wasting food, hunger, and finding that "stopping place"

Here we are at Cracker Barrel, which was across from our hotel on our recent drive (2 days in the car!) to see family. I skipped the Kids Menu, and M ordered rice, chicken, corn and milk. I had roasted chicken, beans, stuffing and corn. We ate maybe 25% of what was on the table. I ordered her a main meal because all the kids stuff was the typical fried, limited fare that M doesn't love anyway. She had biscuits for the first time. She liked the corn bread too. We had a pleasant meal, but here is what we left. (I suppose we could have shared entrees had I realized how much food there would be...)

It got me thinking again about poverty, food insecurity (or restrained or unreliable feeding) and how it effects what we eat and how much we eat.

• I waste food because I can afford to. (The photo above is at the end of our meal.)
• I can stop eating because I know I will have enough, good-tasting variety of foods before I get truly hungry again. (Reliable meals and snacks.)
• I can try new foods and introduce my daughter to new foods because I know I will have other things to eat, and because I have enough resources to try something that might not get eaten.
• I can stop because I can eat any of those foods when I want to. (I don't need to eat 2 biscuits because if I want to order them again sometime, I can-without guilt.)
• I leave food because I have never been truly hungry (childhood food insecurity and hunger often has long-lasting effects, with adults who experienced it more likely to feel anxious or panicky with food, and more likely to binge when foods are available-a smart survival strategy at the time...)
• I leave food because I have learned to eat in a way that is tuned-in to my internal cues of hunger, appetite and satiety.
• I am lucky...

If I weren't so lucky, I would have ordered food for M that I KNEW she would eat. If I didn't know when the next meal was coming, I would order reliably filling foods with lots of calories for the least amount of money. If I hadn't eaten all day because I was "saving points" for dinner, or didn't have any cash, or felt guilty about how I blew my diet yesterday... (you see where this is going.)

(BTW, M doesn't really have to "think" about any of this, or know it on any rational level. In spite of my inclinations as a chatty extrovert, I don't explain or rationalize any of this to her. I do my jobs with providing reliable, good-tasting foods every 3-4 hours. She just shows up and listens to her body... She stops eating when her body tells her to.)

Poverty, how much we eat, what kinds of foods we eat, are more complex than most (especially in the public health world) would have us believe. Food is at it's heart survival, and making it simply into a moral issue without a deeper understanding of the complexities–the physiology and psychology of hunger (monetary or self-inflicted)– is dangerous and short-sighted.

How do your childhood experiences of hunger (in any form) effect your eating today?

worry about weight, two reader perspectives...

Here are two reader comments I couldn't resist sharing. Related to my last post about worrying about weight in very small children. They are well-worth the read. My readers, your inspire me! What is being done to families, mothers, fathers and children in the name of weight is wrong and harmful and unnecessary. Read on...

"I really appreciate these suggestions to lessen the focus on weight, especially for the very young.
I have twins and my daughter was tiny from birth. She has never been on the charts and at 6 months weighed only 12 pounds, which triggered a number of GI specialist appointments, the coordination of a dietician, etc. I was nursing her but had to begin supplementing with high-calorie formula in an attempt to increase weight gain. No physical issues were ever found, and she continued to grow steadily, just...slowly. The GI doctor at one point warned me that if she didn't gain more weight, her cognitive functioning could be harmed.

