As you know, my Healthworks team was chosen for Fiona’s Challenge. So, for the next month, we will be working with a personal trainer, attending bootcamp and FOCUS sessions (BURN, Gravity, or Pilates Reformer), and competing to win the ultimate grand prize: a $1500 shopping spree to City Sports! Wahoo! (I need new sports bras!)
As a starting point for the Challenge, my team will be assessed in three categories: weight loss, wall sit, and plank. (My assessment is this morning, bright and early! I’ll report back later!) At the end of the Challenge, we will be assessed again and the team with the greatest percentage of change wins!
Breakfast
Because I’m at Healthworks this morning, I prepared my breakfast last night to post this morning. I’m basically eating the same breakfast as I ate on Tuesday. I switched out the Chobani for vanilla-flavored Oikos though. I wonder how the Oikos scores?
Question of the Day
From children to adults, females diet along the way
What do you guys think about this article? At what age did you first start “dieting” or paying attention to what you eat?
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i think those kids (and women) need some http://www.operationbeautiful.com in their lives!!!
Good luck! I think I started dieting or at least monitoring what I ate around 15.
Good luck with your challenge!! I never really dieted but I guess I started to pay attention to what I eat when I decided to cut out meat two years ago.
What a great contest! Good luck! I guess I probably started paying attention to what I was eating when I was in 5th grade.
Good luck Tina!
can’t wait to hear more about it
I started sort of watching what i was eating in high school, thought i wasnt to strick about it or anything. My family has always been healthy eaters, my mom never let me drink pop and we never got fast food either, so really i didnt have to watch much
I just wanted to say that scoring system is totally worthless in my opinion. I mean seriously high-fructose corn syrup and white flour laden honey bunches scores higher than puffins, a low saturated fat, low sugar, high fiber, naturally sweetened cereal that consists only of only a few ingredients- all of which I have in my own kitchen? But what really made me laugh out loud was their assertion that “light” yogurts filled with a glut of artificial sweetners (essentially THE worst thing you can possibly consume)are the “healthiest.” I’m no nutritionist, but I am a bioloist, and I think you can figure out from common sense that this is not a reliable system.
That that article is so so interesting. Caitlin you are right, they do need some operation beautiful. Not to get too political but I always think that food and self esteem and healthy living, etc should be directed and taught by parents at a young age. Fortunately for me I never had a weight issue (except for the freshman 15) , but I was never taught how to eat properly as a child. It’s only now that I have my own household and can buy whatever I want that I put the research into proper nutrition.
good luck with the challenge!
i didn’t ever diet in middle/high school, but i was always thin then, so i guess i never felt the need to. but once i wanted to lose weight in college, i immediately took it to an extreme and disordered level. i think society perpetuates that extreme – i mean, if a magazine recommends exercise plus a diet of 1200-1400 calories, and someone wants to take it a step further, it’s not hard to start eating and exercising a dangerous amount. interesting article – though it doesn’t surprise me, unfortunately.
I hope you had a great workout!
The article was a little sad, but I can definitely see the truth to it. Like a poster above said, hopefully with operation beautiful and other feel-good concepts/media for women, this way of thinking will slowly change.
Wow, that article really makes you stop and think! I think in general we are a country that is obsessed with being skinny (even though so many people are obese!) and it is sad that girls who are so young feel the need to diet in order to “fit in”. We really need to be healthy role models for all those young girls!
Good luck with your challenge!!!
I remember first realizing that when I ate, my stomach poked out a little in the eighth grade. I guess I was 13 or 14 then. I’ve been watching my weight ever since! How sad. I’ve probably wasted a lot of time worrying about my weight over the years!
That article really hit home, I can remember back to when I was in 4th grade….. I remember my older brother’s friends teasing me about being chubby. I do think that started me being overly aware of what I was eating and how I looked. So sad…..
Good luck Tina and to your team!
When I started to notice my body more was when other folks (kids) start making comments and then the snowball started.
Probably 2nd or 3rd grade. I just see myself now filled with happiness and joy thoughts all the time.
Hugs!
Well, I developed very very early and was wearing a bra by age 8-9. I was teased quite a bit as being “fat” but looking at the picture of the time, I was only a little chunky. I would become fat overtime.
