I watched a show last night called Dana: an 8 year old anorexic.... it was so sad.. this poor little girl only weighed 3 stone(42lbs)...she started out by stopping all sweets, then moved to vegetarian foods only, then stopped eating completely. he parents put her in a clinic, where she did gain some weight, and when she got out she was still doing okay, but the show only followed her 3 weeks after she got out of the clinic.

It reminded me that there are people out there with eating disorders and problems with food on the other end of the spectrum from what im going thru... it saddens me that children are being affected.. when i was 8, i never thought about my body at all.. i thought about barbies, playing hopscotch, who was 'cute' in my class, playing house, and tag... i never thought about body image.. it is so sad that our children have body image, reed thin models, etc pushed on them so young..

one thing i found interesting from the show is they were trying to figure out what triggered this in Dana.. the mother mentioned that just before it started she had been watching The biggest loser... it's funny how that show helps motivate me, but can maybe be detrimental to the younger generation..i had never thought about it.

That is very sad.

From a very young age I had a fat complex even though I was at a normal weight my entire childhood and not fat at all, however, in elementary school I made friends with all the skinny girls. I thought bony girls were prettier for some reason. My older sister was tall and skinny when we were growing up, so I always felt stout. But, it never crossed my mind to watch my food intake.

I know the media played a big roll in that, because all the tv shows all the popular kids were slim.

For me, I assumed from a young age that I was going to be overweight, although at that age, I didn't know how being overweight was viewed in society. My parents, sister and Aunt all weight between 250lbs to 350lbs. I just assumed I would too, although I never did, probably because I was a picky eater. When I was eight, I thought the older you got the bigger you got, it made since to me, I didn't think it was something you could control.

That is really sad, something I would have probably watched too. back when Sally Jesse Raphael was on the air, I saw a show about an overweight 11 year old who took a knife to her stomach to try and cut out the fat. That has always stuck with me.

I was on my first diet in kindergarten, I remember it so distinctily because the reward I was supposed to get for losing the 8 lbs, the doctor said I needed to, was a pair of painted turtles like the ones in my kindergarten class. I'd lost more than 4 lbs because I remember in my mind thinking that I already had earned one of the turtles, and being upset that I had to wait to earn both, and couldn't just get the one - when the turtles were removed from our classroom, because it had become illegal to keep the turtles as pets (because of the salmonella risk). I don't remember if my parents tried a new bribe, I just remember refusing to continue because I couldn't get the turtles (now if my parents had upped the ante to a puppy....)

I was a Weight Watcher's member with my mother at age 8, and on amphetemine prescription diet pills, weighing 225 at 14.

I don't know if I would have become so overweight if I hadn't been forced into crash dieting so early. Though being adopted, I do also wonder if there's a history of obesity and super obesity in the biofamilies. But on the behavioral side, I learned from my mother, both how to get onto and off of crash diets, including sneaking food when no one was looking.

In my early childhood, my mom didn't know how to diet reasonably for an adult, so she knew even less about dealing with a child with a weight issue.
She did the best she could, but I do wonder what my life would have been, if I had a different experience with diet and exercise.

Even at 5, I knew there were games I shouldn't play, because being a fat, I'd look "silly," or break the equiptment. My mom used my weight as a way to keep me away from things that were dangerous. I remember every time horseback riding came up in girl schouts, my mom got me to stay home because "I'd swayback the horse." By the time I was 10 or 11, I realized that if a horse could hold an adult, they could hold a fat kid, and the trick didn't work. My mom upped the ante, and on the night before the horseback riding, decided on a family trip to an amusement park - I had to decide between horseback riding and the amusement park. I picked the amusement park, and quit girl scouts.

At the time, I just thought my mom was trying to torture me, but I realize now that she was afraid I would get hurt. Geez, but I wish she had just said so, and not warped my mind regarding all of the things I could or couldn't do, because I was fat. By junior high, to my mother's apparent relief, I had swapped physical activity of almost any kind for reading (except kalisthenics and step aerobics in my room to lose weight, and swimming in the summer - which I loved despite knowing that as a fat girl I wasn't supposed to).

I got the distinct impression that girls were supposed to stay inside, while the boys played outside. I don't know exactly when it became firmly rooted in my mind, because I remember jumping off the garage roof and my gradparent's second story porch with my brother, and building forts and obstacle courses in the backyard with my brother, and playing in the snow until we couldn't feel our hands and feet (despite the layers of insulated padding we were sent out in - sometimes two pairs of mittens).