Of course I was terrified and this sparked a terrible pattern for us, in which I constantly tried to cajole/encourage/trick/force my daughter into eating more, and she, naturally, pushed back from day 1. It saddens me to look back on this and think that we were going through this power struggle even when she was a baby. It continued on and on, because at each appointment, she was still "not on the charts". Our doctor suggested some helpful, healthy things to increase the caloric density of her foods, but also some unhealthy things (such as feeding her Carnation Instant Breakfast, which she would never touch anyway). I had to monitor the number of calories my daughter consumed every day. On a good calorie day, I was thrilled, on a low calorie day, I was frightened, miserable, and often cried.
My daughter was 16 lbs at a year and 21.5 lbs at 2 years. This intense emphasis on her weight set up a terrible relationship to food and feeding. Shortly after she turned 2, my mother located all of my baby records from birth up to 2 years. And it turns out that at every single appointment, I had actually weighed slightly less than my daughter at the same age! My husband and I are both small, slim, people. The difference is that back then, in the 70s, my doctor didn't consider it a problem, and wrote notes such as "she's doing well" or "she's fine" to my mother.
At that point I realized my daughter is playing out her genetics and her well-meaning pediatrician's focus on her smallness had helped us set up a bad dynamic in which our mealtimes were disasters and my daughter wouldn't eat out of a need for control. Shortly after she turned 2 I swallowed hard, began following the Child of Mine advice, and backed way, way off. I no longer try to convince/bargain/trick her into eating. I provide healthy meals at specific times, and I allow her to eat what she wants. I don't comment on it, and I don't bribe with dessert. At first it was REALLY hard because of our historical weight issues, but I soon found that she actually eats much, much better now! She tries many more things, and her weight hasn't suffered. Now mealtime is no longer a terrible battle, and instead we can enjoy ourselves. Given how small she is it's still hard for me to grit my teeth and say nothing if she decides not to eat much at a given meal, but I try to take a whole day, or whole week approach and realize that she actually does eat a good variety of foods."

and...

"I am a mother of an 11 month old boy that lives in the Peninsula area of the San Francisco Bay Area. Oh, man have I been getting the messages.
I'm fat. Not heavy, not 'overweight' - I'm fat. I weigh 275 pounds at 5'4". My husband is also fat. He's 280 at 5'10".
The weight talk started at my son's six week appointment. I keep hearing moms talk about their doctors worried that their kid is not gaining enough. Ours discussed with us if we had concerns about him gaining _too much._ I said "No, not really. I mean, his gain is normal, right?" and the doctor replied "Low end of normal, actually, but I see that both you and the baby's father are... uh... " "Fat? Yes, we are fat. Are you suggesting a preemptive diet for my six week old?" "No, I just thought you might be concerned." Oy. I mean, really. I let the doctor know that I was not interested in feeding schedules, limiting baby's intake so early or "supplementing" with water. (And let me say, calling my husband "the baby's father" repeatedly instead of my husband, while he sits there is kind of insulting. I've heard this doctor tell other women "Your husband... " but somehow, mine is "the baby's father." Maybe he can't believe a fat woman is married?)
The doctor suggested switching him to whole cow's milk at 9 months - I said that WHO didn't recommend that and I wasn't interested. He again brought up that my husband and I are fat. I asked if he would recommend that a thin mom and dad switch their higher-weight baby to whole milk at 9 months. He said no, breast was best until 2/formula until 1. I said again, that I wasn't interested in going against WHO recommendations and general practice just because we're fat. He then asked if I would be willing to limit intake. I asked if he would suggest that for a higher-weight baby of thin parents. He said no. I said, again, no.
What's sad is that I have interviewed several pediatricians, all of whom want to put him on feeding schedules, limited intake, switch to cow's milk, switch to water for all but two bottles a day - I've gotten some crazy suggestions. When I ask about higher-weight babies with thin parents, they tell me that they wouldn't recommend any of this to them because "the babies will just thin out someday." My common refrain in the doctor's office these days is "What would you recommend to thin parents?"
For what it's worth, my son is 97th percentile for height, 95th percentile for head size and 90th percentile for weight. Part of my hesitation (okay, more like deep unwillingness) to do feeding schedules and limited intake is that my parents did it with me. My father tells everyone he encounters with a baby about how I cried and cried. They followed the schedule the pediatrician gave them - so many ounces every so many hours. My mother pumped so they could measure the milk and later switched to formula. They took me to countless doctors, some diagnosed me with various conditions. I was "diagnosed" with a pyloric valve issue and they wanted to do surgery. There was a grandmother in the doctor's office that my parents were at to discuss this and she told my father "There's nothing wrong with that baby except HUNGER. You need to feed that baby." My father says he explained to her the feeding schedules, the pumping and measuring, the formula. She told him to "Knock that nonsense off, keep making bottles until the baby isn't hungry anymore." My father - fed up, tired and at the end of his rope went home and did exactly that. He said that it was the first night I slept at all for more than 30 minutes - he kept checking to see if I was alive. After that? No feeding schedules. I am the oldest of three children and the only overweight adult. The other two have no issues with food, exercise (as in, I require a lot of it to maintain and even more to lose) or weight. Ancedata, perhaps, but enough for me to say no to feeding schedules and metered intake.

