Several of the experts quoted in the article above agree that the recent focus on childhood obesity could potentially be a double-edged sword if schools don't appropriately implement initiatives and programs.
Certainly, childhood obesity is a serious health threat to children, but hyperawareness of larger, rounder children—albeit well-intentioned—could cause misdiagnosis of the issue and possibly hurt a lot of feelings. Some even fear that the most extreme result could be an increase in eating disorders, which do include binge eating without purging.
"There is a lot of disordered eating that doesn't fall into the diagnostic and statistical manual definition of 'eating disorders,'" says Adrienne Ressler, president of the board of directors of the International Association of Eating Disorders Professionals. "Dieting is normative now, and it is difficult to recognize the boundaries that define the shadowy area of eating disorders."
Michael Axler, a psychologist with Fairfax County Public Schools in Virginia, explains that although eating disorders and obesity are distinct problems, they do share many characteristics.
"Consider binge eating disorder, which is characterized by frequent episodes of uncontrolled eating and is probably the most common eating disorder. More than one-third of obese individuals in weight-loss treatment programs report problems with binge eating, highlighting the interrelatedness of eating disordered behavior and obesity. Eating disorders and obesity may also overlap as children and adolescents move from one problem, such as obesity, to another, such as unhealthy dieting," Axler says.
The purpose of initiatives and programs designed to promote awareness and prevention of obesity is not to "glorify thinness and stigmatize fatness" but rather to "encourage a health-centered rather than a weight-centered approach, with an emphasis on cultivating healthy eating habits and active lifestyles," Axler says.