It’s All in Yo Head

Some German researchers just went through the trouble of interviewing 7,000 11-to-17 year-olds about their body image issues–and unearthed some surprising results. (Cue pinky to corner of mouth here, Austin Powers style).

Even though about 75% of the kiddies were considered “normal weight,” half of the “normal weight” girls and a quarter of the “normal weight” boys thought they were TOO fat. I guess 25% were considered not “normal weight,” as in ” actually were too fat.” 

The kiddies then were all given quality-of-life and self-esteem tests and–surprise, surprise–the “I think I’m too fats” scored as poorly as the “actually were too fats” in these areas. And when it came to family relationship questions (I wonder what those were), the “I think I’m too fats” scored lower than the “actually were too fats.”

Which led some publications to come up with versions of the following unfortunate headline when covering this issue: “Feeling Fat Is Worse Than Being Fat.” Enough said.

The findings were published in the current issue of Deutsches Ärzteblatt International, a German medical journal.

I’m Baaack…

My hard drive died a painful death, so I haven’t been a’ postin’ of late. But it’s been given mouth-to-mouth and brought back to life, so postin’ will commence henceforth.

Meanwhile, here is a Quote of the Day:

“Food is an important part of a balanced diet.” 

-Fran Lebowitz

 

Mama Says Knightley’s Not Ana

Poor famous, rich celebrities: When it comes to weight, they have to ride this really thin…sorry…line of what’s acceptable, or face the clucking of the peanut gallery. If they’re a lil’ chubby, certain body parts end up on the cover of the National Inquirer, and we’re made to figure out which cellulite studded behind belongs to whom.  A little too skinny (case in point: Nicole Richie’s shockingly portruding bones in blue bikini) and they have to endure the accusation (true or not) that they’re anorexic. It’s a classic case damned if you do and damned if you don’t. Not to mention the fact that if they do happen to be anorexic or bulemic, they were probably driven there by the exacting standards of the the body ideal, as held up by Hollywood.

Anyway, I was inspired to get on the above soapbox after reading that Keira Knightley has now enlisted her playwright mother to dispute the long-standing rumors that she’s ana: “She eats like a horse” says Sharman Macdonald. “I always want to apologise because she can eat anything that she wants and she does not put on weight.”

Knightley’s grandmother and great-grandmother both suffered from anorexia, and her repeated denials to the media that she’s following in their footsteps have fallen on deaf ears.

Guess that’s the price of fame.

Letter to Self

I’m writing to remind you: Food is not companionship. It is not love. It is not friendship. It is not satisfaction. It is not happiness. It is not success. It is not purpose. And no matter how good it looks or how well it sells itself, it is not a lover. It is not a slow run by the lake. It is not a conversation with a good friend. It is not laughter. It is not holding hands with the one you love.  It is not curling in bed with a good book. It is not a day at the beach along a roaring ocean. And it won’t blunt that other hunger you are trying to satisfy, each time you open your mouth and chew and swallow, even when you don’t want to. 

The Scale is My Enemy

Ah, the weighing scale. An innocent enough instrument but nevertheles suspected by many to be the devil’s contraption and thereby the cause of much anxiety, much consentration, and much gnashing of teeth for men and women across the developed world. I myself had never had much to say about the scale; that is, until the other day when, while at the gym, I unwittingly stepped on said abomination and promptly lost all self esteem. See, I was feeling great about my body that day, too; had just started an excercise routine that was manageable enough for me to remain committed, at least through the second week, and was swinging my hips as I walked to the gym. You couldn’t tell me that I didn’t look good. Shut yo mouth.

But then I got to the gym’s bathroom and lo and behold, there was the scale. And before I knew what happened (it was like I was hypnotized by its dark pull), I had stepped on it, and the numbers on the display beat my good mood to the ground with a hammer. I looked at the mirror behind the scale and suddenly saw a woman I hadn’t seen all day reflected back at me. This one looked a lot less sexy, a lot more soft in the middle than previously realized. Where did she come from, this stranger? Was she there all along? How did I not see her before? She was so…big. A string of thoughts ran through my head, all fast and fuzzy:

butfivepoundsweheredidthefivepoundscomefrom

buti’vebeenworkingoutbuti’vebeentryingtoeatbetter

butbutbut…

You get the drift. I almost took my fat ass off the scale, took it home, and fed it some ice cream. But then I came to my senses. It wasn’t me. It was that damned scale.