Sounds familiar? What do you think?

Put slim-fast in that bottle!

Center for Eating Disorders did a nice little piece on why our current obsession with weight, extending now to the VERY young is problematic.

BTW, the study they quoted in the article is a pretty poor design and is counter to many, many studies which show that the majority of larger babies will slim down over time (United States Preventive Services Task Force, Serdula, Huh...)

One of my favorite studies was a long-term (birth to adolescence) study in California showing that the two factors most associated with unhealthy weight gain in adolescence were 1) parents who were worried about their young child becoming fat (and presumable fed to try to avoid fatness) and 2) problems in the early (toddler/preschool) feeding relationship (conflict, power struggles...) Being breast fed, feeding low fat milk, waiting to start solids were not protective against adolescent weight gain. (The study did not address eating disorders.)

We can do more to prevent childhood obesity (and disordered eating) by supporting best feeding practices from birth...

Here is an excerpt from the article:
Consider moving away from a hyper-focus on weight, body type, BMI or any other calculator of weight. Like most efforts involved in parenting, it’s not an easy task to accomplish particularly when it seems like every newspaper article, concerned relative, or public service campaign is telling you to do the opposite. Do your best to focus instead on your child’s overall health (remembering that weight does not = health). Honor and accept your child’s natural body size and shape. Create positive goals around eating that involve paying attention to your baby’s or child’s internal hunger and fullness cues instead of relying on external messages about how much is “too much”.

*The photo is me around 1 year. "Obese" by today's standards and bottle-fed!!! E-gads!

Are you a mom of an infant? Are you worried already about your child's weight? What messages are you getting from your doctors, the media?

nutrition "education," calorie counting for the preschool age

I was enjoying the local farmer's market this weekend and sitting next to my daughter who was coloring at a lovely little shaded area with beanbag toss (based on the food pyramid-ugh) when I read this piece of cow-dung. I was only happy that my little M doesn't know how to read yet.

The bottom part if you can't read it says: (exclamations are theirs, not mine)

Circle the healthiest choice (fewest calories)!

Ring the cowbell!

1/2 cup diced fruit salad (60 calories)

1/2 cup diced fruit salad with 2 Tbspn orange juice (88 calories)

1/2 cup diced fruit salad with 2 Tbspns light yogurt (96 calories)

Oh, where to begin!!

Nutrition education for children has the potential to do great harm. I wonder why adding yogurt is not "healthy" or the assertion that the definition of "healthy" is low calorie. Low-calorie and low-fat diets fail nutritionally for small children (and fail for adults too.) I won't elaborate on why this is garbage "nutrition" info which is more harmful than helpful. (Think of a table of first grade comparing calorie and fat counts in the name of health-it's happening people.)

I spoke with the nice folks who worked for this farm/education group and explained that I was a family doctor and feeding specialist and that their info was wrong and dangerous. I also said I would not stick around for the cooking demo (fruit salsa, could be great, but don't want M hearing about "healthy" eating from these folks...) The lady explained that they had a dietitian come up with the materials and that they "struggled" with them.

Brother. Stop. Don't wade in where you are not qualified, don't promote more craziness around food. Why not just color in the picture and talk about all the delicious foods at the market, talk about how gorgeous the colors are. Do your demo, be positive, be happy, let us taste the amazing fruits of our farmer's labors, just leave "health," calories, fat out of it. It managed to do what so much nutrition and health info does these days, take such potential and passion and energy- and poison it with misinformation and misguided food moralism.

