No, You Will Not Make Your Kid Anorexic If You Teach Them About Health
Screw all the therapeutics; let’s start handing out reality checks for breakfast
While modern culture may suggest otherwise, anorexia develops out of issues far more complicated than being taught sugar is “bad” and butter is “fattening”. The basics of nutritional science can be a sting to many of us that grew up with ultra-processed foods being treated as primary meals: Twinkies and fun-size Oreos were snacks, and hot dogs with Wonder bread were dinner. We didn’t concern ourselves with the horrifying science behind how the pseudo-sausage was made, and our parents likely hadn’t thought twice about balanced nutrition. As we mature into adults who recognize the importance of eating more nutrient-dense foods, we may be aghast to find the “tablespoon” of peanut butter we’d been periodically scooping from the jar was actually equivalent to a 1950’s portion of kid-size ice cream. I get it— the self-reflection we would all benefit from is pulverizing in its ability to humble us. But I’d like to make one thing abundantly clear: none of these humbling realities “cause” eating disorders, and I certainly have never heard receipt of basic logic as contributing to disordered eating habits. Take it from me: I’m a former anorexia patient. And while my own experience and the experiences of other patients in the ward doesn’t represent all eating disorders, I can guarantee you that I’ve never heard one single anorexic or bulimic blame science for their struggles.
Maybe this is our penance for fixating on happiness and comfort above all else, including, but not limited to: common sense, scientific knowledge, research, truth, reality, or others’ perspectives. We’ve convinced millennial parents that the red dye in a fun-size bag of Doritos inevitably manifests into Autism Spectrum Disorder or related disabilities. Or that a failure to buy organic grapes plucked from the sanitary hands of cherubs will guarantee some form of sensory processing disorder or *gasp* childhood anxiety. There is growing research pointing to the correlations between a nutrient-dense diet, regular exercise, and significant decreases in symptoms of depression and anxiety; such evidence makes a marionette of my heart. That which slices its strings? The squawking mobs of people claiming that nutrient-dense food, and encouragement of anything remotely “good for you”, leads to clinical eating disorders or obsessive-compulsive fixations on health. But the sugar-high you’ve compassionately induced so your child won’t become dysregulated by being denied Thin Mints for breakfast? Completely copacetic.
Americans will do most anything but put forth effort, especially if laziness and lack of action is incentivized. Because we’re a culture of decadence and ease, it should come as no shock that the products with the least amount of effort and promises of dramatic results are those that tend to steal headlines and, in turn, revenue. Ozempic has been an eye-opening trend in the past couple of years. Calley Means refers to the use of Ozempic as being as symptom of America’s not healthcare, but “sick-care”, in which behavior-rooted obesity is not seen as behaviorally manageable, but as an inescapable disease. On a podcast debate in which people argued for or against the use of Ozempic, Means was stoic and concise: the obvious answer in regards to obesity is not to fund Ozempic using tax dollars and insurance programs, but to teach people skills to make healthier food choices and engage in healthier routines. In other words: why put us trillions of dollars into debt for a drug, when we could use that same funding to incentivize better food choices and overall better habits? Well… it’s the people who think being healthy is being mentally sick, and that children in particular must be shielded from health should they hope to avoid a lifetime of therapy.
This demonstrates an overall cynical and frankly pathetic view of humanity. That we’re so fragile and incapable and lazy that we couldn’t possibly handle the demands of exercise and eating well; we’re just screwed, so let’s drug everyone to lull them into a passive, sedentary stupor. In the debate, Means asked a professional with an opposing viewpoint why the answer is “drugging people” instead of just using the money towards better food sources. Her answer? That Americans essentially have no control over their behavior and therefore are lazy, and the best we can do is give them a boost with something like Ozempic. All of this in the name of, what… keeping people from developing disordered thinking?
So I’ll preface the remainder of this piece with this: You are not going to “give your child an eating disorder” by encouraging a healthy lifestyle. This is not an opinion or a hunch. It is a fact. Eating disorders develop primarily out of a need for control and have very little to do with scientific breakdowns of food. While I do understand the delivery being important, as someone who uses words like “good vs. bad foods” or “fattening versus slimming” may instill a disordered concept of food’s purpose, we need to accept that rationality always endures. Irrational responses sound like demonizing health, appreciating “bodies at any size”, deciding for yourself what metrics you’ll use to determine health despite not having a medical degree or thorough understanding of health, and the like. Rational responses and behaviors are those which aim for 80% consistency with health-related behaviors, and encourage younger generations to learn the basic principles of health to better prevent themselves from developing disease and disorder as they age.
Something I’d like for us to consider is how delusional this form of thinking is, even though it’s equal parts understandable. We’re so focused on feelings and preventing “trauma” that we consider any mention of nutrient-dense food to be indicative of a clinical eating disorder. We believe a parent who encourages their child to exercise is a pathetic abuser trying to live vicariously through their little hockey player. When I work with online nutrition clients, specifically those new to lifestyle changes and health education, one of the main concerns aired is, “I want to get healthy but I can’t do anything restrictive.” Firstly, why do we believe health is restrictive? Is it because of the heroin-chic era of Kate Moss or Twiggy whose knees bulge out like doorknobs because they have so little body fat to insulate them? Or is it because “diet culture” has insisted upon juice cleanses and carb detoxes being the only manner by which to achieve top-shelf fitness?
