An article appearing in The New York Times last week raised questions about parents who take public health messages to the extreme. Could parents' attempts to help kids eat healthy food be backfiring and causing disordered eating? An 8-year-old boy interviewed for the article said that he worries about calories and getting enough vitamins, but most of all he worries about sodium. "Sodium makes your heart beat faster, so it can create something really serious," he said. The boy's mother is proud of his nutritional knowledge, but nutritionists have begun expressing concerns that some parents are behaving obsessively.

Cynthia Bulik, the director of the eating disorders program at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, commented for the article: "We're seeing a lot of anxiety in these kids. ... They go to birthday parties, and if it's not a granola cake they feel like they can't eat it. The culture has led them and their parents to take the public health messages to the extreme." (Source: www.nytimes.com)

Labels: parents, role-models, influences

Posted By: Aspen Education Group