean, don't we know a zillion people who have dieted or are currently dieting) wouldn't there be less and less obese people, instead of more and more?  There are more dieters now than ever, and also more obese people than ever. 

Here is the correlation:  Dieting has been on the rise for the past 60 years.  So has obesity rates.  Dieting=Obesity. 

Fat people know they are fat.  Most want to not be fat.  But what they are taught is that they eat to much.  What to do?  Diet, of course.  But they've chosen the wrong path, because diets are famines to the body.  The body slows down metabolism when it is in famine mode, and the body conserves fat because it is unsure when it's next meal will be.  But when you are not eating the amount your body requires, it will sense this deficit and it will make you binge, sooner or later.  That's right, your body causes you to binge.

Your body doesn't like being in a famine environment which is what it is in when you are dieting.  It will overpower your willpower and make you feel bad and weak for giving in to eating when you really want to stick to your diet.  That is your survival instinct strongholding you into eating.  And you may have a strong will, but it isn't as strong as your survival instinct.  As we continue to diet, we will be in this constant battle with our bodies.  And our bodies will win.  When we have been dieting awhile and we give in to a binge (you will sooner or later) your body has won.  The dieter feels defeated and beats herself up over it.  Don't beat yourself up, because your body was designed this way to keep you from starving.  But it's the diet-binge cycle that promotes obesity.  If you are a dieter-binger, and want to get off this cycle, go where I did for help: www.Naturally-Thin.com.  This is Jean Antonello's website.  She offers great advice, has written 3 books on the subject, and runs an obesity & eating disorders clinic in Minn.  Check out her forum, she'll even be happy to answer your questions if you post them for her.

I ended my binge-eating disorder and years of dieting, that only led to weight gain, by reading Jean's books.

 

first of all, you are definitely not the first person who has enlightened me to the fact that you can lose weight by dieting. dur.

second of all, your correlation between dieting and obesity is frankly wrong. you state that dieting causes one's body to be in a constant famine state - again you are simply wrong. if you are dieting correctly, your body will not be in a famine state. the problem with society today, is as merylwhite states - the massive portions people are eating. um, is it just me or could the majority of the population (U.S., anyway) afford to drastically cut their calorie intake (thus, dieting) and not have their bodies in that famine state. 

BED is the result of the wrong type of dieting.

i'm sorry but i completely disagree with you risabella. and completely agree with merylwhite. 

Well i have to disagree with DIETING=OBESITY but i think its rather obesity=>dieting.........

but maybe i have lumped it all together than healthy eating promotes eating disorders....but thats what happen to me and other girls in my school. We were encouraged by 5 a days and eating your greens making us think that all we need in a day is just the greens and 5 a day...if you eat more you are adding more food than necessary to your body, thus you will get fat...

largely i think its because lack of education and misperception of the human body TRUE image. Lately i have just been thinking a lot how i got ill in the first place and how to aviod my sister getting ill (ED) when she is living in the same enviroment, same education. same peer pressure as i did in the past.

Gadzooks, when i come to think about your point, i think that asian culture are putting MORE pressure to be thin than the western just because we are naturally more skinny, but the practice (i.e. how we get thin) are not actually as extreme as what is going on here in the UK and western countries.