Shock and Awe
In Boston, the MetroWest Community Health Care Foundation is launching an ad campaign to make parents aware of the dangers of fat kids.
One billboard shows an overweight child's lower legs and feet on a scale next to the words, "Fat Chance," along with a list of the health risks of obesity. A second billboard shows the back of an overweight child and asks, "If that's your kid, what are you waiting for?"
Sounds like someone scoped out a stock photo site and put together something on the quick. Nevertheless, the organization admits the campaign may bother people but of course, it's worth it. To them.
The article elaborates on the view of MetroWest which is, essentially, that parents are to blame for fat kids and they need to do something now. But above and beyond the laundry list of allegedly fat-related diseases comes this:
[Susan Green, who helped develop the campaign] said the health risk that gives her the greatest concern is an increase in depression among overweight children.
"It would be hard to see your kids depressed because they look a different way," she said. "That would be something I would hope people would respond to."
No offense Ms. Green but this is nothing new. Kids get teased and taunted. Kids get bullied about. Kids get picked on. This happens whether or not they're fat; if kids are different in any way, I'd think that depression could be a side-effect.
And besides, weight loss? Isn't the answer. The answer is to educate kids on size diversity, accepting and celebrating others' bodies, and get parents on board too. I guess it is up to the parents to get this message into kids' heads, but when parents feel bad about their bodies how can they ever pass it on to the next generation?
Lousy campaign, misguided message. [Thanks, Emily.]
Southwest Will Eat Itself | Diet Nation
Posted by paul on January 29, 2007| rosenleaf |
January 29th, 2007 | Link |
That is some kind of f'ed up
That is some kind of f'ed up logic. In order to help fat kids feel less depressed, let's spearhead an ad campaign that promotes self-loathing and unhealthy behaviors. Most all of the recent studies--even at Massachusetts' own Harvard--show that one of the primary risk factors for adult morbid obesity is dieting as a child. The whole thing is just ridiculous--almost to the point of making me think there's a conspiracy out there!
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| Meowzer |
January 29th, 2007 | Link |
So by this logic, children
So by this logic, children with frizzy black hair in classrooms full of kids with straight blond hair ought to be spending all their time and energy bleaching and straightening their hair so that they'll "fit in," because after all, we know that it's Not Fitting In that kills and it's the burden of someone who Does Not Fit to try try try to fit, at all costs.
OK then...so, what happens, if no matter what you do to your hair, it won't become this flaxen blond stuff? Suppose it just dries up, turns a scary color, and falls out? And then they pick on you even worse? Are you supposed to still try try try try try try try?
And that's just hair. Something that usually grows back. We're talking about something potentially much worse here, something that could potentially screw up a kid's hunger responses, metabolism and internal organ function for life.
We need -- NEED -- for larger folks who were put on diets at very young ages to step forward and decry the madness of this, and demonstrate to them that it does not work.
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| chartreuse |
January 29th, 2007 | Link |
What's really shocking to me
What's really shocking to me is that people apparently think that the Big Problem is the lack of awareness about child obesity? We all know that fat kids know that they are fat. Parents of fat kids know that their kids are fat. I am mystified as to how even the most rabid "obesity epidemic" types would think that this kind of thing is helpful to anybody at all.
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| chondros |
January 30th, 2007 | Link |
So, once again, it's so
So, once again, it's so important that fat people cease to be fat that any amount of social pressure and humiliation is justified. All in the name of saving fat kids from social pressure and humiliation, of course.
The anti-fat activists are apparently worried that the family will be too much of a refuge for fat kids. I wonder if this doesn't reveal the point at which those of us who believe in promoting fat acceptance shouldn't concentrate our efforts. Parents may be scared of their kids getting fat, especially when the ill effects of fatness are exaggerated and ill effects of parental nagging and repeated dieting are minimized. On the other hand, surely many parents would be receptive to countervailing messages: "Who should be the one to decide whether your kid is okay the way he or she is?" "Are you really willing to risk having your kid feel like he or she was never good enough for you, was never really loved?" "Is being thin more important than being a family?"