(BTW, I couldn't help saying, "More cowbell!" ala SNL. I thought I was pretty clever...)

Keep your eyes out for garbage nutrition messages aimed at kids. Share them here! I think you'll be surprised what you find when you open your eyes...

morning TV and the best quote from Governor Huckabee

So I was walking on my treadmill yesterday flipping through morning TV (we are going to get a DVR box as I can't stand live TV, especially in the mornings...)

So the Huckabee Show was on Fox. He had three "experts:" Meme Roth, Miss Plus-sized Elite and Kathy Ireland. Same old same old from the guests (Meme-"but obesity is the devil!!!"/Miss Plus-sized "accept and love yourself...") but Huckabee came out with a few choice lines given his history...

I paraphrase as accurately as possible without a rewind or text:

"For the six weeks I'm doing this show, I'm back on my rigid health plan and I've lost 14 1/2 pounds in two weeks!" cue wild audience applause... (BTW, he looks somewhere in between the two above photos if you're interested...)

"But it's not about weight, it's about eating right and being healthy, and doing it for your Creator, or your family..."

Huckabee is the former governor of Arkansas (Also author of Quit Digging Your Grave with a Knife and Fork...) who brought in BMI monitoring to Arkansas schools, intense obesity prevention- in the standard approach- and celebrated having the first state to halt the increase in overweight in children (0.1% reduction.) Except that this was actually a national trend that other states also experienced without the expensive and potentially harmful intervention, and over the same time period in Arkansas, African American girls experienced continued dramatic weight increases, and the number of "underweight" children increased...

I try not to be snarky (not trying very hard this morning) but I guess he decided to pick up that fork again. He talks like it's easy, that anyone can "eat right and exercise" (like Meme Roth who won't eat until she runs 4 miles a day, even if it's in the afternoon) that anyone who honors God should be able to lose weight. His personal story makes me sad for him. Years of misery, self-loathing and crash yo-yo dieting, jokes about his large children etc. What I don't feel sorry for is his preaching, his use of his position of power to shove the same nonsense about weight loss, restriction, dieting (though couched in more palatable terms) on the public at large.

Ugh. I hope someone out there appreciates that I watched a full 10 minutes of Meme Roth and Huckabee so you don't have to! (By the way, The View featured "cleanses" that were "healthy and not a diet" with between 1000 and 1200 calories, and also had a family that "banded" together (the whole family, minor children as well had lap band.) I did not watch this...

feeding with ED in the kitchen, will you share your experiences?

This comment to a recent post made me teary. This is why I do what I do.

I am finding that about half of the mothers I work with on feeding issues will share a history of an eating disorder with me. This is an area I am really interested in. Would you share your story? How does feeding children trigger or heal you? Can you see potential for your own healing through feeding your children? Tell me whatever comes to mind. Are you struggling in recovery? Did you grow up with a sister or mother or brother with an eating disorder? Do you worry about it when you feed? Is it changing/spoiling your feeding?

"thanks for your blog....i have been bulimic for 18 years now (wow thats more than half my life) that i STILL struggle with... I am scared to DEATH of passing on my ed to my kids...and your easy intro to the family eating question has me making healthier choices and feeling far more at ease with what my kids eat....i have learned to quit freaking out when one child refuses to eat nothing but meat and potatoes (she obviously needed the fuel...she shot up 2 inches in the following week...and went back to normal eating after the growth spurt) ...and to see their rythms as natural....i have healthy food available for snack times and cook balanced meals.... thank you for taking the great fear around food and the family that i had."

I am out of town, but am working on some thoughts about feeding when you or a loved one are in recovery, your comments will be really helpful...

picky eating, size concerns: "don't worry about it" means different things to different people

A mom called me to talk about her teen who has been eating -almost exclusively- microwaved lean pockets for 7 years. At every doctor's visit she was told not to worry about it, that it was fairly nutritious, and he would likely grow out of it. A young pediatrician recently wrote in (A., I read your comment but couldn't find it when I needed to post! Sorry) to say when parents come to her with picky eating complaints, she too tells them not to worry. I probably gave similar advice ('mac-n-cheese is fine! Just add a multivitamin!) when I was a new doc.

