Kids' Diet Cause Media Furor

Kids' Diet Cause Media Furor

Adults taking on diets, even the fad ones, seem pretty normal and not one that will cause alarm; but when a seven year old lists down a diet list and a workout plan, the people around her may need to give it a bit more of their attention.


Young Kids Dieting May Be Rooted To Bullying In School

Amy Cheney, an Australian mom, wrote on her blog about how her 7-year old daughter had been influenced by a group of 7-year olds to take on a diet to lose weight. Cheney, who took courses in early childhood studies, expressed her anger over having to deal with the issue she and her husband had been protecting their children from going through.

There had been an outrage all over the internet on an article published by Vogue about another mom from Manhattan, Dara Lynn-Weiss, who decided to put her 7-year old child on a diet. Much of the indignation expressed by parents was directed on the method that the mom used on her child to lose sixteen pounds in a year.

Vogue did not publish the article online but based on several excerpts posted all around the blog-sphere, the mom did what most people would consider demeaning and cruel such as engaging in heated public arguments with her child on why her she shouldn’t eat this or that or making a scene at a Starbucks branch when the barista couldn’t determine its calorie content.

The concerns raised on early childhood dieting extend from the physical health (the child’s lack of nutrition) and mental health (early stages of anorexia, low self esteem, etc.)

According to Dr. Mary Gavin of kidshealth.org, children don’t really need to be put on strict, depriving diets; what they do need is to be provided with more nutritious foods and to just be more active. And just like it is with adults, fad diets and crash diets will not help and will only cause the people, both adults and kids, to be sick.

There have been studies indicating kids, as young as kindergartners, showing signs of early anorexia.

Here’s an article on The Huffington Post about it:

Kids On Diet May Have Anorexia

A recent study from Texas A & M also suggests that Cheney's daughter's decision to take up a diet after hearing about it from a friend isn't altogether surprising.Researchers found that peer competition may contribute more significantly to adolescents adopting negative perceptions about their bodies than the media does.

There are also rare cases of children showing signs of anorexia as early as kindergarten. ABC News recently recounted a story about a kindergartner who confessed to her mother that she was always hungry.

"Mommy, I have a problem … I am hungry all the time and I can't eat," the girl reportedly told her mother, according to ABC News. "A voice in my head is telling me not to eat."

Diet Issues Among Children Caused By Bullying

Issues on obesity are not new. In fact, just a year ago, a news anchor replied to a critic on her weight issue, pointing out on bullying, which can also be a cause of these unnecessary weight concerns among children.

WKBT’s Jennifer Livingston said, “Our schools have become a battleground. And this behavior is learned, it is passed on. Like the man who wrote me that email, if you are home and you are talking about the fat news lady, guess what? Your children are probably going to school and call someone ‘fat’.

We need to teach our children to be kind, not critical. And we need to do that by example.”

The fact is that some children need a change in their diet habits to address health issues. But the proper way to go about it is to consult a nutritionist, a child physician and an expert in kids fitness.  Children should be encouraged to adapt a more active lifestyle by introducing them to sports and other physical activities that they might not be aware they’re missing out on. External pressures such as bullying have never contributed positively to this process.