There must be some such way to dramatize the toll that the war on fat is taking on parent-child relationships.
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| LumpyLuv |
January 30th, 2007 | Link |
I am sure you have all seen
I am sure you have all seen the old psyc video of the experiment with the blue eyed and brown-eyed children. Making children feel different and set apart, telling them they are flawed and stupid will only lead to more problems. These children will either lose the weight and become vengeful, judgmental adults or not be able to lose the weight and have to fight for their right to exist. How is this creating a better future for our children? I realize people believe there is an epidemic and worry for our little ones health, but there are certainly better ways to accomplish the goal of health. I believe it is not about health, it is about conforming to an ideal and ostracizing those who don't fit into that ideal.
Please, why on earth would anyone want a family to be a safe haven, when the world is such a warm and forgiving place. As a therapist myself, I have seen the damage parents can do. They nag and push their children to do something, because it is "good" for them. That always turns out really well. **Sigh**
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| DeeLeigh |
January 30th, 2007 | Link |
Well, that news makes me
Well, that news makes me want to bang my head repeatedly on a hard surface. Shock? Yes. Awe? At the stupidity and (apparently subconscious) maliciousness, sure.
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| Buffpuff |
January 30th, 2007 | Link |
Y'know, sometimes I think
Y'know, sometimes I think the patronising arses who dream up these campaigns honestly do think fat people don't realise they – or their kids – are fat and that, furthermore, fat is a Bad Thing. I mean seriously, if anyone wants proof of the prevailing belief that fat people are dumb, feckless and ignorant they need look no further than these ads. Can't wait till we start getting them on my side of the pond. I just might have to take up graffitti....
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| rebelle |
January 30th, 2007 | Link |
Yet again, another example
Yet again, another example of preaching conformity when confrontation is needed. Is there anything we can actually do to address this insidious campaign?
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| Kunoichi |
January 30th, 2007 | Link |
Did anyone else catch
Did anyone else catch this?
http://paktribune.com/news/index.shtml?167538
Eating less fats could make kids overweight too
ISLAMABAD: Eating too little fat may make your kids overweight, says a study that highlights the need for eating the right amounts of fat.
I wonder how many of the anti-fat crowd will acknowledge this.
Of course, they're still using the BMI as a basis for all this. Meanwhile...
A key finding was that children with the highest insulin levels, a hormone that helps the body use glucose for energy, had gained the most weight since birth.
Uhm... heLLOO... this is news how?. It's long been known that elevated insulin levels trigger the body into fat storage mode. Oh, right - gaining weight is all about calories in/calories out. I forget about that. Silly me. slaps back of wrist
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| Kunoichi |
January 30th, 2007 | Link |
Just found another article
Just found another article on it that was more detailed.
http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/healthnews.php?newsid=61831
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| lioness35 |
January 30th, 2007 | Link |
When I was a little girl, I
When I was a little girl, I was teased not just because I was chubby, but also because I had freckles, wore glasses and my clothes were all old and outdated.
I was brought up in very poor conditions. I can honestly say that it was brutal on my self esteem, and I still deal with the long term effects of it.
These kids who teased me were also the ones who would take a beebee gun to school and shoot birds out of the sky. I was always the one who would rescue the birds and bring them home so my mom could call the SPCA.
I have always believed that compassion should be taught in school....like a class. Children are cruel to anyone and everyone who is different from they are whether they are fat, homely, or can't afford the latest fashions. If parents won't teach their children kindness, then the schools should.
Picking on chubby kids is only going to ostracise them even further from their playmates and make them an even more tempting target for bullies.
We have to teach kids that teasing and bullying is wrong. Instead of "demonizing" fat kids further by singling them out from the rest, single out the cruel kids and teach them to be kind. I think that would save a lot of hardship and pain.
