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Sad, Not Surprising: Overweight Girls Experience More Emotional Problems
New York, 2:21 PM
Mon Nov 30
35 posts in the last 24 hours
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Sad, Not Surprising: Overweight Girls Experience More Emotional Problems |
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07/10/09
07/11/09
07/10/09
I love my dad, but this is one of the very few things he has said that I find fault with. My only response was "That...probably doesn't get them to run any faster, now does it?"
07/10/09
Anyway, I've struggled with depression and anxiety disorders for years now (along with an abnormally high need for approval and affirmation from others), without a family history. Be interesting if my perception of my weight growing up had played into that.
07/10/09
I wish there was something that could have been done, but I'm not sure there is or was.
07/10/09
On a more serious note, I'm not surprised kids' psychological problems start out in elementary school, if only because little kids are horrible, evil beings for the most part. (When I was in kindergarten, I was systematically shunned for some horrible flaw I never managed to discover.) The corollary of that is the depressing, yet not surprising, realization that by the time a kid is in the early stages of elementary school, they already know enough about standards of beauty and "acceptable" body types to start humiliating their classmates.
Way to go acculturation! Woo!
07/10/09
07/10/09
07/10/09
In middle school gym class, they used fat calipers on our arms in front of everyone.
The public school system is excellent at fat shaming.
07/10/09
I have been chubby/overweight for most of my life and I have never felt as bad about it as I did in elementary/middle school. God, kids are mean.
07/10/09
And now, I'm leaving the post, because the pressure of feeling a moral duty to somehow judge the comments of other posters is unpleasant and makes me want to no longer take part in the conversation. And that feels like a loss to me, but there it is.
07/10/09
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07/10/09
http://www.theonion.com/content/video/in_the_know_should_we_be_shami...
07/10/09
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07/10/09
You're kidding, right? If anything I'd say elementary school children are more emboldened to make fun or isolate "fat" classmates because they're just old enough to know words hurt and too impulsive and immature to have real empathy. (That isn't to say older kids and adults aren't guilty of cruelty.) Boys in particular seem to "bond" through humiliating one another under normal circumstances, so when they target the lone "fat kid"...I wince to think about it.
This might be kind of unrelated.....child obesity rates are going up. Who the hell are these parents? Is it THAT not to feed your kid shit, or is it that we're getting fatter because we depend on cars and more junk is being incorporated into the American diet?
07/10/09
Or how about some parents have to work swing/night shifts and cannot always provide a square meal to their kids. There are a number of different scenarios I can think of, all of which end with the fact that obesity is a hard word to define and I hope we can find a way to not equate fatness with poor health.
07/10/09
To an extent, I realize it's both--especially considering how easy it is to eat already-prepared (and heavily processed) foods--and I don't simply equate "fat" with "greedy" or "unhealthy.
07/11/09
And of course, there is the fact that some kids are in fact at their ideal weight even though the chart says they are "overweight".
07/10/09
at least my teacher stepped in and made him aware that comment was inappropriate, but it's just one example of how cruel kids are to one another.
07/10/09
07/10/09
It just sucks, because mostly you're a happy-go-lucky kid doing your own thing, and someone will say something heartbreaking like that. It just shatters you at that age.
07/10/09
07/10/09
My teachers, though, were always awesome.
07/10/09
07/10/09
(((((hugs)))))
07/10/09
Yeah, my mom and my teachers (and my dad, to be fair) were always awesome. I was a sassy teacher's pet, and I think it saved me from a childhood and adolescence of self-loathing. It makes a huge difference.
07/10/09
07/10/09
1. Not so surprising. If anything, I would expect the stigma to be worse in elementary school than in adulthood because Kids Are Cruel. 2. I've gotten into trouble here a number of times for stating the exact sentiment written in the first line of the last paragraph. Is that an acceptable opinion now?
07/10/09
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07/10/09
I don't know, I don't think it needs to come up in every discussion about weight, but of course, it's not irrelevant.
07/10/09
07/10/09
I think those two issues are entirely different. And I think the second comment is brought up far more than the first.
07/10/09
07/10/09
Food is powerful, it's like a drug, and it can impact one's body and mind in countless ways. It's very interesting.
07/10/09
And more than one person believes that!! OMG!!!!
There's this concept in rhetoric about overkill destroying an otherwise "acceptable" point.
(There's this other thing about being less concerned about how many other people agree with one's point and just going on and making it - once - but I digress.)
Maybe you want to look into it?
07/10/09
07/10/09
07/10/09
And then please tell me what we should do to people who do not fit within that definition, whether it's by choice or not.
07/10/09
07/10/09
That said, you still can't ignore the powers of food, as I said above. And I certainly feel that, as VW said, getting kids on the right foot with their relationship with food is very valuable. Because food is so so important in life. And so delicious.
07/10/09
07/11/09
As to your first point: I don't know. I'm not a doctor, I've never once personally assessed (in a comment here or in real life) another person and said "Weeeellll, by the looks from behind this here computer, I do declare that person is UNHEALTHY." No. All I am saying is that, for most people who overweight, it would be more healthy to be less overweight. All that "most" means is "more than half," so, yes, I'm fully aware that there are exceptions. But I don't think thinking that "outrageous" opinion really warrants the reaction I'm getting here.
