Talking about obesity to kids (and adults)

alaskagrown

I'm very conflicted about this. I'm a middle school teacher and see many students (usually girls) with very unhealthy bodies already in 7th-8th grade. Most of these students are overweight, but there is the occasional dangerously thin girl as well.

I know first hand about the dangers of eating disorders and wanting to starve yourself. Adults (and peers) have been rightly admonished not to criticize girls about their weight because of the potential for anorexia and bulimia.

But... is it possible that we've gone too far in the other direction?

I know in my own life, I need to lose about 30-40 lbs to be in the middle of my healthy BMI. I'm NOT obese, but I'm not as healthy as I should/could be. But the women in my life, god bless their skinny little hearts, always go, "Oh NO! You don't need to lose weight! You're beautiful!"

Which feels nice... and fake, and ultimately pointless. I finally have to grab them, and laugh, and say, "Listen to me. I am not overly hung up on my body. I know I don't need to weigh 118 and look like a Barbie to be loved. But I could stand to lose a few, and I'd like to talk about it/get your support/say no to a piece of cheesecake without you acting like I'm ready to start throwing up my meals."

Does anyone else have this problem? Or am I the only one cursed with a bunch of super-fit, super-nice friends?

And to go back to my original point, are we failing teenage girls by refusing to acknowledge that their bodies and eating habits need to change?

chrish1981

I know in my own life, I need to lose about 30-40 lbs to be in the middle of my healthy BMI. I'm NOT obese, but I'm not as healthy as I should/could be. But the women in my life, god bless their skinny little hearts, always go, "Oh NO! You don't need to lose weight! You're beautiful!"

Which feels nice... and fake, and ultimately pointless. I finally have to grab them, and laugh, and say, "Listen to me. I am not overly hung up on my body. I know I don't need to weigh 118 and look like a Barbie to be loved. But I could stand to lose a few, and I'd like to talk about it/get your support/say no to a piece of cheesecake without you acting like I'm ready to start throwing up my meals."

See, where I teach, most of the girls are underweight. They are very active in sports and I can seriously count the number of obese/overweight kids on 1 hand. I think it's tough though, because you don't want to make girls overly-anxious, because that leads to problems, but obesity is a huge problem too. We don't want them to think that it's cool to just eat whatever and look however. That's not healthy, either. Tough one.

I TOTALLY feel you on that. Most of my friends are bigger than me, so they'll tease me and say, "Oh yeah, you REALLY need to lose weight." And they don't understand that while, yes, I'm skinnier than they are (that sounds totally b*tchy but it's not meant to), I'm not comfortable with my body and want to lose weight. I'm not going to become anorexic or disappear, but there's no harm in dropping 20 pounds so I can feel good about myself and buy jeans in the single digits, you know?

And I'd support any of them the same way, if they'd take the initiative. My one best friend is on here and she's sticking to a diet and I'm really proud of her!

It's frustrating...

Scarletblue

Could you take the last 15 mins of class and give a lecture on food and exercise, could you make going outside and playing an assignment, my dd preschool teacher did this and we had to document how much we read, and played outside together.
I thought it was a great idea.

Honestly if it is this hard for us adults who need a website to help us we can't expect children to get it on their own.

alaskagrown

Yeah, it's cool, the whole-class stuff is actually pretty awesome. I teach about eating clean every year and we do "fruit/vegetable tasting of the month" and we even talk about food miles and local food (I'm in the Bay Area, my 6th graders this year came IN knowing about food miles (!) but I mean, I would pull a kid aside if I got wind that they were having problems at home, or missing a lot of school, or smoking/ abusing drugs/ having sex, and I know that other teachers have pulled certain girls aside to say, "hey, you're going to have a hard time in life unless you change your habits."

