There was a great letter to the editor published in the Tennessean recently. Pat Ballard quoted from many of the recent articles warning of the obesity epidemic American children are facing. She mentioned that several articles identified listing calorie counts on menus as a very proactive effort to shrink the growing waistlines of our children. I appreciated her candor as she went on to describe how exposure to height/weight charts, calorie counting information and diet articles in women's magazines at age 11 began her descent into a 22 year battle with eating disorders. What might have seemed like benign information distribution nearly ended this women's life. How many others have similar stories? Will more conversations about calories, fat grams and BMI measurements enhance the health and well being of our children or ourselves? I feel very certain that we need to change the conversation. Let's talk about the need for kids to limit screen time, move their bodies more and have fewer menus in front of their faces in the first place. None of us need more things to obsess about in relation to food, eating and weight. Calories on menus will not cure obesity and may contribute to disordered eating.
What do you think?
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For those of us who eat intuitively, the calorie count gives us a quick heads up to possible healthier choices. I like having that information. However, for my daughter who has an eating disorder, the information increases her difficulty with the menu choice thus labeling choices as good or bad. That leaves us with a conundrum. The information is healthy for some and unhealthy for others. Of course, if we that that logic to its extreme, we end up with a society that denies the majority for the sake of the one that might be offended.
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