Reading about dieting promotes unhealthy diets!

Reading diet articles linked with unhealthy dieting
By Ben Wasserman - foodconsumer.org
Jan 2, 2007 - 1:48:33 PM  http://foodconsumer.org/7777/8888/C_onsumer_A _ffair_26/010201482007_Reading_diet_articles_ may_lead_to_unhealthy_dietary_practices.shtml

Excerpt:

"A new study led by Patricia van den Berg, PhD. from University of Minnesota and colleagues found teenage girls who often read magazine articles about dieting and weight loss were three time more likely to practice extreme dieting and weight loss measures such as vomiting and using laxatives compared with those who never read."

The entire article is worth reading. 
 

We must teach our girls to value themselves without the limitations of physical appearance.

...by valuing ourselves without the limitations of physical appearance. :)

But how to do that when their peers tell you that physical appearance is important?

I know, hk, I know. Perhaps part of mandatory health classes, that all kids take, they should also teach self-esteem building exercises. 

Parents need to do their jobs and nurture kids.  I can't imagine my daughter at 13 going to a magazine for information.  She always came to me, and drummed into her that if it was something she felt she couldn't tell me, she could speak to other people about it.  I made sure she felt she was valuable and precious.

I raised my sons that way too, Claire. And I agree 100% that the primary responsibility lies with parents.  

I think, as a society, there are many things a lot of parents, unfortunately, don't teach their kids.  How might it effect a girl to find out how to combat feelings of worthlessness drummed into her head by an abusive mother or father? How might she flourish and grow when she learns to regard herself as worthwhile?

Teaching kids how to grow their own self esteem would be a valuable lesson indeed.

Not sure what to do about the broader problem of valuing our whole selves, but I can agree with the study.  My best friend and I were always trying new diets - or worse, inventing new diets - when we were in middle school.  And we really weren't even overweight, but you couldn't have told us that back then.

I think the idea of teaching life skills in school is completely valid. I still maintain the 2 most important things I learned, I learned by the 6th grade.

How to balance my check book and type!

My theory is pretty simple, and based on a woman I used to babysit for. She dropped off her children at 7am and did not pick them up until 5:30pm-even though she was finished work at 3:30pm. They were then brought home and left with a sitter so she and her husband could go out and 'do stuff without the kids slowing them down'.  No less than three times a week they did this. THEN they had their 'date night' on Saturdays. Another sitter.

If you do not plan to set aside the time in your terribly important and busy life to raise your own children, DO NOT HAVE ANY!

Buy a cactis. It thrives on neglect.

I recently read a book about valuing yourself how God made you and her thought was that while the media plays a role in how children view their appearance, listening to their mothers talk about themselves had an even bigger impact. I listened to how I talk about myself then and WOW! Not nice. So I am trying to encourage her to love her body with how I love mine.

*waves at Jess*

There is a book called Reviving Ophelia: Saving the Selves of Adolescent Girls that is an excellent book about teenaged girls, dieting, self-worth, appearance, peer pressure and so on.  For those having to deal with it first-hand, you might want to check it out.

I don't know if these girls who read articles about dieting are ALREADY thinking about becoming anorexic and bulemic and it's not a result of reading the articles.

As a teenager, I read Cosmo and tried all the 'tips' they gave me for losing weight...I also watched my step mother do Atkins ( the first time it was popular, back then) and tried that, and watched my best friend's Mom and Dad do the Cambridge diet and tried that... It was that I did not know I was in good shape and that the only thing I needed to do was eat healthy and exercise.

At eighteen my measurements were  36 - 27- 36, and the costume lady for our drama department chastised me for calling myself fat.

That was the first and last time I felt un- fat.

I have 5 children (4 daughters 13 - 21 years old).  They get a lot of this stuff from school.  It's 'cool' to complain about how 'fat' your are
and what diet(s) you are on.  It's kind of like saying (in front of a cute
boy) "I look awful today".  Then you expect the boy to say "no you don't...you always look great".  This is one way our girls are getting
acceptance.  We have to be vigilant, because this type of thing can lead right into dangerous eating patterns, low self worth and a lifetime of always feeling like you must improve your looks regardless
of the truth.

Tell your children (boys too, sometimes), that this is not acceptable.
Don't let them get away with it.  If you 'catch' them dieting or talking about their 'fat'; then take them immediately to a Doctor to be evaluated.  They might be embarrassed to find out that you take this seriously, and that their doctor was brought in on the issue. Once they are told the medical 'truth' about their health, they will see that health is a serious issue, not one of popularity.

Oh god, that's, like, the worst kind of manipulation.

How.. crass :p

OK.  But I have to get on the original post about this--- are they getting eating disorders b/c they read the articles, or are they reading the articles b/c they have an eating disorder?  This sounds like a classic case of the cart following the horse- the inverse of a true statement is not necessarily true.

assume A, all anorexics read diet articles

then is B, all people who read diet articles are anorexics, true?

of course not.  I'm not saying that Baz Luhrmann was wrong ("do not read beauty magazines... they will only make you feel... ugly" - Everybody's Free) but... really look at whether there's an actual cause-and-effect relationship before you start poking at this.

There are a few teens of healthy weight on this site, that complain they are fat.. we should ask them.

As a health-conscious young woman whose age still includes the word "teen," I feel I can offer a first hand look at this issue. I do think the statement is a bit misleading and Saroful has the right idea; it can be inferred that teens with eating disorders are three times more likely to be caught reading articles about weight loss and dieting, than their eating disorder free peers.

I would not call myself "fat," but I am generally unhappy with the way clothes fit on my body, the way my face is beginning to look in pictures (that area around one's smile gets more and more round...), that the definition around my collar bones has lessened dramatically, etc. so I have become an active member of this site. I don't know if my caring about these issues is a direct result of the society in which I was brought up. I grew up with extremely supportive parents who reinforced the importance of a positive body image and who praised my appearance regularly. I was generally the tall skinny girl in school, so maybe my need to lose weight now is a result of not feeling like I'm living up to the standard I set for myself. I feel personally motivated to look better in an effort to feel better about myself in general. It may be the ballet training or my need to be the best that sometimes surfaces, but I feel the need to get in control of my eating habits for my own reasons and not to please society.

I sort of rambled a bit, but I hope that offers another perspective. Intrinsic motivation exists, too. :D