Healthy, balanced approach key in fight against obesity

Sometimes you can cover only so much in one article, even a cover story with ample room to write.

Last week, I featured eating disorders, namely anorexia and bulimia, as the cover story for this edition. The stories of two young women and the events of National Eating Disorders Week trumped the question that really intrigued me. I touched on it, but I don't think it rose to the surface of the story.

That question is this: With Michelle Obama creating a national campaign to fight childhood obesity, along with all the media attention on both the childhood and adult obesity epidemics, how do we balance it so that it doesn't have the potential unintended consequence of starting a new wave of eating disorders?

I'm all for throwing everything we have at obesity.

Increasingly, I'm of the thought that the health consequences of obesity have surpassed those of smoking, due largely to the successes of the concerted efforts to curb smoking. Like those efforts, there is so much we can do, or at least try to do, about obesity that we're not doing now. Simple, old-fashioned solutions such as mandatory physical activity for students, investing public and private dollars for bike and pedestrian lanes and trails, and, yes, a tax on soft drinks to fund health campaigns and initiatives.

Still, when we're talking about kids and obesity, we have to walk a finer line.

Last Thursday, I attended the Charleston premiere of "America the Beautiful," a Michael Moore-ish attempt at tackling America's obsession with beauty and the consequences of it.

Like the plethora of advocacy-oriented documentaries that have come out in the past decade, I didn't really learn much and suspect that those who attended it probably didn't either. It's kind of like going to church as an adult. You've heard 95 percent of the stuff before, but you feel the urge to hear it again.

After the movie, a panel of local eating disorder experts answered questions, and the topic that intrigued me came up.

I regret not having a notebook or tape recorder to keep up with who said exactly what, but in a nutshell, the panel members were concerned about the pending war on obesity.

In fact, many of them already are seeing patients who are in elementary school and cite alarming studies of large percentages of elementary and middle school children who are on diets, a precursor to developing an eating disorder. One panelist mentioned that a patient was scared after a teacher showed her class a glass container of fat tissue.

So yeah, we're going to have to walk a fine line with kids. Like adults, they, too, already are bombarded with advertisements for weight-loss clinics and diet books, so this stuff accumulates in our psyches.

Granted, I'm just an observer. I don't have a master's or Ph.D. in nutrition. And I don't even interact with kids on a daily basis.

But I think the key will be in emphasizing the vigorous, fun exercise, rather than the food. Unlike adults, kids are growing and may go through chubby periods before height spurts. That's not to say the effort doesn't need to clean up the food kids eat. Let's get the soft drinks and fast food out of schools and, like the first lady has been emphasizing, allow it as treats on special occasions such as birthday parties and not part of the daily diet.

In interviews I've read and heard with Obama, she seems sensitive to the possibility of overcorrecting the problem and feels certain the initiatives that come out of the "Let's Move" campaign will take eating disorders such as anorexia and bulimia into account.

Meanwhile, the local experts warned the audience at "America the Beautiful" that parents and teachers need to be sensitive not only about making comments about growing children, but about themselves.

In other words, constantly putting down your own love handles or spouses teasing each other about weight gain can sew the seeds of an eating disorder in children.

Stemming the tide of obesity will be difficult, and the nation likely is not going to experience an anorexia and bulimia epidemic in response, but it will be important for educators and parents to be aware of the potential risks for certain individuals.

Reach David Quick at 937-5516 or dquick@postandcourier.com.