I do remember doing Weight Watcher’s exchange program with my Dad around age 10 or so. I would go to meetings with him.
I don’t remember the age but I distinctly remember sneaking downstairs while my mom was out gardening to walk on the treadmill and then for a snack counting out exactly 14 grapes. I was probably in upper elementry I would guess.
Good question. I don’t think I have ever really dieted but I think I really started paying attention to what I was eating when I stopped doing gymnastics. I was having this conversation yesterday with our VP. He has recently changed his eating habits and started a fitness routine. I talked about how it’s really a lifestyle not a diet.
Interesting article. I think I was in 9th grade the first time I “dieted” – which was really more like borderline anorexia. I would get so hungry my stomach would ache. Then when I got to college, I went completely the other direction – binge eating to go along with some binge drinking. That led to a 35 lb weight gain. Luckily today I am more focused on eating a balanced diet, although I will admit that I have not let go of the food log/calorie counting…
I think this is really interesting.. I woudl say 8th grade is when I started my first diet.. I then dieted on and off throughout high school and college and finally after all those years I realized that it isn’t a diet it is a lifestyle change of healthy eating and it doesn’t matter what you weigh it is how you feel
I got in to thinking about what I was eating when I was in high school. I started exercising daily on my own and did not want to put unhealthy things in my body after working hard to burn all those calories! haha.
I was a junior in high school when I thought I was “fat.” I then proceded to run 8 miles a day non-stop and eat only fruit and lost 30 pounds even though my 115 body was already tiny!
It was totally motivated by other girls in my school and wanting people to remember me and skinny my senior year!
Good luck with the challenge! I am happy to see that they rate teams on more than just weight loss. You are already so fit that I can’t imagine you being the “Biggest Loser”. You’d disappear! But wall sits and planks are definitely signs of power and strength training.
That article is really sad. I feel fortunate that I grew up at all all-girls’ school that promoted healthy body image, and in a supportive family who loved to cook and eat. While I DID tip the scales a bit in middle school, I didn’t really realize it, which I think kept me from serious disordered eating. It was only in/after college that I tried “dieting”, and even then, it was more of a lifestyle change to healthier habits than a strict meal plan.
I officially began dieting in my early 20′s after I had binged my way to 220lbs. I starting binging when I was very young, around 8. Dieting caused more binging and it was a really viscous cycle for a number of years. Now, I have given up dieting and listen to my body. I eat when I am hungry, I stop when I am full. Recently, I have had to give up both dairy and gluten for health reasons but feel even more intuitive now. Without all of the gluten, I am in the greatest health of my life and can really hone in on my bodies signals because the gluten isn’t messing with them anymore.
I think the state this country is in is so sad. We teach young girls that they are not good enough the way they are and it just causes the cycle to repeat ourselves. It is my goal to spread to message to as many people as possible that dieting is not the answer and neither is pseudo dieting, the only way to real health is to listen to your body.
This article is of no shock to me, and it always has been and most always will be the case in schools (in some way shape or form) because that’s part of being a child – everyone is trying to put everyone else in a category, and because of ignorance appearance is the first attribute used.
It’s up to parents to enforce a healthy life style and encourage their kids to be active and focus on what’s important! However parents have to do this themselves as well – since that’s how kids learn this stuff in the first place.
That being said I was an overweight child (and one of the only African-Americans in a predominantly white school on top of it) so I stood out and was made fun of well through junior high. I came from an overweight family where eating was how we solved problems and exercise just wasn’t part of our daily routine. Luckily a best friend of mine (we are still like sisters to this day!) encouraged me to join track and field – it was a way for me to get active and be social and start paying attention to my health. I started paying attention to what I was eating and tried to teach my family how to eat better, and the weight just came off by default. I’ve probably never felt better about my body than I did in high school!
College was another story – I didn’t realize how active I was and how I healthy I ate in high school, so take all that away and I gained 30 pounds in college. I’ve lost it all since then, but it was because I made lifestyle choices and not because I went on a diet.
I’m still trying to get to my “happy weight” which is 18 pounds away but so far I haven’t found anything “happy” about it (lol). But I’ll get there eventually!