There's so much I wish I hadn't "learned" so early, especially since they were so hard to unlearn (some of them, I'm still working on).

Kaplods- im so sorry for all you had to go thru as a child.. and the sad part is, its so hard to 'unlearn' things drummed into you that early..

when my daughter was 12 she was run over by a car. it ran over her left leg and destroyed her growth plate.. long story short, she had to be in a wheelchair for a while and started putting on weight.. what she wanted to do once she got out of the wheelchair was quit eating and swim all day to lose the weight... i let her swim, but ONLY if she ate 3 square meals a day and two snacks.. we lived in vegas so she would swim from 9am -6pm in the summer... she still lost weight and she ate... i thank God for that. She was terrified of becoming obese like me... she still watches her weight but for the most part she eats decently.. if she forgets a meal she gets dizzy and weak feeling cause she is hypoglycemic...
that is the only time as a child she ever had to think about her weight and because im a mean mom.. her words back then lol, i made her do it 'right' .

Yes. And it goes to show that we do have to be careful what we say to young children. I can remember being as young as 6 and being mortified about my mother and a sales clerk talking loudly about me needing to go to the "chubby girl" department at the clothing store - and having to special order a Brownie scout uniform because they didn't stock them "that big".

Because small children haven't developed their communication skills to our level, I'm afraid we have a tendency to trivialize their awareness as well. In actuality, children are in "learning gear" and can be hyper aware of what adults say - even if we aren't speaking directly to them.

I used to be a fairly active kid and my mom worked to make me active. She also put me on diets, dragged me to different doctors/nutritionists/etc at a very young age. I think I was 'normal' at the age of 3 but shortly after that I went to chubby, fat, obese and then morbidly obese. My early memories are of dieting and also I remember doing exercise videos with my grandma (who had been thin most of her life). My mom struggled with her weight all her life and my dad was over 400 lbs.

I also remember binging... I learned binging at a very young age. I'm not sure it came from the restrictive diets or not but I wouldn't expect it to be normal for a 10 year old to binge.

Like you said it's both sides of the spectrum, and we need to find a balance. Overweight and underweight people both use food to abuse their bodies in different ways because of underlying issues. It really scares me, especially that the age is becoming younger and younger.

I think we're educating them in the wrong way, I think alot of children are scared of being 'fat' so go in the opposite direction rather than just being influenced by the people around them to enjoy life and be healthy.

I remember my mother putting me on a diet when I was 10 or 11 I think...i'll never forget the book she used "How To Lose 10 Pounds in 2 Weeks".

Ever since then i've been conscientious of my weight.

I was born and raised in Brazil, where you see slim people everywhere and you are considered an ET if you are overweight.
I remember my very first diet was with a doctor supervise at 9 year old. And while my sis (2 years younger, blond and skinny) eat a chocolate bar, I was suppose to eat an apple.
But I done everything my doctor said, not because he bribed me with gifts, but because I really liked him and didn’t want to disappoint him. There was this time when I refused to get his present because I didn’t achieve the goal he had gave to me. Even though I’ve done everything right, I thought I didn’t deserve it, because I didn’t lose weight that week. I was too young to know anything about a plateau and so disappointed with the results. After losing some weight I got sick with hepatitis (was in bed rest for a month and eating sugar to help my liver to fight), so got all the weight back.
Since then I’ve done everything in the book trying to keep myself from being overweight.
I always got the support I needed from my mom when it came to lose weight. I was the only chubby one at home and I thank her for bringing me to that doctor when I was only 9.
When I moved to USA I couldn't believe the amount of obese and overweight people. And I was terrify I would became one. Didn’t take too long to realize that most of the parents (at least in Vermont) didn’t take any actions to their “chubby” kids. Maybe because they didn’t want to deal with that issue and upset their kids...??? Well, most of the time the parents where also overweight and probably their parents, and the parents of their parents....
So I do think that it is important for a parent step up and show their kids what is the right and wrong when it comes to eating. Not only because of the looks, but for the sake of their health. It is very important though to be gentle and follow them closely, because kids can take things to extremes.
Maybe even start when they are babies, making better choices in feeding them.
Sometimes I just wonder, how I would be today if I didn’t have my mom’s support. Even today, she was so happy when she saw I changed my eat habits and started exercise.