Dieting mothers have anorexic daughters, study suggests

Dieting mothers have anorexic daughters, study suggests...

Okay, I should not take the bait on this, but since I subscribe to a lot of news-feed services this "study" keeps landing in my inbox with a trail of increasingly offensive headlines.

I am painfully aware that families often get their information about healthcare issues from articles like these, and worse still that these types of pieces are what help form public opinion and mother-in-law conversations and the tsk tsk over coffee among one's friends when one is not there.

So, I'll take the bait.

This is not a "study." This is a poll of magazine readers. Polls are not science, they are not representative of the population; they tell you something about the market of that magazine.

Correlation is not causation. Both moms and their daughters are under similar and related pressures to diet.

The culture of dieting runs in families and social groups.

Eating disorders run in families - one's risk is 50-80% determined genetically.

Dieting is not the same as eating disorders.

Why do I expend so much energy trying to refute this kind of thing? Am I just hellbent on defending parents no matter what? Have I no sensitivity to the toxicity of a dieting environment and the influence of mothers on their daughters?

I spend energy on this because I AGREE that no one should be dieting, that some parents are terrible role models, and that an environment of dieting and body hatred is toxic. The question is whether an eating disorder is a sign of those things - and I would argue that an eating disorder is not a sign of anything except a predisposition to respond to dietary restriction/energy imbalance with a self-perpetuating mental illness.

When we admonish moms for dieting - something that our entire society is actively and delightedly and almost religiously ENCOURAGING - because it causes eating disorders we make two mistakes. One is that an ED diagnosis becomes a witch hunt for the bad influences in one's life when there is no evidence whatsoever that this helps prevent or treat an eating disorder: none. The second mistake is in mistaking dieting for an eating disorder.

Dieting is a choice, but the eating disorder that may be activated by a diet is not. None of us should be choosing dieting, in my opinion. Dieting is well-known to be futile, unhealthy, depressing, and sucks the life and fun out of life and our relationship with our body. Using food to change our bodies, our appearance, or our emotions is an inherently unhealthy activity whether or not you have the genes and biology to become horribly mentally ill as a result.

Moms need to be freed from the overwhelming pressure to diet and feel aesthetically inadequate, period. Moms need help learning and learning to model loving their bodies and their appetites and their biology - as do dads. Eating disorders cause horrible suffering for a small percentage of the population, which we then go on to blame on being too influenced by toxic surroundings - a horrible injustice. But dieting and our body-hating food-phobic culture hurts us ALL, and it needs to be stopped for its own sake.

I fear it is futile to rant like this, though. Even my friends and family don't get it. But thank goodness for blogging, it lets me say it anyway.

In parting, I'll leave you with the sidebar articles to the piece above - which tell you more about the reality of the blame-mommy-for-dieting-tell-mommy-to-diet culture we live in:

Related Articles
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Junk food as 'addictive as drugs'
Exercising with a friend 'helps to lose more weight'
Diabetes jab better than obesity drug at cutting weight
Anorexia victim offered place at Cambridge University dies at 18
Blame Mummy, not Madonna, for low self-esteem in girls

Comments

  1. The scientific research backs you up, Laura. In at least two famous studies, the eating and dieting behaviors and attitudes were assessed of parents whose children were professionally diagnosed with anorexia nervosa. In both, the researchers found no significant differences in dieting attitudes or behavior as compared with the general population of parents and other adults. One is a paper by Garfinkel published in Psychological Medicine, the other by Steiger et al in the International Journal of Eating Disorders.
    On the other side, I'm not aware of any scientifically valid studies that show dieting attitudes or behaviors of parents are causally linked to anorexia nervosa.
    This survey of magazine readers sure doesn't. It assumes that all teens who self-report eating issues necessarily have anorexia nervosa, which is not true. It also assumes that people can accurately ascribe their own attitudes and beliefs to specific events and causes. If someone experiences a drive to restrain their eating, for example, how do they know if the drive is "caused" by their mother, or father, or something else (like their biology?) They don't.

    I'm all in favor of not dieting. It's a waste of time and effort and tends to diminish people's lives in innumerable ways. I think parents who obsess about dieting are not helping their kids by doing so, not because it will cause anorexia nervosa in their kids, but because it detracts from the enjoyment of life and is a distraction from the more important task of raising our children. But let's not confuse that with anorexia nervosa.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Laura, you said it all, and you said it so well. I hope you will continue to focus on this issue when it arises. Rant on!

    ReplyDelete
  3. The articles make me ashamed to be British - but that's not unusual with the Telegraph and its sister papers

    ReplyDelete
  4. Well said Laura!! Thank you so much for saying so eloquently what has been going through my mind every time someone retweeted or posted this information (I'm being as kind as I can) on Facebook. I tweeted about it only to point out that there is a lot of mis-information floating around out there.

    I wanted to say all that you and anonymous said - just was too angry to feel like spending the time writing it.

    So, thank you for taking the time and enlightening the world, once again.

    With Gratitude,
    Becky Henry

    ReplyDelete
  5. My mom, unbeknownst to me, severely restricted her eating while she was in high school.

    As "my mom", she never dieted. We never had a scale in our house. We ate healthy food, and were allowed junk food, too. (Moderation is key, no?)

    And yet...I stopped eating. At first it was slow, but then my restricting food became steady.

    Now...I am in remission. I am a mom to an amazing daughter who is not yet three.

    As a daughter, I hear you, Laura.
    As a mother, I HEAR YOU.

    Thank you. I get it.

    ReplyDelete
  6. My mom, unbeknownst to me, severely restricted her eating while she was in high school.

    As "my mom", she never dieted. We never had a scale in our house. We ate healthy food, and were allowed junk food, too. (Moderation is key, no?)

    And yet...I stopped eating. At first it was slow, but then my restricting food became steady.

    Now...I am in remission. I am a mom to an amazing daughter who is not yet three.

    As a daughter, I hear you, Laura.
    As a mother, I HEAR YOU.

    Thank you. I get it.

    ReplyDelete
  7. In other breaking news! Studies show that:

    Fathers who Like Sports Have Sons - who Fight with Them over Curfew

    Mother's who Watch Television have Kitchens with Electric Appliances

    Fathers who Have Tools Have Cars Their Family Members Drive

    People Who Have Been Repeatedly Sent the Message to Blame Themselves, Hate Their Bodies, and Value Appearances, Feel Badly


    .... SHOCKING DETAILS AT 11P

    ReplyDelete

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