I look back now at how naive I was, how misinformed, and how unhelpful ultimately to so many parents. You see, I grew up with structure, family meals, enough money for a wide variety of foods that were largely presented in a pleasant atmosphere free of pressure. (I think part of me assumed that was happening in most homes.) I had no training in feeding other than how to concentrate formula and calculate calorie needs for the "feeders and growers" in the neonatal ward, and I didn't have my own kids. (OK, a few lectures on breast-feeding and perhaps a review of a handout about starting solids, always the what, never the HOW to feed...)

In short I had no idea how many families struggle with feeding, how many moms truly agonize over intake or a child's size. I had no idea how many of the moms I was seeing had themselves struggled with eating and were terrified of feeding their child. I didn't know how normal it was for most families to feed children one meal (often the same meal of macaroni and cheese and nuggets) and feed themselves later, and how much energy went into trying to get the kids to eat more or different foods. I didn't know that most of these picky kids were "good eaters" early on but systematically coned down to an accepted menu of brown and beige foods because parents didn't know how to handle normal feeding stages, or fed out of worry over nutrition or size (see last few paragraphs of that post.)

I didn't know that most feeding advice (if parents got any) was counterproductive. I didn't know that most folks today (kids included) seem to graze most of the day. I had no idea how much pain and conflict was inflicted in the name of weight and nutrition. (The moms who call crying because a child is refusing to eat and is losing weight, or another child is showing markedly disordered behaviors at age 7...)

OK, back from "tangent land."

point 1) your doctor might not have a clue. There, I said it. I didn't have a clue.

point 2) your doctor may be giving you bad advice. Again, I did...

point 3) health care providers, be careful about saying, "Don't worry about it" in terms of picky eating or odd eating behaviors.

More on "don't worry"

for health care providers and parents, just to make it extra confusing :)

First you need to ask more questions about feeding. A normal weight or growth curve should not give false confidence that feeding is going well. As a parent, if you see a health care provider and you're worried, and you are not getting your concerns addressed, ask yourself some more questions, get help... (Or if you get advice that sounds off like, "Just serve beef and green beans for 3 days, he'll learn to like it..." don't give up!)

Docs, ask: (moms, ask yourselves...)

How is feeding going?

How do you/I feel about feeding?

Are you/we eating meals as a family?

Do you/I struggle with eating?

Do you/I continue to offer a variety of foods?

Are you/we getting into battles around food?

Are you/we worried about your/our child's size?

Are you/we familiar with or following the Division of Responsibility?

Because, "don't worry about it" might be just the right advice for a family that is otherwise doing well with feeding. Support and optimize good feeding practices.

But –and here is the sad part– a family that is really struggling who is told, "don't worry about it," as is often the case, is a missed opportunity. It is much easier to turn around a feeding issue when a child is 5, vs 15... "Don't worry about it" to some means, keep serving mac-n-cheese and nuggets every night so you don't have to fight about is as much. Keep bribing and pressuring, keep worrying. And maybe 5, or 20 years go by (seriously) where the child only eats 5 foods, or maybe the dieting starts or the disordered eating...

Ask the feeding questions, optimize best feeding, educate yourself (Child of Mine should be required reading in all med schools as far as I'm concerned...) or at least have some titles or handouts you can refer parents to. Don't worry, but do have family meals, do offer variety, don't feed with pressure, do eat foods you enjoy, and follow up.

Moms, have you been told, "don't worry about it?" Did you still worry? What wacky advice have you gotten about your feeding concerns? From whom? Family? Docs?

is emotional eating to blame for unhealthy weight gain?

Great Ellyn Satter newsletter (#46) on emotional eating. I couldn't say it better, or add much to this, so PLEASE take the time to click over and read it! Tell me what you think!

no harm done? TV weight loss shows. We're all losers.