Maybe that's crazy but it seems obvious they're not getting that advice from others, and while I do believe that "big is beautiful" I also know that it can be dangerous, and kids may not know any better.

lindainak

I have suggested this site to a lot of my friends and just hope they are not offended. Maybe post a flyer on your bulletin board at school about using myfitnesspal and start a lunch time club and get in shape. Club could plan weekend events based on exercise and healthy eating. Frankly, most kids and adults do not understand how to eat healthy or get in shape.

And oh gee you live in Alaska? Me too. There are so many things to do outside in Alaska that cost nothing even in winter. Dog walks in Alaska are great even when you don't have the granddog.

alaskagrown

I was born and raised in Alaska but I teach in the Bay Area now.

candycana

My county in FL has the dubious honor of being the most obese in the state. We have LOTS of overweight kids. Kids that struggle to fit in the desks. I teach middle schoolers and started another thread about something similar to this, specifically if this site could be used with my students. The concern is that students will obsess over the numbers rather than emphasizing exercise and eating healthy. There's another website for teens. I don't remember what it is. Maybe someone else will weigh in on the topic. I'll look in my inbox for it.

But I'm sharing my journey with my students. They remind me to drink water, which allows me to discuss healthy drinking and eating. Sometimes I think we're so afraid of hurting each other's feelings that we can't be honest with each other about the important stuff...like our health. I mean, it has to be done in a secure, safe environment, I know that. But it seems like we're just sticking our heads in the sand, pretending our students aren't overweight, then scrambling around to protect them when they're bullied and harassed. We need to figure out how to empower our students to take charge of their health. Obviously, I don't have the answers, but I'd like to figure out some way to help them. Be a person they can confide in about their health.

ETA: http://www.sparkteens.com/

pete370

Excellent questions!!

1) You are definitely not the only one with fit and healthy friends who don't understand how it really feels to be living in less-than-healthy body. I have been blessed with great friends in my life, but many of them can't understand the position I'm in (which is having ALWAYS been overweight). You are not alone. Just stay focused on what you really want, and don't let it destroy relationships that are important to you.

2) People working in education walk a very fine line (not only with health issues, but with every other personal problem that might occur with your students). If you believe it is in the best interest of the student to be approached about their health habits, I would first consult a colleague (perhaps a counselor or health teacher). It might be helpful to know what lines to draw where in terms of getting involved.

Also, middle school is an "awkward" time for adolescents (especially girls!) Their bodies are going through so many changes. I know mine did. I weighed over 200 pounds at the end of 6th grade! (VERY unhealthy). But, it was also in middle school that I became involved in cheerleading and volleyball and dropped more weight than ever.

My question to you is do these girls have access to resources that will enable them to better their health (ie: money and time to prepare healthful meals at home, healthy options for school lunch, ability to become involved in sports or physical activities regardless of their current body type? That's a place to start. You, as a teacher, have little to no control over what parents and students do or don't do at home, but you do have the ability to advocate for healthy lunch and vending machine choices and be a voice to encourage the girls to get active and make the rest of the faculty aware of the health problems that exist in your school.

synchrohobbit

This is something I am very passionate about. I struggled with an eating disorder as a middle schooler, so after that all the adults around me felt like they had to constantly be pushing the every one is beautiful, weight doesn't matter message. I also believe that my parents never said anything about my younger brother and sister's unhealthy eating habits and weight in fear that they might set the "wrong example" for me. Right now the number of people struggling with obesity is far far greater than those who are under weight, and it would only make sense to focus on this. I definitely think at some point we got too consumed with how to interact with adolescents without hurting their fragile self esteem that we let them get away with quite a bit. I think it is just so important to take everything from a health perspective vs. a weight perspective in terms of eating right, exercising to support your heart as well as how you look, and generally just shifting the focus to the positive rather than the negative. I grew up in a wealthy suburb where, as a teacher said earlier, almost everyone did a sport and there were only a handful of overweight individuals, so all I know and have seen of this is basically from the news and seeing adults in the less metropolitan place I have moved to.