07/11/09
07/11/09
Yes, you do, whether or not you realize it. This is what you do in every single weight related post that you comment in when you say that being overweight equals being unhealthy. I appreciate that you get that there are "exceptions", but you're still saying that "most people who [are] overweight, it would be more healthy to be less overweight." My point is that you may be technically correct- I don't know, frankly, not being a doctor either- but I personally think it's very damaging language for us to use as a society. It sounds like judgment, whether or not it's intended as such. Using the term "unhealthy" to express disapproval and negativity about a person's body, replacing the accusatory "fat" with "unhealthy", as you often seem to do and as I have often seen done, affects more than the overweight, it affects the self-image of ANYONE who is unhealthy.
And yes, my second question was a bit tongue-in-cheek, but really, what do you suggest we do? Judgment time is over, it's time for some actual solutions to what you (and many others- as you well know you are not alone in your opinions) see as a very big problem (no pun intended, I swear). Fat people know about calories in/out, about exercise, about how they're perceived in the world, that people loathe and fear them; what else can we do? My suggestion is to stop treating them like lepers and idiots and to afford them the respect of other human beings, but I'm open to suggestions.
And to bring it around to the actual article, don't you find it interesting that the title of one of the reports is, "Weight Affects How Littlest Kids See Themselves"? I personally doubt that the littlest kids who are overweight see themselves at all as anything other than little kids until they're taught to do so by their peers, families, and teachers. But the phrasing used is quite typical to how these issues are presented; it seems that extra weight itself, fat cells, actually cause feelings of depression and inadequacy. Who knew.
07/11/09
07/11/09
It's not ignoring how the world actually works to be sensitive to all the different factors that are in play around weight and discussions about weight. To constantly reduce such discussions to statements about "science" or "health" is reductive and doesn't seem to get us anywhere (aren't you tired of having the same old argument every time this comes up? Me, too.).
Additionally, I don't know that the country on average is less healthy than it was a few decades ago; what I do know is that we have plenty of new diagnostic tools and a lot more knowledge about different diseases than we did a few decades ago and that that probably influences our perception of the overall health of the country. I also know that our nutrition in general is far, far better than it was a few decades ago, which sounds counterintuitive when we consider the ubiquitous nature of fast and processed foods, but when you consider that previous to the surplus of food we often had the opposite- a lack of food- and all the health problems associated with poor nutrition and hunger (when was the last time you met someone with rickets?), I hope you will agree that though we may have new of different health problems as a population, we probably don't have more or worse.
Of course, I am happy to be proven wrong, if you have some scientific facts to post about how the health of the country has declined on the whole which are not subject to these criticisms: improvement in diagnostics, change in definition of disease/ disorder, improvement in recording of diseases/ disorders (keeping in mind than many populations were underrepresented or completely ignored in medical research and recording for decades or centuries), or tracking of only currently common diseases/ disorders (such as diabetes) without taking into account other diseases or disorders that are no longer felt by the population at large (polio, TB, measles, mumps, scurvy, starvation related diseases).
As a general note about health and weight, I would also like to note that I recently heard new research (it was on NPR but I can't find link) that suggests that the rise in Type 2 diabetes may be linked (may be- nothing definite) to PBA's. PBA's are known as endocrine system disruptors and have been shown to cause feminization in alligator and other reptile populations, and may be wreaking havoc with human endocrine systems as well (research is still preliminary). This is a jump at this stage, but I put it to you whether or not these types of chemicals may contribute to higher weights as well, since increased estrogen in a human system can be linked to weight gain. In any case, I find it interesting that there may be an entirely different underlying cause for diabetes, which is often portrayed as the primary health issue for the obese and overweight. See, I like science, too.
07/11/09
The fact that diabetes might have a number of causes isn't surprising - it's expected; we already know there are a lot of factors that affect whether someone will develop diabetes - genetics, gender, race, and, yes, eating too much food that literally wears out your insulin receptors. The fact that there's yet another possible factor doesn't change the fact that some people with diabetes would not have gotten diabetes if they weren't overweight and some other people who have diabetes will find that losing weight improves their health.
07/11/09
I have so much more to say and that thought is totally unfinished- this is really interesting, where we're going with this- but I have to go to the beach! I'll probably check back in later if you're interested in continuing the discussion.
07/11/09
A meal from Burger King is designed so that it's literally addictive, with the sugar water drink, the cheese and protein, and the carbs. Our modern life is killing us and if your body is at all inclined to packing on that weight, you have to eat like a dirt farming hippie to avoid Ameican fatty syndrome.
07/11/09
The maddenign thing is that we've evolved to want the worst things. Ykno how it seems like good tasting things are always bad for you and bad tasting things are always healthy? As some dood on TedTaslks pointed out, we evolved that. Sugar isn't inherently "sweet," we evolved taste buds that appreciate sugar because sugar gives us certain life-giving properties. The same our love of deep fried fatty meat. That burger isn't just good, your mouth tells you it's good in case there just may be a famine tomorrow.
07/11/09
I'm all for finding ways to make healthy food and opportunities to exercise safely accessible for every one, because those things are good for pretty much everybody. But it's not just knee-jerk PC-ness or "hurt feelings" that makes people have strong feelings about how we talk about weight and health. It really is about rights and how we want people treated in society.
07/12/09
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I pretended to be horrified but totally tried it the next time we climbed the rope. It worked.
07/10/09
07/10/09
I can still put my hands flat on the floor without bouncing first. And, yes, boys - I'm single.
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o rly? i couldn't possibly have a bad knee that prevented me from performing.
you can't do one pull-up? oh my, you must be terribly unfit. o rly? i bet i could squat more than twice that weight.
it's a terrible TERRIBLE "fitness test".
07/10/09
Equally as tramatic? Being able to beat every boy in your class due to gymnastics, and being taunted for it. :0/
07/10/09