There’s an excellent essay by Harriet Brown in the New York Times about the Food Police and War On Obesity . . .

. . . In Arkansas, for instance, children’s report cards now include their B.M.I., or body mass index, along with their grades. The governor, Mike Huckabee recently lost more than 100 pounds and is passionate about stopping the “obesity epidemic.” Maryland is considering a similar standard.

Never mind that B.M.I. is only a measure of height against weight and does not take into account muscle mass, body type or other factors. (Tom Cruise has a B.M.I. of 31, which puts him in the “obese” category.)

“You’re setting kids up to feel bad about how they are,” says Dr. Nancy Krebs, chairwoman of the American Academy of Pediatrics’ Committee on Nutrition and an associate professor of medicine at the University of Colorado.

Such efforts usually fail, making weight problems and eating disorders worse. A recent Internet discussion board among families with anorexic and bulimic children identified middle school health classes, which focus on weight, as the No. 1 trigger for their teenagers’ disorders.

The food wars are being fueled by our emotionally fraught relationships with food, and by increasingly hysterical rhetoric.

We often hear, for instance, of a rising tide of obesity and Type 2 diabetes, especially in children. But the science behind such pronouncements is shaky. A study of nearly 3,000 children presented at the American Diabetes Association’s 2005 conference suggested that a third of the children diagnosed with Type 2 diabetes, which is associated with being overweight, were later found to have Type 1 diabetes, linked to genetics.

Abigail C. Saguy, a sociologist at the University of California, Los Angeles, who studies media framing of obesity, says it’s hard to know if rates are truly rising, since no nationally representative data are available.

One study of teenagers in the Cincinnati area found that the diagnosis of Type 2 diabetes went from 7 per 100,000 teenagers per year in 1982 to 7.2 per 100,000 teenagers per year in 1994 — a difference that could easily be a result of better diagnostics.

. . .
What worries me even more than the words being thrown about in the food wars are the unspoken messages we’re giving our children about their bodies, themselves and the food they eat. Prohibiting that second slice of pizza sends a message that pizza is bad, that there are good foods and bad foods, safe foods and dangerous foods — a perceived dichotomy that every anorexic is all too familiar with.

I can hear the howls of outrage, imagine the letters I will get as a result of saying this. But I will say it anyway: We have nothing to fear but fear itself. That is, our twin fears of fat and food, and the consequent distortions in the way we feed ourselves and our children, will damage us far more than a bowl of ice cream every now and again.

“Emphasize providing, not depriving,” Ms. Satter suggests. “Maintain the structure of meals and snacks so children can count on getting fed — and fed enough.”

So serve another slice of pizza. Bring on the chocolate cupcakes. Dish up the broccoli soup and burritos, the strawberries and cheesecake. Give kids more time to run around and play, and also more time to eat. Teach them about the joys of food, not the terrors. And maybe they’ll grow up less ambivalent and healthier than we are.

Copyright 2006 The New York Times Company
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