This is just heartbreaking.
News.com.au reports that admissions of pre-teen girls with severe anorexia nervosa to Melbourne Royal Children’s Hospital have risen by over 1400% in the past four years. The article continues:
Clinical leader Dr Andrew Kennedy, who overseas eating disorder patients, said the increases were “staggering”.
“It continually blows our minds how sick these kids can get,” he said. “A 13-year-old girl recently was so malnourished when she came in she had to go straight to intensive care.”
[...]
Kirsty Greenwood, from the Eating Disorders Foundation of Victoria, said: “There is simply nothing out there for these children”.
The Royal Children’s had been trying its best to cope with the increased demand, she said.
“They’ve stretched their resources and finances to the limit hoping that it was just a blip, but the numbers are still going up and they can’t do it any more.”
And PerthNow today reports:
Princess Margaret Hospital clinical psychologist Julie McCormick said PMH was seeing about 80 new patients a year with eating disorders. At present it was treating 200 children for eating disorders, including some as young as eight with anorexia.
Dr Fursland said her clinic, the Centre for Clinical Interventions, was treating about 350 people for eating disorders and there were long waiting lists.
The Brisbane Times has more here, including a case study of an eleven-year-old girl who traces her anorexia to being teased about being “overweight” at school, and being taken by her parents to an obesity clinic. She lost weight, and remained desperately unhappy, convinced she was obese, and ended up spending three months in hospital – a feeding tube in her nose, but without adequate psychiatric and counselling support available. From the story given, it seems that both her parents and the “obesity clinic” attributed her depression/mental illness to her size, and were deluded into thinking that dieting was The! Cure! Meanwhile, the girl herself became lost in the shuffle.
Filed under: fat-hating, health
(Subtext: so if any of your mates are a wee bit plump you better drop them quick smart or you’ll be rooned, rooned! Yay, let’s make fat people even more socially isolated and scorned!)
So say all the headlines and radio shows this morning, based on a study in America that has found a correlation between gaining weight and having friends who also gain weight. The talkback shows especially are full of all the talking heads of the Diet Industry sagely shaking their heads and wagging their fingers at the ‘obesity epidemic’[1].
Most of the discussion I’ve heard has focussed on “individuals”, but you know what? The study found that the “friend” correlation only holds up for men.
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Filed under: fat-hating, health, moral panics, skeptics
Read ‘Ems for today:
Sunday Telegraph: Quadriplegic left on train
Mark McCauley, a man with quadriplegia, was abandoned on a New South Wales CityRail train for four hours when the train lost power. The ambulatory passengers were all evacuated one hour into the debacle. Luckily, he had his mobile phone on him. His first call, to CityRail, wasn’t so helpful:
“I rang CityRail and told the lady I was stuck . . . and at the end of the conversation she said ‘That’s fine sir, somebody will get back to you in two or three days’.
His second call was to 000. They just rang CityRail and had a manager call him back. McCauley reports:
“She said we can’t get you off the train until we restore power – it could be in the early hours of the morning.”
Mr McCauley was in need of medication by then. Luckily, construction workers volunteered to remove him from the train with a forklift.
CityRail’s apology? Two one-day free rail passes.
~~
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Filed under: Read 'ems, disability, fat-hating, history, indigenous, moral panics
Guest post by Kate Harding (and cross-posted a couple places)
So say 40.4% of people 18-24, according to The Brogan Survey. Asked to rank obesity, smoking, drugs and alcohol in order of perceived “greatest threat to public health,” most people overall (38%) put drug abuse first and obesity (30.8%) second. But among the youngsters, fat was ranked number one.
Even if you believe obesity is a major health crisis, the idea that it might be greater than smoking — let alone drugs or alcohol — is stunningly wrong, and the degree of that misperception should serve as evidence that the War on Fat is way the fuck out of control.
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Filed under: fat-hating, health, moral panics
Guest post by sajbrfem.
Fat acceptance has recently beeped on my radar, despite living the majority of my life one or two dress sizes outside a convenient mainstream shopping experience, I had not been aware of this movement until now. My new awareness is largely due to Kate Harding, and of course the amazing Hoydens. This article by Harding about sticking firm to the use of the word ‘fat’ in naming a fat acceptance political position (rather than ‘body’ or ’size’ acceptance, which I think are also good things, but just not the same), in particular has me thinking. Her reasoning is very similar to my position on using the term ‘feminism’ as opposed to ‘humanism’ or ‘equalism’ – mitigating the term is a veiled expression of hatred in itself.
This has me thinking about the word ‘fat’. Harding quite rightly suggests that the word ‘fat’ is just an adjective – a description of visible fact, nothing more nothing less.
“First, it’s important to me to reclaim the word “fat.” It’s not a bad word. It’s not intrinsically insulting. All it tells you is that this person has more visible fat on her frame than a thin person does — and since in my case, that’s the plain truth, I don’t have any problem with being described that way. I have a problem with people who would describe me that way with the intention to wound, but not with the word itself. I’m short, I’m blonde, I’m pale, I’m hourglass-shaped, I’m fat. “
This makes sense, and yet I have always shied away from the word ‘fat’, preferring to soften the description to ‘overweight’. Unlike the word fat, however, ‘overweight’ is more than just a description, it is a comparison. The word overweight implies a deviation from ‘normal’. Over-the-normal-weight. It seems to me that my attempts to be polite (even to myself) unwittingly sabotage my self-acceptance.
And just as I am chanting to my self ‘iamfatandthatsokay’ and beginning to make friends with the word a story about a woman who has been told to lose 50 kilos before she is an acceptable carer/role model for a child comes across my electronic desk. Outrageous to say the least. And I do the maths based on the formula given in the article and realise that apparently *I* am too ‘overweight’ to raise a child. What a horrible example of ill-founded fat hatred.
But the reality is that *I am* ninety odd kilos and *I am* raising a child quite happily – all the while joyfully unaware that I was too deviant to do so. I am so grateful to have discovered fat acceptance in the blogosphere, because damn do I need a voice of sanity when I read articles like the above. Thanks Harding and Hoydens, your writing makes the world of difference to me.
Filed under: Culture, fat-hating, moral panics
I just saw a blip on the Ten nightly news about results of a local “Youth Media Survey”.
What did they find the biggest fear of young people today is? Environmental disaster? War? Terrorism? Nope.
OK, we know teenagers can be rather egocentric, so on a personal level, what might they fear most – addiction? Failing exams? Unemployment? Debt? Violence and abuse? Unplanned pregnancy or STDs? Death?
Nope. It’s obesity.
We knew that women in the UK would rather be thin and stupid than fat and smart; that American women would choose a 20-pound (9 kg) weight loss over longevity; that drug companies are pushing a drug with a doubled risk of depression and suicide for the chance of losing 5.5 kg; and that a whole heap of people are paying for the privilege of crapping their pants with orange poo oil and sharing tips on carrying an “Alli-oops!” bag for those little accidents.
And now we know that Western Australian teenagers are more afraid of taking up space than they are of anything else in the world.
Filed under: fat-hating, moral panics, peeves
From Brazil. For low fat yoghurt. Iconic film images of Mena Suvari, Sharon Stone, Marilyn Monroe photomanipulated.
Tagline: Forget about it. Men’s preference will never change. Fit Light Yogurt.
Via Jess McCabe, at The F-Word blog.
Filed under: crass, fat-hating, food/drink
