There is so much in the news/media in general about the obesity crisis and the number of obese children and teenagers.
I guess I believe the figures (I mean, I assume they're factual statistics!) but I find it difficult because it's so completely different to the reality I see around me.
My 12 year old year 7 daughter has been underweight and suffering from disordered eating since she was 7. She was diagnosed with anorexia earlier this year. Today we learned that a 13 year old girl in the year above will be leaving the school to go into a residential eating disorder treatment centre. She is anorexic too. A 10 year old boy in my tutor group is currently trying to avoid eating lunch and is already underweight. A 10 year old girl has recently been in counselling due to a fear of eating. There are many other very thin children in the school.
In my daughters year of approx. 45, I would say there are two overweight children and 11 who are thin to the point of it being surprising or noticeable (difficult to say underweight without knowing what's normal for them). For most, I hope it's pre pubescent/natural/the result of being very sporty. But I don't know.
I can count the numbers of visibly overweight children in the school on my fingers and that's in a school of around 350.
I worry that the publicity the obesity crisis is getting is actually starting to drive children the other way. I've had an eating disorder since I was 15 but at 12 I didn't even know what a calorie was and had never considered my body shape. Now we have 7 and 8 year olds learning about what foods they should 'rarely eat' and 10 year olds worrying about getting weighed. It feels counter productive and disturbing to me. AIBU?
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AIBU?
to think underweight teens are a bigger/more common problem than overweight ones?
158 replies
manicinsomniac · 16/06/2015 22:10
OP posts:
TheHumourlessHarpy ·
16/06/2015 23:36
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