Quote of the Day

“For the millions of us who live glued to computer keyboards at work and TV monitors at home, food may be more than entertainment. It may be the only sensual experience left.”-Barbara Ehrenreich, author, social critic

The War Against Baby Fat

“Weight management” programs for kids are becoming all the rage. And by kids, I ain’t talking teenagers or even middle-schoolers. I’m talking toddlers and preschoolers, as in 3-year-olds. Pediatricians and others are deciding that it’s never too early to “start managing children’s weight.” Such programs are still experimental and new, which means no stats exist as to whether they actually work. What do kids do in these programs? Attend weekly meetings where they learn arts-and-crafts projects about fruits and veggies and learn about “thumbs up” and “thumbs down” foods. 

I’m so torn about this: On the one hand, I tend to think of preadolescence as being the only time when a human being in this day and age can be free of the mental turbulence brought on by image, weight, and food issues. I would hate for that to be tarnished. I figure kids have all the time in the world to worry about their love handles and their fat thighs–why start at 3?

On the other hand, I know that kids are getting bigger younger. According to the stats, “obesity rates among 2- to 5-year-olds rose to 12.4 percent on average for the years 2003-2006, compared with 5 percent in 1980, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. …Some children as young as 5 now suffer from Type II diabetes and high cholesterol, conditions that primarily used to affect adults.”

Frightening. We ain’t in Kansas no mo’, Toto.

Thin Obsession

Steve Jobs unveiled the new 3G iPhone yesterday, and one of its “cool” new features is that it’s (drum roll, please)…thinner. Yes, skinnier. Maybe I’m being a tad bit paranoid here, but what is UP with our propensity for thin gadgetry? It’s like the more obese we get, the more skinny we want our electronic appendages to be. As extremetech puts it: “I’m starting to wonder if Steve Jobs has some kind of anorexia complex or something…must every product be slimmed down to an extreme? Come on Steve, lighten up and go get yourself a freaking ice cream cone or something.”

Speaking of the skinny on Steve Jobs, Gawker and Valleywag had this to say about the incredible shrinking Apple CEO, himself. Apparently, media types covering the reveal of the iPhone were just as, if not more, obsessed with Jobs’ weight as they were about his incredible shrinking new product.

The Devil Eats Nada

I’m hoping everyone has seen “The Devil Wears Prada” already, because here comes a spoiler: Remember how Emily Blunt’s character in the movie was starving herself to get thin enough to go to Paris?

“I’m on this new diet,” she says in the movie, earnestly. “I don’t eat anything and then, when I feel like I’m about to faint, I eat a cube of cheese.” Pure comedy.

Well, turns out that she might not have been just acting. Co-star and actress Anne Hathaway reveals that she and Blunt had to starve themselves in real life for their roles in one of my fave movies ever (quick aside: if you knew about my former job, you would totally understand why I positively H-E-A-R-T this flick). Anyhoo, Hathaway goes on to say that she endured a “grueling diet” to lose a “lot of weight,” and that ”Emily Blunt and I would clutch at each other and cry because we were so hungry.”

What if there was a movie about young fashionistas who actually ate normal meals and had normal figures and still led uber-fierce, successful lives? A girl can dream, can’t she?

Staying Sick or Going Broke

That’s a choice no one should have to make. News about lawsuits dealing with eating disorders against insurance companies has been bubbling for a while now, but ABC News just did the most comprehensive story I’ve seen about it. The issue: should people with eating disorders have a right to expect their insurance to cover the costs of treatment? The answer, to me, is yes.

But in many states, insurance companies only cover 30 or 60 days in the hospital. So what happens to people who literally might have to stay in the hospital for months in order to regain health? Well, they’re out of luck–take the case of Janell Smith, a 26-year-old who was admitted to the hospital weighing 68 pounds! She was put on a feeding tube. Less than a month later, Magellan, her insurance company, allegedly discharged her, without consulting with her doctors. A week later, she committed suicide. Her father says there were empty food wrappings around her, when her body was found.

Equally tragic are stats such as this: “An estimated 11 million people in the United States have eating disorders, the vast majority of them young females, but many insurance companies have been reluctant to cover the full extended cost of treatment, which can run more than $1,000 a day.”

A $1,000 a day equals to $30,000 a month, $90,000 every three months and like a gazillion dollars for any sort of long term care.

Insurance companies argue that eating disorders should not be characterized as biologically based mental illness, which some research disputes.