My mother started putting me on diets when I was 8 or 9. I wasn’t overweight, but I definitely became so after she started giving my brothers ice cream and telling me I couldn’t have any because I had a “weight problem.” That started a nasty cycle of sneaking junk food in rebellion, so by the time I was in middle school I was 140 and “fat.”
Of course, what’s “fat” to a 12 year-old is perfectly normal for an adult. At 20 years old and 140 friends and family suddenly changed the chant of “You’d be so pretty if you lost weight” to “You look fine! I wish I had your figure!” Great…but thanks to those childhood pressures the image in the mirror still looks like Shamu to me.
Fourth grade seems like a surprisingly young age to begin thinking about how much (not) to weigh. What was more surprising to me was the boys responses to the questions. And, even more surprising, was that this was almost 25 years ago! Obviously, the images we see and the idea of what “healthy” looks like have only gotten skinnier and sicklier since then.
I can’t remember exactly when I really started thinking about my weight, but I know in 7th grade, my two best girl friends and I weighed ourselves every day, and it often felt like a contest to see who was the lightest (being very underweight due to a recent (at the time) diagnosis of Type 1 diabetes, I always won). This was also the year that I first learned of my friends having disordered eating behaviors. At the time, it seemed “normal” for girls my age; looking back now, 11 and 12 seem SO young to be so preoccupied with one’s weight, especially because all of my friends were very thin!
What a thought-provoking article. I remember very, very clearly becoming aware of my body in fourth grade. (Aware in the sense that I suddenly thought about my weight…I no longer viewed my body as a vehicle that allowed me to run, move, etc.) My friends and I would have “who can eat less” contests during lunch, and would pinch our sides to see who had the least amount of fat. I was 10 at the time. As my friends and I grew older, some of us learned to be content with our bodies. Others (myself included) developed eating disorders. While our fourth-grade views about our bodies may not have set us all up for a lifetime of self-loathing, they did affect some of us.
I think this line from the article is particularly profound and telling:
“A preoccupation with body image is now showing up in children as young as age five, and it can be exacerbated by our culture’s increased awareness of obesity, which leaves many non-overweight kids stressed about their bodies. This dieting by children can stunt growth and brain development.”
As young as five? This is incredibly sad, but not very surprising given society’s fixation on thinness. Kids are far more astute and perceptive than we give them credit for; it makes sense that they, just like adults, would feel the pressure to conform to established beauty ideals. The most disturbing part of this problem, to me, is the fact that, unlike adults, young kids lack the critical-thinking skills that might allow them to realize that these ideals are flawed, arbitrary, and symptomatic of deeper social problems: the systematic oppression of women, etc. So, kids -girls and boys alike – are bombarded with messages that ‘thin’ is the only acceptable body size for women… and they may not have the right tools to challenge this notion, or to understand that this notion is based on opinion, not fact.
I think it is incredibly important for women to advocate on behalf of girls. We need to let girls know, without a doubt, that they are more than just their bodies, and that their bodies should be sources of pride and empowerment. Organizations like “Girls on the Run” and “Women’s Step Up Network” are so instrumental in cultivating girls’ self-esteem, and in raising awareness among adults about how vital it is that we maintain a robust dialogue about positive body image.
Wow, 4th grade, I’m shocked! I don’t remember being preoccupied with weight at that time, but I definitely remember the turning point in the Summer of 6th grade. My first realization of my thunder thighs. Haha what a pivotal moment!
A sure sign that preoccupation with body image and weight is way out of wack in this country!
I started to be aware of what I ate in the 9th grade….and made horrible food choices. Thinking back at how extremely active I was with sports and training, I don’t know how I survived on the food that I ate! It’s been a LONG road to get a healthy grasp on eating correctly and took having a baby to put things into perspective. I’m the healthiest (and NOT the thinnest) I’ve ever been and am loving it!
Just wanted to add I remember my Mom always struggling with weight and being on the latest fad diet….in fact most of my friends Mom’s were. Which makes me very aware of what I’ll convey to my daughter about food and image.
Tina good luck to you and your team!
When I was young I always ate pretty healthy. I never was on a diet and my weight never concerned me. I ate what I wanted. It was not till I was in my twenties that I started to really watched what I was eating and started really exercising more often.
