How far will we go in our dieting? - Eating Disorders

mom3boys

Sat, Apr 02 2005, 8:18 pm

I think a contributing issue, is healthy lifestyle, ie. healthy food and exercise. A large chunk of a frum community just ignores the whole issue as in "It's for them (non jews), not us. We eat kosher, our neshamas are well taken care of." It almost seems vain to be giving so much thought to physical health. But aren't our body's our only on "loan", shouldn't we do as good a job taking care of them as we do our souls? The healthier we are as a community, the less weight will be an issue. I have young boys, so what I am about to say is a complete assumption, but I think, the children in our community are well protected from the influences of the outside world, right? which means that their understanding of desiarble weight comes from us, the frum mommies. Lets teach them, less talk about diets and so on, and more about how truly beautiful they are!

Motek

Sat, Apr 02 2005, 9:15 pm

[quote="deedee"]

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my 11 yr old step daughter told us her classmates (in a lubav yeshiva) tease each other using the words bulimic and anorexic! shock

yup, and I don't see why anybody should be shocked or horrified

that's exactly what you can expect when it's a topic of conversation in our frum publications, and yet, people want this taught in schools!

motheroftwo wrote:

you don't want your kids exposed to this but what if even one life was saved because a girl read the article and got herself apropriate help! Don't you think it's worth it????

I am concerned not only about this particular issue, but about numerous issues that have been exposed to the frum public, seemingly with positive intentions. I wonder whether the approach backfires, and the MORE talk there is about children at risk, the MORE children at risk there are; the MORE talk there is about eating disorders, the MORE people are discovered to have them; the MORE talk there is about spousal abuse, the MORE abuse is uncovered; the MORE learning disabilities are discussed, the MORE children are diagnosed with them.

is it that pre-existing problems are being exposed and dealt with, OR that talking about it, dwelling on it, and teaching about it, INCREASES THE NUMBERS

the media knows that when they report some awful teen incident of suicide or violence, there is the "copycat" phenomenon

Quote:

The Copycat Effect
How The Media and Popular Culture Trigger The Mayhem in Tomorrow's Headlines

by Loren Coleman
Paraview Pocket Books - Simon and Schuster, 2004, 308 pages

According to Coleman, the media's attitude is "death sells... if it bleeds, it leads." The author, who has written and lectured extensively on the impact of media, mounts a convincing case against newspapers, TV and books that sensationalize murders and suicides, thus encouraging others to imitate destructive crimes. He traces the problem's roots to Goethe's The Sorrows of Young Werther (1774), which spotlighted a fellow who shot himself over a failed romance and inspired many young men to do the same. The novel encouraged widespread use of the term "the Werther Effect" when referring to copycat catastrophes.

Coleman addresses Marilyn Monroe's 1962 death, pointing out that thanks to extensive coverage of the star's passing, "the suicide rate in the United States increased briefly by 12%."

Other subjects include the 2002 Washington-area snipers John Muhammad and John Lee Malvo, whose actions spawned numerous sniper killings; suicide clusters among fourth-century Greeks; cult leaders [Jim Jones, Marshall Applewhite and David Koresh], who attained gruesome glamour through melodramatic press perusal; Jack the Ripper—who created copycat killers from the late 1800s into the 20th century—and today's suicide bombers. Although readers may feel there's little they can do to muzzle media destructiveness, Coleman presents his advice to with enough punch to intrigue the public and possibly exert a minor influence on the press.

--Publishers Weekly June 21, 2004

ForeverYoung
Guest

Sat, Apr 02 2005, 9:25 pm

Quote:

right, if this happened b4 the publication, it would have been a valid point.

How did the girls find out about it?

How comes they don't tease each other with canser, lo aleinu?

b/c they heard snippets of converasions, know it's derogatory, probably have a very wrong idea what the words mean.

THe only think they know that bulimic & anorexic is not normal. Like crazy.

This tells you that frum people need to pay attention to what they do & say, and not blame those who try to educate for their problems.

Motek

Sat, Apr 02 2005, 10:18 pm

ForeverYoung wrote:

right, if this happened b4 the publication, it would have been a valid point.

Mishpacha is certainly not the first magazine to publish an article on this topic. The topic has been around in the frum world a long time. Rabbi Goldwasser's book, "Starving to Live," was published years ago:

http://www.judaicapress.com/pr.....d=292

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How did the girls find out about it?

who knows? media? discussions overheard? direct discussions with parents?

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How comes they don't tease each other with canser, lo aleinu?

rhetorical question I assume

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THe only think they know that bulimic & anorexic is not normal. Like crazy.

they know good and well it has to do with eating

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This tells you that frum people need to pay attention to what they do & say

I agree.

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, and not blame those who try to educate for their problems

not convinced

lucy wrote:

I remembered there was one girl in my class who decided that I must be bulimic!

wonderful

she was educated and thanks to that, she made highly inappropriate remarks to her classmate

ForeverYoung
Guest

Sat, Apr 02 2005, 10:28 pm

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How comes they don't tease each other with canser, lo aleinu?

rhetorical question I assume

not really

I think b/c they know canser, lo aleinu is real and deadly

but to them eating disorders are like mental illness - kids tease each other crazy b/c they do not understand what it really means.

Nobody teases each other "you have a cold"

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they know good and well it has to do with eating

but they do not understand what and why

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she was educated and thanks to that, she made highly inappropriate remarks to her classmate

she was most definitely not. If she was, she wouldn't have done this.

Lucy this is terrible & I wonder where the teachers were looking!! Confused

lucy

Sun, Apr 03 2005, 3:44 pm

Firstly I can not put any blame on my teachers because I went to a extreamly lartge school with a few classes in my grade.

I somewhat agree with yo Motek, but there is a side of me that strongly disagrees. We live in a different world today, that unfortunately & fortunately children are exposed to things at early ages. The key is to (hopefully) have a strong/open/aproachable communication with your children, that when they become "enlightened" with these topics that they discuss with their parents & through that their parents can guide them in the right direction.

motheroftwo

Sun, Apr 03 2005, 9:29 pm

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That is a very naive way of thinking of things. It's because things are brought to the public that we know more and are more aware of things.
If we wouldn't talk about these issues then there would be just as many problems only nobody would know about it. They would be hidden and people would suffer in silence. Do you honestly think that because there is more awareness of spousal abuse today that more husbands abuse their wives??? THey were always doing it and women would suffer their whole life or lo olainu even be killed! Today more women are getting help and standing up for themselves and b'h they can start new lives.
THe same goes for eating disorders and other problems. There might be more eating disorder problems today but that has nothing to do with reading about it but rather the outside influence of todays society and their crazy emphasis on body image.
Should we just look away and let our brothers and sisters suffer?

gryp

Mon, Apr 04 2005, 9:27 pm

I dont think it is the school's job or a family magazine's job to be involved in widespread education to children for these type of issues. I think it is the parents' job. if the parents are neglecting to deal with these issues with their children, I dont think it becomes the schools' responsibility. I think the parents need awareness classes by educators who deal with their children about the issues that go on in school, and then the parents would be able to deal with it properly. I do wish there were more classes for parents about what goes on, it would take away a lot of guesswork that parents spend time doing.

Tue, Apr 05 2005, 12:29 am

I read recently ( in the yated) that eating disorders are four times as prevalent in the frum community as in the secular world. This was then corroborated by a high school principal in our town. What's up with that ? Anyone have any ideas about this ? If that statistic is true, then magazines and other community communications is exactly where this issue needs to be addressed.

As an aside, I do think that the copycat phenomenon is very real, but that doesn't mean that the best thing to do is to sweep the whole issue under the rug.

As another aside, there is a frum curriculum available on teaching about eating disorders to adolescent girls. If you are interested in that, I can get you a contact name.

Tue, Apr 05 2005, 7:28 pm

unfortunately the article did not provide sources for the stats. That is why I am not sure and wonder what other people have heard. From the google-type research I have done, the stats seem to be the same for Orthodox and regular populations- about 2% ( the data ranges from 0.5-3.7 in general population) for anorexia. This principal that I spoke to last night estimated that she has been there for 20 years and has seen about 12-15 girls with that disorder. Now assuming 20 girls per graduating class ( not a huge school here) that would be about 400 kids. So 15 out of 400 is 3.7% which is at the higher end of that range, if my math is right. But you can't really extrapolate statistics based on one school so I am wondering if anyone else has recent numbers on this.

Motek

Tue, Apr 12 2005, 6:52 pm

no source in the Yated for that outlandish claim, I'm not surprised ...

From an article in Scientific American, Feb. 2001:

“Less obvious , however, are the circumstances under which social validation can backfire … An example is the understandable but potentially misguided tendency of health educators to call attention to a problem by depicting it as regrettably frequent. Information campaigns stress that alcohol and drug use is intolerably high, that adolesecent suicide rates are alarming and that polluters are spoiling the environment.

Although the claims are both true and well-intentioned, the creators of these programs have missed something basic about the compliance process. Within the statement, “Look at all the people who are doing this undesirable thing, lurks the powerful and undercutting message, “Look at all the people who are doing this undesirable thing.”

Research shows that, as a consequence, many such programs boomerang, generating even more of the undesirable behavior. For instance, a suicide prevention program administered to N.J. teenagers, informed them of the high number of teenage suicides. Health researcher David Shaffer and his colleagues at Columbia University found that participants became significantly more likely to see suicide as a potential solution to their problems. Of greater effectiveness are programs that honestly depict the unwanted activity as damaging despite the fact that relatively few individuals engage in it.