Regardless of the divergent sources, the analytical side of me grows annoyed with this logic. Have we become that ignorant to basic premises of health that we’re unwilling to admit that meals high in protein and vegetables aren’t “diet foods”, but just what we should be eating? Have we succumbed so desperately into convenience and ease that we respond with “Yeah, but I don’t like cooking” to any mention of cooking nutritious, nutrient-dense meals? Perhaps an apology is in order for what I’m about to say… but that is fucking bullshit. We are adults. I wholly resonate with the exhaustion and the stress and the fears of trudging through this tedious ride we call life, but are you kidding me? We need to understand that health isn’t in place as a therapeutic measure. We don’t engage in exercise as reactionary to gaining weight, nor do we go on walks because we’re trying to gain street-cred with the 10K-steps-a-day-crew. We do it because it’s good for us.
When people making more balanced food choices when presented with a buffet, or they eat their own packed, cooked lunch instead of inhaling pizza from the third company-provided lunch that week, co-workers roll their eyes and scorn at their “discipline”. “Ugh, of course you’re being so good. This is why I’m fat!” Why is basic health considered some unattainable form of “discipline” that only the highly self-controlled, militant Type A’s are capable of embodying? Perhaps this is my own compulsive dark soldier talking, but it’s shameful that we’re in a place societally that we scoff at people trying to uphold health for the sake of longevity. And trust me, I would absolutely destroy a pizza, an entire box of Thin Mints, or a Shrek’s-family-size serving of Reese’s Puffs. But I also don’t complain that “it’s just so much easier to eat than cooking my meat and vegetables”, “that I just really want it so I’m going to have it because I’ve had a stressful week”, or “I don’t feel like eating vegetables.” With a lifestyle that aims for consistency as the goal versus extreme ends of the starvation or indulgent spectrum, I don’t find myself particularly irked by basic responsibilities of adulthood. Being an adult means doing things over 50% of the time that are mundane, repetitive, tedious, completely useless and worthless, and an astronomical pain in the ass. I’m unsure why we feel that taking care of ourselves and the only body we have would be any different.
Alas, it’s our fetish for mental health being of greater importance than any other form of health. It’s still a bit astonishing that I see mostly women committing to cold-plunging, intermittent fasting, hot yoga, and/or some form of supplementation despite having an irregular sleep schedule, vaping or smoking weed almost daily, drinking sugary coffees with sweet snacks and deeming them “meals”, or inconsistently exercising because they “don’t have time”. It’s interesting that we expect health and change to occur through a saccharine osmosis, and that our transformation will simultaneously shift our mind into that of fully functional, Zen, and rational.
This is something I speak frequently about with parents of teenagers, as teens are pummeled with Insta-therapy and TikTok pop-psychology on a regular basis: frequently fixating on our mental health makes our mental health worse, much like fixating on our body image or a preoccupation with our appearance will likely result in body image issues. We’ve created a rigid contingency which posits that a pleasant state of emotionality is required should we proceed to take care of ourselves, and if there’s an absence of positive “vibes”, we can simply “give ourselves grace” for as long as we need. We apparently don’t take care of ourselves because we know it’s beneficial for our bones and joints and hearts, but because it “seriously improves our mental health”; if our mental health is already at an acceptable level, do we still exercise? Considering, you know, exercise being “therapeutic” is more important than exercise simply being a linchpin in living longer, healthier lives?
The social-emotional bent and therapizing-everything fervor are the driving forces behind health education only being acceptable if it feels good. Because of an entire generation’s perverse fascination with “complex trauma”, maybe I shouldn’t be surprised that parents are at a loss or are paralyzed with where, when, and how to start teaching these things to their kids. One of the most common concerns I hear from today’s parents, specifically younger parents with younger kids (think: older millennial parents), is that they’re “exploring food with their child” or “exposing them to health without forcing health”. This is admirable but, frankly, soft. Which makes sense- our culture demands children be treated as fragile flowers who are incapable of handling reality, logic, scientific fact, and even a modicum of difficulty. Again, let me be the one to tell you: there is zero information told to me about fat, protein, carbs that contributed to my development of an eating disorder. For others my age that were brought up on healthy meals, I can honestly say I’ve never heard ONE person claim that eating healthy growing up made them anorexic later in life. Even saying it out loud sounds a bit silly and reductionist.
Empathy is not blindly supporting a person’s idea of what they think is best for themselves. While I am a proponent, in several ways, that people know themselves best, we’re also historically very poor judges of our own behavior and decision-making. For individuals continuously defeated and frustrated with yo-yo dieting and hot Pilates or whatever the hell new trend is made available, we have to assume that their judgment is impaired regarding what is best for them. Not because we’re taking a cynical view similar to the one mentioned earlier, in which the argument was made that Americans are lazy. Not at all. We just have to be realistic with ourselves that when we’re in states of distress or frustration, our ability to think clearly is not operating on all cylinders. We typically are not receptive to hearing the truth and will therefore seek out only that which soothes our bruised ego. But we’ve tried the compassion thing, as well as body positivity and neurodivergent-everything… and where has that landed us?