Why I am a fan of Leora Pinhas

She's a psychiatric director for the eating disorders program at the Hospital for Sick Children in Toronto. At the recent Canadian Pediatric Society Conference, Dr. Pinhas said two things that endeared her to me.

First, she compared childhood eating disorders to cancer:

"We have this thing that [they're] not really serious. But one in 10 will die. We need to act like it's a serious illness."

Thank you, Dr. Pinhas.* And thank you even more for going on to put the question of eating disorders into the context of the ever-more-prevalent obsession with childhood obesity:

Pinhas dismissed the attention being given to childhood obesity rates - which she says have not increased since 2003 and have not increased in any clinically significant way since the late 1990s.

The most disturbing thing about the constant news about obesity rates is it's likely fuelling eating disorders, Pinhas said.

"Dieting is the gateway to eating disorders. If you have people encouraged to diet because being fat is so bad, you're only giving them an intervention that will make them fat, or give them an eating disorder or make them feel bad about themselves."

In the current culture, which supports weight-loss interventions for children as young as 2, Dr. Pinhas' perspective is not just refreshing--it could be a life-saver.


*Though she also went on to say that "most people recover from eating disorders." I'd like to know where that statistic comes from, since the numbers I've seen are far bleaker.