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Thin Is Too In
Eating Disorders and How They Affect Our Children
By Donna Smith
Kirsten Wheaton, 27, from New York, N.Y., was 14 when she started restricting her food intake. The developing teen noticed changes in her body. The normal growth of her hips and thighs left her feeling helpless and unhappy. Six months later, Wheaton was diagnosed with bulimia.
Eating disorders, defined as a disorder in the normal eating routine, affect as many as 10 million females and one million males in the United States, according to the National Eating Disorders Association. Another startling statistic: 81 percent of 10-year-olds are afraid of being fat. And 42 percent of first through third graders want to be thinner. Eating disorders affect not only a person's eating habits, but her emotions and attitudes toward food and weight issues.
Mandy Golman, the coordinator of "Girls in Motion," a mentoring fitness program paired with conversation about healthy eating, body image and the dangers of dieting at Southern Methodist University in Dallas, Texas, says there is no simple answer to the rise of eating disorders in children. But she feels that it is an external solution to inner turmoil. "Depression is often associated with eating disorders [and] sometimes hard to say which came first – an eating disorder can certainly cause depression and the reverse is also true," says Golman.
"I was depressed for about a year before I developed an eating disorder," says Wheaton. "I cried a lot and became secretive at home. Some of this may have been normal teenage adjustment, although in retrospect, it was probably more profound."
