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Disordered Eating and the Dieting Game
The "Thin" Line Teens Cross When Abusing Diet and Exercise
By Laura Paul
Debra Waterhouse, the author of Outsmarting the Female Fat Cell (Warner Books, Reprint, 1994), agrees teens should limit their time spent in front of the television. She also says teens need to stop skipping meals, because starvation actually makes the teen's body go into protection mode so it becomes easier to store fat and harder to lose it.
Waterhouse, who has a private practice in San Francisco, Calif., is currently working on her next book proposal for Outsmarting the Teen Fat Cell. "I've been doing research interviewing teenagers," she says. "I have a private practice where I would say more than half of who I see are adolescents and teens either to prevent eating disorders or that have already hit. It's pretty terrifying."
She says teens are inspired when they learn the secrets behind the dieting industry and how dieting weakens teens psychologically and physically. "What I've discovered is when they think about it and get all the pieces together, they get sort of angry," Waterhouse says. "They say, 'Why are we caught in this trap?' and 'This is ridiculous, women are stronger than this and can break free.' Overall the theme is they are going to be the generation to make it a different place for women, where we can eat with pleasure and with freedom and that all different body shapes and sizes are OK."
Some teenagers have the right information, and while they aren't dieting and over-exercising, their peers are. Best friends Chloe Zimmerman, 13, and Meghan Malanio, 14, of Tampa, Fla., say many teenage girls feel insecure about their bodies. "The subject will come up about fat, dieting, food and what you can and cannot eat," says Malanio. "I tell them they are not fat. I love to eat. I never stop eating."
Zimmerman, who has lived in Denver, Colo., and Dalla, Texas, agrees. "All of my friends have the same issues about dieting," she says. "They are not fat but they don't want to get fat. My friends in Texas did not really care, but my friends in Colorado tried going on diets, but they did not work."
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