That article for me was pretty shocking. I just can’t believe that girls in 4th grade are already concerned about their weight…WOW! I really hope that I can instill some good values into my children and help them look past a persons weight.
I think what’s most troubling is that this article is not at all surprising. I started dieting, or least counting fat and calories starting at about age 12. Worse yet, I basically always remember worrying about whether or not I was fat. That is, being 7 or 8-years-old and checking to see how thin I looked in the mirror. I know a lot of this stemmed from the fact that I did not have good role models. My mom was ALWAYS dieting, weight watchers, diet pills, anything you can think of. Its frustrating that I still see this playing out within my family. I almost had a heart attack this past Christmas when my mother actually measured my 12 year old niece’s waist to “show-off” how thin she was to the rest of the family.
Of course its not just my mom’s fault. There are obviously terrible messages being sent in the media to girls (and boys) about what is desirable in terms of body size and type. Its shocking when you turn on the TV or flip through a magazine to see which actress is being featured due to her recent weight loss. usually, she was of normal, healthy weight before and now she looks malnourished. I thought it was interesting that a woman in the article commented on liking the fact that we’re seeing more “plus sized” women in advertisements. Half the time I think these women appear to be of average weight.
This is something that seems to be a major public health issue. I would love to see more programs available within the school and community to promote healthy self-esteem and body image in young girls and boys!
The question for me is when have I not been dieting? My mother placed a lot of importance on physical appearance. I remember getting brown bag lunches of only celery, carrots sticks, and a yogurt in 3rd grade because she thought I was chubby. It led to disordered eating and a lot of emotional problems when I was a teenager. Going away to college was the best thing that ever happened to me. Being able to try new foods that weren’t the diet foods she fed me opened up a whole new world. This is why I think nutrition should be taught in schools. Sometimes parents aren’t teaching their children proper nutrition and are actually causing them a lot of health and emotional problems.
I didn’t start thinking about “eating right” until my freshman year of college. In high school I was always the girl who could eat anything she wanted and not gain a pound. It wasn’t until I took a nutrition class and started eating healthier and feeling/looking more energized that I started being more mindful of what i put into my body! Thanks for bringing up this interesting article! good luck with the challenge!
Good luck with the assessment. I know you are going to kick A$$!
I started thinking about dieting in middle school after a couple of boys made fun of my “bubble butt.” I was definitely a healthy weight (I played soccer and rode my bike everywhere) but the comments made me really self conscious. I never really changed my eating habits, instead I simply started wearing baggier pants. It seemed to work at the time.
The first time I really started to watch what I ate was in high school after my aunt made a comment about how “I could be a slim person if I wanted to be.” Now that I look back, I realize how ridiculous she was for making a comment like that to an 18 year old who was a healthy weight. I played soccer year round at the time and weighed just under 115 lbs (I am 5’1″). I am glad that I can look back and realize that what she said was so wrong on many levels. The comment caused some stress at the time, but now I know better. One of the reasons I decided to become a registered dietitian was to try to teach others about what a healthy weight really is and try to break down societies’ unrealistic expectations. Hopefully I will help!
This challenge sounds exciting! Can’t wait to hear more about it as it progresses.
I started my first diet almost by accident when I was 15. My parents were on a diet (yet again) and had lots of lean cuisines in the freezer. I started eating those for dinner b/c I thought they tasted good (my mother, bless her heart, is not the best day to day cook- her holidays meals are spectacular though) and lost 10 lbs. in about a month. Unfortunately, I found this initial weight loss to be completely addictive and began drastically restricting my food so that I could lose more weight. I battled my first bout of anorexia for the next 3 years.
I do find it frightening that my first diet went so horribly out of control almost immediately- I think that that clearly doesn’t happen to everyone but for some people, it can totally pull the trigger on an eating disorder.
i don’t remember when i started watching what i ate (or didn’t eat for that matter). but i do remember being VERY young 10′ish sitting in my bath tub wishing i could slice away the ‘fat’ off my inner thighs and belly (and by no means did i need to). and ever since then i have treated my body with little respect and to be blunt–hated it. only now (at age 29) am i beginning to like my body. ugh.
Good luck on the challenge. I love challenges to keep me going. That’s why I enjoy seeing my trainer 2x a month. She pushes me to keep improving in between sessions.
