Eating disorders in children are on the rise. Is this any surprise? With more and more parents switching to unhealthy extreme diets such as vegan, macrobiotic, low fat and raw food, what hope do our children have to develop a normal relationship with real food?
Since people first began to understand the prevalence of these disorders in the 1980s, it was thought that they were on the decline. But today, anorexia and bulimia are on the rise in many groups including those who experienced very little incidence in the past, namely minorities, males and pre-teens.
Children today are pressured by their parents not to exhibit the normal chubby growth pattern their bodies are designed to take on. Mistaking it for obesity, parents put them on restrictive diets which inevitably end up consisting mainly of high sugar, processed, nutrient poor foods — or at least foods from which the nutrients are poorly absorbed as is common in macrobiotic and raw food diets.
It is a shame that eating disorders aside, many of these children will not outlive their parents. Many will be left infertile and with psychological problems.
No matter how you look at it, the only way to tackle the problem of childhood obesity as well as eating disorders in children is to reintroduce wholesome, real foods such as whole raw dairy, meat and eggs into our homes again. A few minutes in the kitchen each day will teach our children to respect food and the beautiful body it creates for them.