TV weight loss shows are all the rage, but of course are doing more harm than good, both to the cast and the audience watching. Here is an interview with one contestant about her experience, the eating disorder it triggered and how she is still not recovered.

Kids labeled as overweight are LESS likely to be physically active: implications for Let's Move

Here's a post from Kataphatic that is a great example of a point I make in my workshops all the time: Children who are labeled as overweight (regardless of BMI) are less likely to be physically active.

"I didn’t hate gym class until I was in fourth grade, when the gym teacher singled me and several other fat kids out for extra gym classes and an “exercise worksheet” that I had to do at home (sit ups, push ups, stuff like that). Oh the shame of having to hang that thing on the fridge, not only as a visible reminder to the whole family that I was a fatty fat fatty, but also to remind me every time that I wanted to eat anything out of the fridge that I was a fatty fat fatty (hello eating disorder!)."

This is but one example of how we are harming more than helping with our efforts to combat the "childhood obesity epidemic." It is one of many that I have heard. It's not a stretch to think that schools will be doing more of this.

One of the Obama's Let's Move summary recommendations states: Developers of local school wellness policies should be encouraged to include strong physical activity components on par with nutrition components. (Oh, and pediatricians and dentists should measure BMI and be sure to do obesity prevention at every opportunity... More labels anyone?)

Take this next quote into account as well from Jon Robison PhD in an article, "The Childhood obesity epidemic," what is the real problem and what can we do about it? about the very people who will likely be developing those "wellness" policies...

“In a recent study, teachers who were most likely to be involved in a childhood obesity prevention program demonstrated a low level of knowledge related to nutrition and weight control and a very high level of body dissatisfaction and self-reported eating disorders.“ He goes on that eighty-five percent of the teachers recommended very low calorie diets (one of the most discredited diet strategies of all with a greatest potential to harm) to adolescents- many of whom were also in their adolescent growth spurt.

Just saying. Kataphatic brings it home. Generalizing and funding a wide-scale repetition of her experience makes me want to scream (and home school.)

On another note, I still remember as part of the Presidential Fitness program (which Let's Move is trying to expand, expand, expand) I had my skin-fold measured which we were told measured body fat. Though I was crazy fit and swam and ran competitively, I had the highest measure. I still remember Mr. B announcing it and feeling embarrassed and confused. I can only imagine if I was bigger or was teased how that would have compounded things. The point is, it was a big deal. It is etched on my memory. (My friend and track rival had the lowest level, which was also a boasting point for her...) How pointless it all was, with such potential for harm.

What were your experiences in school around weight and physical activity? Did well-meaning interventions hurt you?

poor Oprah, the "non-diet" weight loss show

Ugh. I have to say it is fun to watch Oprah and call it work, but my goodness. What a mess. Oprah's guest, Geneen Roth has written Women, Food and God. I haven't read it yet, but just finished When You Eat at the Refrigerator, Pull Up A Chair by Roth. Sounds like a lot of a similar message. A couple things stood out to me.

• The focus seemed to be still on weight loss (surprise!)