I don’t remember my exact age but I noticed I started gaining weight in 7th grade when my parents divorced and got uber self conscious. It must have been sometime around there that I first started to adjust what I ate to “try to lose weight.” Sad to think that was about 15 years ago.
I was in high school when I started to clean up my eating, so maybe 15 or 16? In a way I guess I was lucky because this decision was my own. I sat my mom down and asked her to help me get my portions under control. I never heard a negative comment about my appearance from her or my dad. Unfortunately for me, I am my biggest critic and it took me awhile to find a healthy balance without going to the extreme!
that challenge sounds so cool! I can’t wait to hear more about it.
i started “dieting” or trying to in college once I gained some weight.
I love that challenge you are participating in!! It is always such a great motivating factor when you do a challenge like that and especially if you are participating with a group. Good luck on it and I look forward to hearing all about the challenge and the results that you get!!
Courtney
Adventures in tri-ing
This article really hits home as somebody who struggled in middle school with weight obsession. It makes me sad that so much of a person’s life can be consumed with something so superficial. Thank goodness for Caitlin, and Operation Beautiful, and similar programs, to help turn this around.
Good luck with the challenge, can’t wait to read more about it!
I don’t have kids yet, but when I do, and especially if I have girls, I want to take special caution to not use critical words about my body or other womens bodies in front of them. I have a friend whose mother placed a lot of emphasis on her daughters looks growing up, and those girls have dealt with depression, eating disorders, and other emotional problems related to their bodies over the years. I can’t help but feel the two are connected.
I know you can’t shield your child from everything, but you can take control of what you say and do. The more we set a good example for younger women, the better off they will be and less likely to fall into this dieting trap.
Ugh. . . I don’t even want to admit it, but I thought dieting was cool at around 9!!!! I did ballet and gymnastics back then, and I had no idea that I was just a tiny little thing, I thought I needed to lose weight.
Thank God for getting older and wiser!
Wow what an interesting article. I never knew places like Pro-Ana existed on the web. I took a look, it is pretty alarming!
I would say I started to pay attention to what I ate and started to feel self – conscious in my freshman year of college. Until then, I was pretty thin naturally.
I’m sure you will rock that challenge!
I was in fourth grade in ’83-’84, close to the same time as the girls interviewed as fourth graders, and I would have said similar things. I started hearing that I was fat when I was a five year old in kindergarten. That’s when I started having self esteem issues related to my weight, and that’s when I started thinking of what I should do to fix the problem and avoid being teased. By fourth grade, I would certainly have shared their perceptions of what boys thought and what you had to do to be popular.
I laughed when I read the part about Jane Fonda videos and diet coke. When I was in fifth grade, a well meaning teacher would take a couple of other girls and me to Sonic for diet cokes after school and then we would go and do a Jane Fonda video workout in her classroom. It was a small town, she went to my church, so that wasn’t quite as weird as it might sound. Even so, I was certainly encouraged to diet from an early age, and, while I was technically overweight, I think it still did more harm than good. It left me feeling like I wasn’t good enough. That’s not a good thing for any kid to feel for any reason.
I’m so glad that we aren’t stuck in the fourth grade forever.
Hey!! Sounds sooooo exciting! Don’t you love bananas for breakfast? They are soo good! I also was wondering if I could be a guest blogger sometime on your blog. I’m all about cookie fridays and would love to do a post about it! Let me know. (sleepdreamdress@yahoo.com) Have a great day!
Maggie
I was about 10 when I started paying attention to food. My Mom went into the hospital for heart problems. She was ordered to change her lifestyle, and she complied–and made the rest of the family change for the healthier as well! Fun times!
I was told much earlier than I needed to diet (and exercise more) but I don’t think I actually started doing it myself until I was out of high school. I tried lots of diets but never dealt with the emotional issues behind my bad habits (which left me obese). Thankfully at 25, it all clicked. Total healthy lifestyle overhaul. Diet schmiet.
This article breaks my heart. I feel like dieting is starting to happen at a younger and younger age…girls this young should not have this concern! It is so important to instill self confidence and positive body image early on, not the other way around. Let’s keep working on doing that in any way that we can.
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