to think underweight teens are a bigger/more common problem than overweight ones?

[manicinsomniac]

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?

why do people always say 'anorexia is about control'

it's not the most offensive stereotype but it's not useful either

poppy
Because it is.
Its not about food.
Food is the symptom, not the cause.
Which is why the medical approach rarely works
whereas the full family CBT approach does work

it's not as simple as 'control'

it's much more complex than that

I also think "it's about control" is excessively simplistic, and it is at least partly about the food, because of the way that our society fetishises undernourished bodies and Gwyneth Paltrow style restrictive eating and quack nutrition.

that wasn't aimed solely at you, I think I read it about 15 times probably in this thread alone

like all stereotypes it probably exists for a reason but is an annoying misconception nonetheless

Yep, never been about control for me. For me, it's just very important to be thin.

it's just a convenient vehicle for my self loathing that happens to get widespread support (as I perceive it) from mainstream diet/fitness communities everywhere I look

because of the way that our society fetishises undernourished bodies
Anorexia existed long before the modern media

Obsession with appearance is not a modern thing.
Read Jane Austen.

Obesity is a significantly more prevalent and more recent problem.

I walk to work past two comprehensive schools in a privileged part of London to get to my tube station. Approx 40% of them are already about a stone overweight at mid teens: & walking along stuffing crisps etc before/after school (on my days off they are always in Tesco in large groups buying crisps/sweets at 4pm ish). I've seen the odd girl obviously anorexic but usually slightly older, andr regularly, a local girl, 17ish, on a Saturday in town: disturbingly she was getting whistles from older pervy men. She was horrifcally thin , wearing mini with legs like twigs & knee bones bigger than her calves/thighs. She looked like an Auschwitz inmate. The fact she was getting whistles freaked me out as she looked well on her way to being terminal despite the orange tan and hair extensions.

You can't give hunter gatherers unlimited access to food and expect them not to be fat. Why are we not blaming junk food manufacturers and the people that allowed processed foods to become part of our normal diet? I blame capitalism. I reckon in 50 years or so, almost everyone will be overweight

Can't thank you enough for questioning whether anorexia is about control. I've been told this so often (not by professional specialists though, or people with anorexia). I've told DD1 this so often, and it has been a harmful factor on our relationship. If you live with someone with anorexia, it can appear to be about control, but really it isn't. A person with anorexia is not choosing to not eat to be thin. They are not controlling what they eat. Anorexia creates the disordered thinking, not the person who has it! That might be what it looks like from outside to an untrained eye, but this illness is not not giving them choices.

Often, people recovering from anorexia can develop OCD tendencies around food to control their environment to help them eat. Then they deal with the OCD tendencies, but that can take longer. If you've shared a student house with someone who has recovered from anorexia, they probably still had a few OCD behaviours which seem controlling. That isn't the half of what this illness is like.

Peace I completely agree with you. I suspect that the motives/ causes/ psychology of anorexia differ more than is widely recognised (perhaps because eating disorder professionals only see the most seriously ill tip of the iceberg). I don't see "control" as being a big factor in my DD's illness, although she is very OCD about food in the way you describe (recovering not-quite-anorexic).

isnt anorexia also linked to asd in girls (often the autism is diagnosed much later though). maybe that also partly explains the genetic link there often is?

Regarding the control thing - I think like most things it depends entirely on the individual. Not exactly the same thing as anorexia, but my sister used to have bulimia. She has said herself that her eating disorder was always about control for her. At the time her eating disorder started she had a lot going on and food was the only thing she could control.

It was never about losing weight for her and she has said she has always liked the way she looked. Her bulimia actually caused her to gain weight.

Saying anorexia is about control is just an ill informed sound bite.

like saying 'depression is anger turned inwards'

My son is 13 and is trying to get his BMI up to 15. He doesn't have an eating disorder in the same way as the OP's child, but has low appetite as a side effect of medication, and also has sensory issues due to ASC, so can only tolerate certain textures of food. Having an underweight child is stressful and a constant worry.

I would say that in my kid's first and middle school there are more overweight children than underweight children by far.

However, in my child's high school it seems to change and I haven't seen many overweight children. I am often there for meetings (special needs child) and live right near so often see them leave school) and I haven't noticed over weight children like I have with the younger children.

I have three underweight boys. It is a nightmare buying them clothes because everything seems aimed at children who are much bigger. My 16 year old can't fit into small adult sizes and most shops only go to age 14 now. I have to find adjustable school trousers because the waists are far too big for them. My eldest did gain some weight on his stomach recently due to hormonal issues by the looks of it and has now lost it again but even then finding clothes to fit a small 16 year old was a pain in the arse. I found many school trousers which were generous fit but no slim fit were stocked because I guess there isn't much need for them anymore.

For me, it's just very important to be thin.

Why, what's so great about it?

PoppyShakespeare - depression is, largely, negative emotions (not just anger) that have no outlet or resolution.

lljkk - God knows, it's just somehow been the biggest concern in my life for the past 17 years! I feel like being the thinnest makes me happier, more worthwhile, more successful, more attractive and just an all around better person than I would be if I was bigger. Logically, I know that isn't true but it doesn't translate into me accepting it as untrue.

None of that makes sense, I know. Don't try and get sense out of an anorexic where size is concerned!!

See you say it's not about control, but I think those things are about control. When you have your body size as you want it, then you feel like you're as in control of the other things as you want to be, too.

Controlling one's body size is a displacement activity for lack of control in other areas of one's life.

If I come home & the kitchen is a mess, psychologically I have to sort it. Not because no one else will do it, or I'm the best, or I care about hygiene (DH is better at it than me, too): but I feel out of control until it's tidied up. I'm certainly not out of control in rest of my life just because the kitchen is a bombsite, but I can't deal with the visual noise of the room when messy (which is first room people go in, when entering our house, too, so I can't forget about it either).

My compulsion about a tidy-ish kitchen is a control thing for me, too.