'It's your belly...'

I recently watched a programme with that fabulous 'child trainer' Jo Frost, and she had started to highlight the ever increasing population of child eating disorders and body dismorphia. I was shocked. These are womens problems aren't they?...The kind of global epidemic spurred on by years of seeing and reading about the latest super-skinny model diet and MUST HAVE dresses, ( which u have to be a size 'nothing' to fit into) of trying to fit the mould of the blank canvas artists' use to display their latest creations, the super model. Yes, I thought this out-of-hand reality was restricted to the over 18's. To the young women, who in their desire to appeal to opposite sex or be accepted, were driven to accept this international standardisation of beauty...how stupid of me.

I was on the train home last week when those assumptions were BRUTALLY interrupted by the shocking conversation between a (crazy) girl of about 14 and her healthy sized younger sister (around 10);

Confused younger sister: "Why were you and chloe saying that to me before?"

(Crazy) Girl:..."You need to be careful you're getting fat...it's your belly!"

(This (Crazy) girl looked as though she hadn't eaten a single bite of food in months...and at this point it caught my attention and I felt my face turning red with utter anger towards the complete B*****ks that was being fed to this poor little girl)

(Crazy) Girl: "I just don't want you ending up like one of those big fat people..."

(I was now uncontrolably staring at her...battling with myself for the first time about whether to say something, to stand up for that poor little girl and ask her whether she has any concept of what she was actually saying, but apparently the look on my face during the conception of these thoughts was enough...)

(Crazy) Girl: (nervous giggle) "I don't MEAN it though, (nervous giggle, nervous giggle) you know i'm only joking don't you...you've just got to make sure you stay healthy."

What the hell is going on in the world when a perfectly healthy child is being told, by another seemingly malnourished, slightly older child, that she is fat and needs to watch her weight. Maybe this 'adult' problem is growing increasingly evident in young girls because they are acting like young women. That would also explain the ridiculous rate of under-age and teen pregancies in the UK today. This is bad, no? As a country, we want our youth to make the most of their time as children, no? So why then, do they make bras for 9 year olds and why is make-up allowed in schools?

Seems to me these kids are following in their female role-models footsteps, and not
the super confident, fabulous AND healthy ones. Uh oh. This is all because some food-phobic put points on chocolate cake and pasta!

Think each of these young girls needs to vacate the country and live life on the continent for a few weeks...the Italian nonna's and Greek yaya's have some food-appreciation to teach, maybe we should ship them all over and run a few work-shops.