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| Dreama |
January 31st, 2007 | Link |
Parents are already scared
Parents are already scared of their kids becoming fat. I've spent a lot of time in the past month of so answering questions on Yahoo Answers and I've answered no fewer than a dozen questions from mothers who want to know how soon they can stop giving their toddlers whole milk and switch to 2% or even skim. These are mothers of children as young as 14 months, obsessing over the fat content of their babies' milk!
Some people won't stop until children are born with eating disorders.
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| josecheung |
January 31st, 2007 | Link |
Yahoo News has a new link,
Yahoo News has a new link, to this update on the story:
Scales Tip Against Obese-Boy Billboard
http://news.bostonherald.com/localRegional/view.bg?articleid=180150
It says Metrowest is pulling the one with the fat kid's back, due to community outcry. Not because it's humiliating or histrionic. But because it shows "too much skin". Huh? Do boys and men in Boston keep their shirts on when they go swimming?
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| nwhiker |
January 31st, 2007 | Link |
I've answered no fewer than
I've answered no fewer than a dozen questions from mothers who want to know how soon they can stop giving their toddlers whole milk and switch to 2% or even skim.
I was ecstatic when I could give my son skim milk. Why? I hated having whole milk in the house, he was the only one who drank it and it was a total pain in the arse, it would go bad before he finished it etc etc etc. My daughters (child 1 and 3) never liked milk, so what little they drank was always skim, I didn't bother purchasing special whole milk for them, it would have gone bad too fast.
All this to say, is that there can be other reasons for wanting the kid to transition to skim.
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| dragonlady |
January 31st, 2007 | Link |
My son has always been slim.
My son has always been slim. He's 18 now and has a size 32 waist. He is a cute kid. Yet he has been teased and bullied and suffered depression on and off since around the time he turned 13. I have another son who is 15. He has always been on the chubby side. He got teased a little but he never suffered from depression. He is actually a lot more well-adjusted than my skinny son. Always has been.
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| Meowzer |
January 31st, 2007 | Link |
I wasn't all that fat as a
I wasn't all that fat as a kid -- just slightly chubby -- but boy, was I ever the target of bullies, because I was W-E-I-R-D. Cried at the drop of a hat, had hair that wouldn't "behave," a voice about an octave deeper than you'd expect from a girl my size, and no athletic ability whatsoever. Kids will find a reason, often a completely random one, to pick on you if they're in the mood to pick on someone -- and they're not above making something up if there's nothing factual on which to base their hostility. See Judy Blume's Blubber for an illustration of this -- at the end of the book, it's the perfectly slim, "normal" girl who is the bully target, and they invent reasons to "go after her," simply because it's...her turn.
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| Dreama |
February 1st, 2007 | Link |
nwhiker -- I understand that
nwhiker -- I understand that there can be other factors in wanting to transition a kid to skim milk, but these women are specifically freaked out by the fat content. They don't want their kids to get fat and they've bought into the dairy industry's own ads (now featuring Mariska Hargitay with her infant son in her arms) that all talk endlessly about low-fat milk, and how kids should drink it, without any regard to the fact that children under 2, and ideally, under 4, should not have restrictions on dietary fat.
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| ZoeC |
February 1st, 2007 | Link |
I've been a longtime lurker
I've been a longtime lurker but this is my first time posting because what Meowzer said about kids being put on diets really struck a chord. I was actually underweight as a child - to the point where I was taken to the doctor just to make sure I was ok and took malt pills. When I hit puberty I got chubby and that coincided just perfectly with starting middle school (back then called 6th grade) and I got tormented mercilessly by the pretty, Farrah-haired girls because not only was I chubby but I had very curly hair (a big no no back then). That created self-esteem issues that carried over into high school where - surprise, surprise - I grew 6 inches and got slimmer but still thought I was enormously fat because I wasn't a size 4 - so I was always on a diet and managed to diet myself up to the size I am now. I can't help but wonder what would have happened if I had just left myself alone, accepted myself, been told that it was ok to be different instead of people trying to "help me" by encouraging me to lose weight because then I wouldn't be so unhappy and miserably at school. Sorry if I was rambling.
