Help Girls Develop Healthy Body Image, Experts Say
Three girls are picking through their lunches at school, commenting on which foods will make them fat or not. One says she has started dieting, and her friends agree that they might start cutting back on calories, too.
Typical high school cafeteria chatter? Guess again. Experts say this type of conversation also is becoming increasingly common in the nation's elementary schools, as well.
"It's an unfortunate trend, but we're finding that girls are becoming concerned about body image and dieting at ages as young as seven or eight," says Dr. Terry Bravender, assistant professor of pediatrics at the Duke University Medical Center and medical director of the Duke Eating Disorders Program.
According to Dr. Bravender, one recent survey found a full 40 percent of nine- and 10-year-olds claiming they were on some kind of weight-loss diet.
The Duke expert stresses that dieting and other body-conscious behaviors do not necessarily mean young girls are headed to full-fledged anorexia or bulimia. But he does view these behaviors as unhealthy and worrisome, and worthy of parental notice.
"Like adults, kids have food fads that come in and out, and sometimes they may be 'on a diet' simply to imitate something they see on TV or in the home," he says. "It can be transient."
But, he adds, repeat dieting, frequent talk about "fattening" foods and spending large amounts of time in front of the mirror should set off parental alarm bells, especially when it occurs in preteens.
Unfortunately, parents are often a prime source of these behaviors, says Phoenix psychologist Lorna Gale Cheifetz, Psy.D., who specializes in eating disorders.
"I believe the weight obsession begins at home," she says. "Parents are sitting watching TV and saying things like 'Look at so-and-so, she's gained weight, look at her butt.' Kids hear that."
Dr. Bravender comments, "As we all know, kids are also great imitators. So if Mom is constantly dieting, chances are her daughter will pick up on that."
It also does not help that the whole of the culture is pushing young girls and women toward body obsession.
"You have Britney Spears and other teenyboppers dressing in a certain way, and girls want to look like their idols," Dr. Cheifetz says.
Dr. Bravender agrees. "We need to give kids time to just be kids, not to push all these unrealistic expectations on them," he says.
True eating disorders usually emerge at two distinct points, both of them times of great stress for girls seeking a sense of identity.
"The first [phase] is near the end of puberty, at about 14 or so," Dr. Bravender says. "And second, typically, is when girls leave high school and enter college."
Teaching young girls a healthy respect for food - eating in moderation and without obsessing about calories - is one step parents can take to reduce their child's risk for problem behaviors, experts say.
Parents should also model behaviors that let kids know that it is OK - maybe even great - to be exactly the person they are.
The vast majority of young girls will escape serious eating disorders, according to the experts. But that does not mean they will not be left with insecurities that can negatively affect their lives for decades to come.
"These are patterns that can stick with us for life, and our children absolutely do pick up their values from us," Cheifetz notes. "So, if you have a kid that's already obsessed with body image, you need to think really carefully about what you are saying and doing in the home.
"If you walk around obsessing about what other people think of you, picking apart every detail of your appearance, chances are your child is going to be that way, too," she says.
Always consult your child's physician for more information.
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Teens who drink more than recommended levels of milk may actually gain weight, rather than lose it, according to a report in the Archives of Pediatrics & Adolescent Medicine.
The study was designed to examine dairy industry suggestions that drinking milk promotes weight loss, say the Boston-based scientists who led the story.
Instead, they found that drinking more milk may lead to weight gain among teens, although those who became overweight drank more than is recommended by the National Dairy Council dairy promotion campaign.
"My main concern is that kids who are overweight think they can drink four or five glasses of milk as a magic bullet to lose weight," says Catherine S. Berkey, Sc.D., a biostatistician at Brigham and Women's Hospital and Harvard Medical School and lead author of the study.
"They should know that large quantities are not going to help them lose weight."
A spokeswoman for the Council says the promotion campaign indicates that consumption of dairy products has been shown to promote weight loss in adults, but it does not make those claims for children.
The Council's 3-A-Day-of-Dairy campaign recommends three daily servings of milk, yogurt, or cheese as a way to maintain a nutritious diet.
"Our program is aimed at adults, moms who want to lose weight," says Deanna Segrave-Daly, a dietician and Council spokeswoman.
"Studies find that calcium in dairy products has some effect on losing weight in combination with reducing calories and exercising," she says. "The calcium helps the body work more efficiently. But in no way, shape, or form is the program ever targeted to kids."
"To me this is a story about calories. If you're going to eat and drink more than is recommended, you're going to gain weight," Segrave-Daly adds.
Dr. Berkey says the weight gain appeared to result from the calories in the milk rather than something particular to the milk itself. She also acknowledged that the study did not rule out the chance that the calories could have come from other sources.
Surprisingly, almost all the children in the study drank low-fat milk rather than whole milk, and the authors believe that estrone and whey protein in dairy products may cause weight gain.
Rachel Novotny, head of the Department of Human Nutrition, Food, and Animal Sciences at the University of Hawaii, says this latter finding was the most interesting part of the study.
"The bottom line is still the calories, but the question is whether calories from different sources are healthier - and this study doesn't change thinking about that," she says. "But the marginal finding that skim or low-fat milk or whole milk, at the same level of calorie intake, is the source of weight gain is an interesting hypothesis, and deserves further study."
Always consult your child's physician for more information.
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