• The only two people they showed had conspicuous "before and after" pictures. I'd love to know what the percentage of folks who go to her workshops or read her books or "do the work" in the books actually experience weight loss. Have you failed if you don't lose weight? Are you "doing it wrong?" The implied promise seems to be long-lasting and serious weight loss.
• They kept talking about women who eat when they are not hungry. I bet many of these women ARE hungry when they eat or binge. Women tell me they skip breakfast, or eat a small lunch and are ravenous by the time they get home and eat in an out-of-control way. I wish they had at least brought up that restriction(dieting)+ stress = loss of control. It is the stress, hunger, emotions that makes the effort of restriction almost impossible in adults (and children) who have dieted. A vicious cycle. But, many women are indeed, very, very hungry.
• I am curious about Geneen Roth. In Pull Up a Chair, she talks about her strict vegetarian diet that she ended only a handful of years ago and her panic at gaining five pounds. I wonder again at the focus on weight. It's just something that stuck out while I was reading. This panic was at a time when she was already the Guru in the non-diet approach? When she already talked about self-love and worth and beauty etc, but still had that reaction? Is that OK? Am I overreacting? Does that take away from the potential power of her message? Is this her eating disorder and her experience in recovery?
• Oprah asked about eating if you can't diet, "then how do you do it?" A point that I think is valid with Geneen's work. Perhaps not enough concrete advice on how to learn to eat when you are hungry, or even learn to recognize sensations other than famished or stuffed. A great companion book would be Secrets to Feeding a Healthy Family (Ellyn Satter) which, though it says "family," spends a great deal of time explaining how to feed yourself first.
• Oprah talked about her binge on a pound of lettuce with lemon juice after an upsetting phone call. Oh, Oprah. That just made me sad. I'd be hungry, deprived and cravingly obsessed with real food if I ate lettuce with lemon juice, regardless of whether I had been beaten by my grandmother as a child or not.

This issue of eating to numb-out or deal with emotions and stress is not new. (Some studies suggest that "overweight" individuals do not partake in that particular coping mechanism more than their "normal" weight counterparts BTW.) While it's a piece of the puzzle for many, again the show (the book?) ignored physiology, hunger, hormones, feeding and dieting history and the complex interplay...

Did you watch it or read the book? What did you think?

what is competent eating?

I really like this blog post over on fatnutritionist.com

I met Michele. She's amazing and doing important work. We are both trained in Ellyn Satter's Eating Competence model.

teach ALL kids how to eat

In spite of what all the press around Michele Obama's "childhood obesity" campaign might lead you to believe, we are not merely facing a “childhood obesity crisis,” we are facing a crisis in feeding our children.

Consider:

• teen girls have the worst nutrition of any group in America. 10% have iron deficiency anemia– effecting IQ, attention, energy level, mood

• only one in ten teenagers gets close to the recommended fruit and vegetable intake

• 2 out of 3 teenage girls are dieting

• dieting is a predictor of weight gain and depression and is often a trigger for devastating eating disorders

• even “healthy” dieters are heavier and have more disordered eating than non-dieters

• almost half of teenage girls use extreme dieting measures such as laxative abuse, vomiting or crash fasting

• 20% of kids have “feeding disorders” that impair growth and development (according to Kennedy-Krieger researcher)

• 80% of kids with developmental problems have feeding problems

• there is an increase in diagnoses of eating disorders at ever younger ages

• 80% of "obese" adults were not "obese" as children. Even if you believe that weight on its own predicts health care costs (a point of significant debate,) the current approach of targeting "fat" children will fail to control future costs as it gives today's "normal" and "underweight" kids a pass-and they don't know how to eat either.

We need to address eating and health behaviors for all children.

What do you think?

anti-obesity "expert" Meme Roth

Some of you may have seen the TV debate, "Is it OK to be fat?" with "expert" Meme Roth. I did not watch it (I don't think my blood pressure could handle it and I doubted anything new would come of it) but I did like this investigative piece on Jezebel.com about her "qualifications."

Here is my rant from last year about Meme Roth and all the haters who are not adding anything constructive to the issue (and that's putting it kindly.)

disordered eating

Laura Collins linked to this on her blog and I am too :)

This article gives a glimpse into one kind of disordered eater. It describes an ice-dancer's overly controlled and restricted eating and how it left her weak and irritable. Thinner is not always better- even in ice-skating.

My goal as a childhood feeding specialist is to try to help parents feed their children in a healthy, nurturing way so they have the best chance of raising competent, not disordered eaters for whom eating is a trial and a struggle, something that takes up much of their waking energy and thoughts.

FYI, the majority of American women are categorized as having "disordered eating." Does that surprise you?

support with Eating Disorders

local Eating Disorders Parent Support Group

Becky Henry is an author, life-coach, activist and mother of a daughter with an eating disorder. She also has a rare empathy and power to connect with people and just really wants to help. If you are living with a child with an eating disorder or a child in recovery, there is a new local ED support group. Check it out.