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| EmilyH |
February 2nd, 2007 | Link |
When I was a kid, before I
When I was a kid, before I was a teenager, I was teased for being a geek. Then I was teased for being overweight.
Even if I had lost the weight, I would still have been made fun of for *something*.
What people don't get, is that it isn't the not fitting in that makes kids get teased. It is self-esteem, and the idiocy of parents who don't do anything about their kids teasing other kids (or in some cases, encourage it).
This ad campaign is only going to lower self-esteem. It is going to make the problem even worse than it already is, and I can tell you, as a former bullied fat kid, that being hyper-aware of your weight is not going to make anyone thin unless they go the anorexic route.
Gah!
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| DeeLeigh |
February 3rd, 2007 | Link |
I was also a fat kid who got
I was also a fat kid who got harassed in school, by both other kids and sometimes by teachers, too. By 8th grade, I wore an 18/20.
I was probably one of the 10-20 fattest kids in my 1600 student high school. I did all the same things my friends did: rollerskated, went skiing, rode my bike 3 miles to school and back each way. My mom was very nutrition conscious and was usually on a diet. I think that she did a good job encouraging me to learn about nutrition and to eat healthily, but I was never interested in joining in on her restrictive eating (calorie, carb or fat gram counting).
People worry about what happens to fat kids when they grow up. Well, I can tell you what happened to me. I've continued to live like a thin person, and at 37, I'm still the same size I was in high school. I didn't have any medical risk factors other than my weight then, and I still don't.
The best things to do with all kids is to encourage them to be active and eat a healthy diet. Some will be fat anyway, but they'll be fat and healthy. If I'd taken the dieting route as a teenager, I doubt I'd be better off then I am now.
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| avianmooch |
February 4th, 2007 | Link |
Yay, time for another round
Yay, time for another round of Blame the Victim! Remember kids, it's YOUR fault if you get teased, and you should do anything you can to be accepted! Anorexia rox!!!!!!1111
Sigh.
Time for a life story -- I was put on a mood stabiliser, Depakote, after I attempted suicide at 11 (I was also "fat" then, i.e. average), and I started to balloon. I hit 170 lbs. by the time I was 13, but my parents didn't take me off the meds for fear of causing an upset -- they did years later, and it turned out that the Depakote did absolutely nothing for me except make me eat compulsively. My mother tried a whole lot to get me thin again -- Weight Watchers (at 12?!), Atkins, South Beach, etc., all the diets that are horrible for you because they let you eat whatever you want as long as it belongs to group A or as long as it stays under X number of calories/points/etc. But I have to say.. it completely backfired. I starved myself for two months after my ex broke up with me, trying to be good enough for her again, and I still hate to eat anything over 150 calories at a time. It's a mental battle -- and people can really fuck their kids up if they pressure them like this.
I have to say, though:
"A key finding was that children with the highest insulin levels, a hormone that helps the body use glucose for energy, had gained the most weight since birth."
Uhm... heLLOO... this is news how?. It's long been known that elevated insulin levels trigger the body into fat storage mode. Oh, right - gaining weight is all about calories in/calories out. I forget about that. Silly me. slaps back of wrist
If you're going to be honest, you should admit that concentrated fat raises one's insulin far more than even table sugar does. In fact, carbohydrates will rarely, if ever, be stored as body fat -- no matter how refined they are. There's been a wave of low-fat backlash that I think is misplaced. Humans in the US have been eating more of EVERYTHING, not just carbohydrates. That means more fats and oils, too. So you can't really say that a low-fat diet has been tried and failed; low-fat is 10% of calories, 30% is not.
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| avianmooch |
February 4th, 2007 | Link |
Also, reading the rest of
Also, reading the rest of the comments, it's kind of funny that everyone's obsessive about low-fat milk, because of the handful of studies that show some effect on weight with increased milk intake, the two that showed weight gain were done with low-fat milk.
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