Fear of Obesity Hits Youngsters : Adult Diets More Harm Than Good for Growing Adolescents
Fear of obesity is causing well-meaning parents to impose adult dietary health standards on growing children and it could be doing more harm than good.
A 1983 study of youngsters ages 9 to 17 at North Shore University Hospital in Manhasset, N.Y., found that 7% of the children were malnourished and 3% had delayed sexual development as a result of inadequate diets.
“We are not talking about youngsters growing up in Latin America or India. We are not talking about food scarcity. These were American children who are following the diets which are currently being recommended for most adults. They were having a low-balanced low-volume diet. Like their trim-and-slim parents they were skipping meals to avoid getting fat. But their growth was stunted because of malnutrition. This shows that we cannot impose adult dietary standards on growing children without serious consequences,” said Dr. Fima Lifshitz, professor of pediatrics at Cornell University Medical College, speaking to news writers at the sixteenth annual nutrition press conference in Laguna Beach recently.
Fear of Obesity Is Common
Lifshitz pointed out that stunted growth patterns among children is not an overall problem in America. Fear of obesity, however, is prevalent throughout America and it is affecting the proper growth of children.
For proper growth, Lifshitz said, children require an average of 2,500 calories and up to 4,000 if the child is active, while female adults require from 1,700 to 2,500 calories. Severely restricted diets that cause malnutrition can also stunt growth and delay sexual development.
In most cases, growth resumes with proper dietary intervention. Without intervention and once puberty sets in, growth remains stunted and sexual development is aborted.
In the Lifshitz’ study of 201 children, of whom two-thirds were males, the children consumed as little as 32% to 91% of their recommended caloric intake, neglecting protein-rich foods needed for growth and skipping meals.
In the study, the families of the children studied were excessively concerned with fat. “The families of all these patients combined consumed one egg in one week. They avoided shellfish because of cholesterol and fat content,” explained Lifshitz.
‘Terribly Surprised’
“The patients’ moms and siblings were slim and trim and they wanted to be slim and trim, too. They were terribly surprised when I told (the parents) that the patient was not growing and developing because of not eating enough calories,” said Lifshitz.
Most children in the study were “terrified” of being fat. “Even if they didn’t have fear of obesity, they had eating binges and a high incidence of vomiting to control their weight. But they were not bulimics or anorexics. They are normal adolescent girls in high school. This could be potentially dangerous and detrimental to their health,” Lifshitz said.
In the United States, pointed out Lifshitz, there is a 1.2% fall-off growth rate among high school adolescents, compared with a 0.8% weight gain among obese adolescent children. “In other words, we know that if these statistics reflect what might be going on in all parts of the county, it is not that children are all short, but in about 2% of instances they are not growing appropriately.”
Attitudes toward slimness are responsible for inappropriate eating habits among today’s young children, Lifshitz believes. Obesity is shunned even by children in our society. “Even doctors do not treat fat patients as sympathetically as they would someone in a wheelchair,” said Lifshitz. “To be obese is really quite a handicap and quite a load to bear in our society. So it is no surprise that this disorder, fear of fatness, should be evident in our society.
“It is not an organic problem or a psychological problem. It is a psychosocial situation in which familial and social concern with obesity manifests itself in the poor growth and late sexual development in children. Adults who don’t have to grow don’t have to worry about that. But children, whose primary role is to grow, will fail to develop sexually during adolescence without appropriate nourishment for growth.”
Passing It On
Lifshitz also is concerned about young mothers whose preoccupation about being overweight is responsible for passing on inappropriate eating patterns to their infants. At Lifshitz’ clinic, one group of seven children who were not thriving well were also not being fed an appropriate amount of calories. “The mothers were not feeding the children because they didn’t want their children to be fat or get atherosclerosis. When given appropriate nutrition they all had nice increases in weight and regained normal amounts of weight.”
Lifshitz said that three parents had a fear of obesity. “They had been fat as a child or adult and did not want their children to have the same problems they had. They restricted calories to a point that the children were not thriving well,” said Lifshitz.
Of the group, two other mothers had heart disease problems in the family and were on very low-fat diets.
Lifshitz said that the health beliefs of the parents were so ingrained, they resisted taking his advice to increase calorie intake. “It required a lot of counseling and coercion. They believed that I endangered their lives because I provided fat, calories and even junk food,” said Lifshitz.
About one-third of the adolescent girls in the study were dieting. Diets to lose weight were prevalent whether they were obese or seriously underweight.
Lifshitz blames the media for contributing to improper attitudes toward health and fitness. “I think it is one of our aims to point out that any extreme is not appropriate and following a diet to extremes might not be proper. Those very adolescents who follow the dietary advice of no eggs, no milk, and so on, are those who fail to thrive.”