Food Cop from an eating disorder perspective

I love this post by author and eating disorder activist, Laura Collins. Here is an excerpt:

"The grocery store is a guided map to "low" "no" "free" consumption that we then drive somewhere to "work" off in measured increments of self-loathing. We eat inside a moral sculpture in the shape of our bodies.

This is the hectoring unpleasantness we call healthy. This is the lifestyle we laud and the new Kool-Aid we give the kids. Do too much of it and you'll be the "Food Police" and do too little and you are part of the Childhood Obesity Crisis. The margin of normal? Vanishingly thin."

I like her passion and her observations. I also bemoan the fact that "normal" eating in our culture is completely abnormal. Having worked in a University Health Clinic, I saw a glimpse of the devastation that an eating disorder can bring on a patient and her/his family.

Thanks for your voice, Laura! Please check out her website FEAST for information for families and parents struggling with this illness.

talking to kids about food

Here's a link to my article on talking to kids about food. Do you think we talk about food and nutrition entirely too much, or not enough? Are we as a culture sending the wrong messages? I think so, read it and tell me what you think!

talking to kids about eating and wellness

This NYT article on feeding kids is a mixed bag. Some good points, but mostly a lot of the "common wisdom" kind of thinking that got us into this mess with food in the first place.

The author started his first serious diet at age 8, which led to years of binge eating and bulemia. He's published a recent memoir of his struggles, but I fear he still doesn't get it.

Good Points:

1) He acknowledges that there is a lot of angst on the part of parents about how to talk to kids about food without making matters worse. I see this when I talk to parents, and it's oneof the reasons why I founded Family Feeding Dynamics. This angst is making things worse.

"I was struck by just how much thought they had given to coaxing their children toward a sensible eating and away from extreme indulgence or self-denial."

"Every parent fretted over the right language to use with children."

2) He acknowledges that appetites vary. I talk to parents about this. Some kids are born hungry, others seem to care less about food. I, for instance get antsy if I don't eat at least every 4 hours most days. I get preoccupied and feel icky if I get too hungry. My spouse on the other hand could go without eating for most of the day and not really notice. There is a physiological difference. There is a hormonal, psychological, food-related, neural basis for people having different appetites. (Dieting and deprivation radically effect hunger, appetite etc.) If you are one who has a mild appetite or interest in food, having a child who is the opposite can be baffling and scary.

One expert said, "Food lights up some people more than it lights up other people. We're not born the same."

And then the bad news...

One mom in the story worked hard to "restrain" portions and be healthy, and then when the daughter came home from a trip to Italy a few pounds heavier (the story suggests) she gets the girl signed up at a gym. (Though this anecdote seems to be portrayed positively.)

A 16 year ols who is "slim and gravitated naturally towards less fattening foods" dared to go for a bowl of ice-cream after a 3 mile run. When Dad tried to steer her away from the ice-cream to a "healthier choice" she got upset, insinuated her Dad was calling her fat. (Was it really a bad choice for her to enjoy a bowl if ice-cream?)

The author concludes that appetite is "mysterious" and notes the "tricky task parents face in trying to regulate it."

And here is the failure of thinking that we fall back on too easily.

It's tricky to "regulate" or control our children's appetites because we can't. And all that angst and effort leads to heavier kids and more disordered eating. Kids pushed to eat more tend to eat less, and kids pushed to eat less tend to eat more, and no one is very happy during the process.

In fact, given the right support and structure, we can trust that our children's bodies can regulate themselves. We need to do a good job feeding our children on a schedule, allowing them to eat from mostly healthy foods most of the time until they are satisfied. We need to move our bodies and give them opportunities to do the same because it feels good, not because the kid gained a few pounds. We need to enjoy treats and forbidden foods without guilt and shame. We need to reject dieting and weight loss as a goal. We need to love our children unconditionally. Not everyone can grow up to be slim, but they can be healthy.