Hey kids!

Want to develop a lifelong obsession with eating? How about an eating disorder? Or at the very least years of self-loathing toward your body? Have we got an idea for you! Start writing down everything you eat. That's right--every single bite you eat goes into this handy-dandy food journal that the folks at the Washington Post think you should keep.

Start now! Before you know it, you'll be on your way to a lifetime of unhappiness!

Grrrrr.

Seeing red

As a professor of journalism, I read a lot of media. And some days, what I read makes me feel downright ashamed of my industry. Today is one of those day, and the triggering story is this one, from the Washington Post.

The piece is written by a young woman who discusses the power of a parent's words to trigger an eating disorder. I have nothing against the writer; it's a heartfelt and I'm sure honest piece of writing. The writer attributes her three-year course of bulimia to a critical comment about her weight from her mother. The piece goes on to list "resources" for parents, presumably to prevent them from doing such things in the future.

I'm not defending this mother's comment. Far from it. I grew up in a family where comments like these were fairly commonplace; I know how hurtful they can be. My problem is with the editors of the Post, who did not do their homework. They accept this premise as if it were 100% true and present no other point of view. There's nothing in the story to contradict the notion that a parent's comment can in fact trigger an eating disorder. There's nothing on the heritability or biological roots of eating disorders, on the neurochemistry of starvation and purging. Readers are left with the sense that a stray comment, especially from a mother (always the mother), can cause the nightmare of an eating disorder.

Had the editors of the Post looked at any of the recent research on eating disorders, they might have been inspired to add another perspective to this young woman's story. Had they stopped to think about it they might have realized that if a parent's words were truly that dangerous, we'd have many more cases of eating disorders to contend with (because God knows parents say hurtful, stupid things all the time, myself included).

The irony is that this piece ran in a package along with an excellent piece written by Carrie Arnold, whose blog Ed-Bites and books are both well-researched and moving. Arnold's piece is informative, but its headline and deck--"Extreme Measures: When Kids' Size Is a Problem, Parents Seek New Solutions"--written by the editors, are misleading, possibly deliberately so. Since when are anorexia and bulimia a problem of a child's size? Hello, do the editors here know anything at all about eating disorders? Do they not care? This kind of thing perpetuates the destructive myths around eating disorders--that they are "about" appearance, that they aren't serious health issues, that they happen only to the children of overinvolved and overcritical parents.

Fact: Eating disorders happen in all kinds of families--rich, poor, white, black, Latino, overinvolved, neglectful, respectful, authoritarian, authoritative, permissive, large, small, functional, dysfunctional.
Fact: Eating disorders are complex and multifactorial. We don't understand their origins. We do understand that blaming parents is both unhelpful and unhealthy--and often untrue.
Fact: The family is almost always a child's best chance at recovery.

The Washington Post's concept of families seems about as outdated--and harmful--as the photo above.

I shouldn't be seeing red right now. I should be used to this. Somehow I never get used to it.

An open letter to parents

Dear Parents,

I know it's hard to raise a child in this day and age for all kinds of reasons. And I know that one of those reasons is all the messages you get about your child and weight.

I know that parents often get shamed, these days, if their child's weight is too high (or too low). That there's enormous pressure for kids to slim down and look a certain way. To fit the current cultural norms around appearance and weight.

But for god's sake, I beg you, don't send your child off to a place like this. If you've ever been tempted to send your child off to fat camp, read this article in the Washington Post. Read about a "camp" where growing teenagerss are forced to eat such a low-fat low-everything diet that eight of them developed gallbladder disease in the last year.* Where six of them needed gallbladder surgery. Where kids routinely douse their food with ketchup and mustard.** Where hungry teenagers drink 12 or 15 cans of diet soda a day, all of it laced with Splenda.*** Where the director of the whole place thinks it's OK if kids gorge on cake occasionally because they'll just throw it up again.**** Where kids are put into "solo" when they break the rules.

Most of all, what a place like this does is reinforce the idea to your child that s/he is not OK as s/he is. That she's acceptable only if she loses weight. That she's not lovable as she is.

And that's the very worst part of this whole trend. As parents, we're supposed to build our children up, not undermine them. We're supposed to be voices of reason in a sometimes crazy world.

So if your child doesn't fit today's paradigm for weight or attractiveness, love her anyway. Tell her she's beautiful and strong and lovable and smart. Teach her to love herself. That's the way to health and beauty. The other will lead her down a lifelong path of hating herself. And I can tell you from personal experience that that's not the way to health and beauty.


*Gallbladder disease can be caused by weight loss that's too fast.

** A classic sign of malnutrition/starvation. The volunteers in Ancel Keys' starvation study did the same. So did my daughter when she was anorexic.

***A friend of mine was temporarily blinded by Splenda. She leaned over a pot on the stove at just the wrong moment, and was blinded by the chlorine gas released from the Splenda-laced concoction. You definitely don't want your child drinking Splenda. Especially not 15 servings a day.

**** As my friend Jane says, hello bulimia.