Dieting is making teenagers sick. Canadian Pediatric Society says it’s time to step back
Braunwyn Black always felt like a happy and confident child — until she was 13 and started feeling insecure about her body for the first time.
“I guess, I innocently started looking into how I could lose a little bit of weight. And it started out very innocently actually. You know, what’s healthy? What’s that recipe on Pinterest that has grapes in place of the X?” Black, 24, told CBC News.
“That’s how it started. And it changed so quickly.”
For the rest of her adolescence, Black struggled with various types of disordered eating. She was inundated with social media content that equated thinness with health, and drew a strict line between “good” and “bad” food. When she sought help from her family doctor, she was dismissed.
The Canadian Pediatric Society (CPS) says it’s a problem that has gotten worse. That’s why They have issued updated guidelines Emphasizing that “dieting during adolescence can have serious and lasting physical and mental health consequences” and urging health care providers to “move away from weight-focused care.”
‘The message on social media is that being thin is the ideal’
Dr. Ellen Toulani, co-author of the new CPS guidance, says there was a time when society seemed to be moving away from diet culture and toward body positivity.
But she says, it is not so now.
“Young people are using and consuming social media a lot more, and the message on social media is that being thin is the ideal,” she explains. as it happens Host Nil Koksal. “It’s constantly sending messages.”
She says that message is reinforced by peers at school, by parents at home and, in some cases, by doctors in the health care system.
as it happens6:34Canadian Pediatric Society warns of dangers of dieting in teens
Eating disorders among youth in Canada It started increasing in the early stages of the epidemicAccording to the National Eating Disorders Information Center (NEDIC). At one point, call volume on its health line and chat service increased 100 percent.
CPS estimates that one-third of Canadian girls aged 10 to 14 have dieted, and by Grade 8, more than half of youth have attempted to lose weight.
Toleny says this is worrisome, because dieting is dangerous, especially for teens whose brains and bodies are still developing.
Dieting — defined as restricting or modifying food intake with the goal of changing one’s body — can disrupt puberty and growth, she said, and lead to nutritional deficiencies, menstrual irregularities and decreased bone density.
CPS says it is a major risk factor for teens developing serious eating disorders and is associated with a greater risk of suicidal behavior in adulthood.
“When a young person is not eating enough, it impacts how they feel about themselves and how they look in the world,” Toulani said.
What is health at every size?
Tolney is an adolescent medicine specialist at the Hospital for Sick Children in Toronto who works in the field of obesity and disordered eating.
In both areas, she takes a “health at any size” approach to care, she says. CPS guidelines urge other health care providers to do the same.
This means taking a broader view of health that goes beyond the number on the scale.
“A person’s (ideal) weight is what he or she can achieve by practicing safe, sustainable, healthy behavior and enjoying life,” Toulani said.
It also means giving up the idea that there is good and bad food.
“All foods are included in our diets. And there are some that we have more of, those are the healthy foods that we typically think about, but then there are the treat foods or the unhealthy foods. Those fun foods also have a place in our diet,” she said. “Young people need to hear that message.”
The guidelines urge health care professionals to regularly screen youth who have shown changes in their eating habits to disordered eating – regardless of their weight – and connect them with the help they need.
Tolaney says the idea is to prevent kids who are struggling from slipping through the cracks because they don’t see a certain path.
Gatekeeping by family physicians
That’s what happened to Black when, at her parents’ insistence, she confided in her primary care physician about her struggles when she was 13 and how her obsession with regulating her food intake was beginning to impact her life.
They placed him on a scale and determined that his weight was not below the dangerous limit.
“The feedback I got was something like, ‘This is a phase.’ He asked about side effects. I noted that it had ruined my period and he kind of said, ‘Okay, we will give you A few iron pills,” he said. “And that’s all.”
Christine Agbob and Lisa Brooks of the Looking Glass Foundation say rates of eating disorders have increased since the COVID-19 pandemic, and Canadians under the age of 35 are at the highest risk of developing an eating disorder.
She would not ask for help again until her twenties. She now thinks of that experience as medical gatekeeping.
“If you want any level of help or care that can be publicly funded, you have to go to your primary care physician to get that referral, to get that diagnosis, to get those initial evaluations,” she said.
“But they have to be able to recognize this disorder beyond just looking at a number.”
Ariel Maharaj, a psychiatrist and community educator at NEDIC, says primary care doctors are not always well educated about the signs and dangers of disordered eating.
But they are well aware that weight is a risk factor for them many health Conditions including diabetes, high blood pressure and heart disease.
“Then, it’s natural that a health care provider hearing all this concern about weight (would) be really concerned about it, and want to be preventive intelligence.H That,” he said.
“But what we have found, unfortunately, is that the focus on weight in health care may mean that the person who is affected (by disordered eating) may not feel comfortable bringing it up to their health care provider…thinking they are going to be stigmatized.”
Help is available
Black says she has been doing much better recently. She recently completed a master’s degree in public health and works with NEDIC To share his story for the next generation.
But she is not sure whether she will ever fully recover.
“I don’t think that voice (in my head) will ever completely go away,” he said.
She worries about today’s kids, who are exposed to even more anti-fat messages online than she was.
“The thing that’s quite damaging about physical conversations and dietary conversations is that it can feel like an ocean and sometimes like a tsunami of messages and information,” she said.
“It’s very easy to fall into that wormhole. And not just fall into, but I think more and more this narrative is being promoted that smaller is better and smaller is healthier.”
She wants young people to know there are options NEDIC Hotline.
“For anyone who thinks they’re struggling in any capacity, I would advise them to know that just thinking you’re struggling is enough… and you are worthy of help,” she said.
“There are countless resources out there.”
If you or someone you know is struggling with disordered eating, look for help here:
