Shy Eating Predictive of Anorexia?
USA Today reported the story of Leslie Lipton, a college student in New York. According to the newspaper, when Lipton was younger and without other symptoms of disordered eating, she felt watched and worse, judged during occasions of public eating.
This fixation on food choices and portion sizes is apparently rampant in adolescent society,
“Lunch in the high school cafeteria felt like a competition. ‘Everyone would be looking at everyone else’s tray to see what everyone else was eating,’ says Lipton. ‘If you eat less, at least the comparisons are good.’”
This competition and it’s occasional foray into eating disorders makes sense, since untouchability is a widely-held adolescent belief. The sub-conscious thought that nothing can really harm teenagers, risky behaviour will not have long-term consequences and death is something that happens to older people - these are great ingredients for dabbling in restricting, especially when you don’t want to be the only girl at the pizza parlour actually drinking a regular coke and eating more than a slice.
What can we do to combat this non-eating competition and potentially the fall to out-of-control eating disorders? Model behaviour that we think is healthy, of course.
Do you want your kids to grow up thinking that eating a meal a day, consisting of low-fat, low-calorie energy is right for themselves? Then don’t do it.
Don’t have kids or know anyone with them that would be affected by your choices? Do it anyways - you never know who may be watching you at your local food court. Or watching, to see if you’re watching them.
Leave a Reply