Binge Eating Disorder Association (BEDA) Press Announcement

Submit Your Comments
to the

First Lady's

Childhood Obesity Task Force

BEDA joins with the National Eating Disorders Association (NEDA) and the Eating Diosorders Coalition (EDC) to encourage its members to act now!!

Dear Friends of BEDA,

The First Lady, Michelle Obama, has established a task force as part of her childhood obesity initiative and is seeking recommendations on the following goals:

(a) ensuring access to healthy, affordable food;
(b) increasing physical activity in schools and communities;
(c) providing healthier food in schools; and
(d) empowering parents with information and tools to make good choices for themselves and their families

The task force is now seeking recommendations from the public as a means to accomplishing these goals. It is our opportunity as a community to encourage policy and decision makers to consider programs that "do no harm" by promoting healthy behaviors, body satisfaction, self-esteem and do not further emotional eating and poor body image by furthering weight bias and phobia.

SUBMIT COMMENTS:

You can submit your comments to the task force by visiting: http://www.regulations.gov/search/Regs/home.html#documentDetail?R=0900006480abe53d The deadline for submission is March 26, 2010.

WEB SITES OF INTEREST

First Lady's "Lets Move" program: www.letsmove.gov

Academy of Eating Disorder's Childhood Obesity Guidelines: http://www.aedweb.org/media/Guidelines.cfm

Joint Organization Letter of Concern to Mrs. Obama: http://www.aedweb.org/documents/Letter-to-First-Lady-Obama.pdf

The Eating Disorders Coalition (EDC) has provided the sample comments and talking points below for your convenience:

SAMPLE COMMENTS:

To Whom It May Concern: As someone whose life has been directly impacted by weight and body image issues, I submit the following comments regarding Mrs. Obama's Obesity Initiative. I applaud The First Lady's intention to increase the overall health of our nation's children, yet I am deeply concerned that the currently proposed initiative might also do harm by inadvertently causing eating and body image disorders.

I urge that as The First Lady works to address obesity amongst children, she also address the equally troubling issues of hazardous weight loss strategies and eating disorders that ravage the lives of millions of our nation's youth. I have [included in my comments or attached] Talking Points developed by several eating disorder organizations in response to the First Lady's Obesity Initiative. I urge you to consider these Talking Points as you revise the currently proposed Obesity Initiative. Thank you for your time. I welcome hearing from you.

Sincerely, ____(your name here)______________

Talking Points:

RESPONSE TO WHITE HOUSE OBESITY PREVENTION INITIATIVE

Goal:

Promote healthy lifestyle habits in all children through an initiative that focuses on environment and behavior, while reducing weight stigma and stereotyping.

Background:

Several organizations join forces to urge that the White House Childhood Obesity Prevention initiative to move away from an emphasis on weight and to focus on a broader definition of children and adolescents' health. These organizations represent thousands of clinicians, researchers, educators and others concerned with the impact of eating disorders on children, adolescents and adults. They include: The Academy for Eating Disorders, the Binge Eating Disorder Association, the Eating Disorder Coalition, the International Association for Eating Disorder Professionals, and F.E.A.S.T. (Families Empowered and Supporting Treatment of Eating Disorders).

Rationale:

We favor efforts to promote healthy lifestyle habits in children and adolescents and applaud these White House objectives, announced Feb. 9 by First Lady Michelle Obama. However, the current version of this initiative neglects a critical aspect of our children's environments, namely the social environment that includes harmful weight bias and stigma. We strongly urge the initiative's programming to emphasize behavior rather than weight. We recommend that the White House initiative follow the guidelines developed by the Academy for Eating Disorders. The following points are based on the latest scientific evidence and best clinical practices:

Interventions should be health-centered, not weight-focused, as weight is not a behavior and therefore not an appropriate target for behavior modification. Children and adolescents across the weight spectrum will benefit from a healthier diet, and more opportunities for physical activity. Therefore, interventions should be weight-neutral, i.e. aim to increase healthy living at any size rather than promoting specific goals for weight change.

Prospective studies show that body dissatisfaction and weight-related teasing are associated with binge eating and other eating disordered behaviors, lower levels of physical activity, and increased weight gain over time. Therefore, constructing a social environment where all children and adolescents are supported in feeling good about their bodies is essential to promoting health in youth.

Programs should be careful not to use language that has implicit or explicit stigmatizing anti-fat messages, like "fat is bad," "fat children and adolescents are not healthy," or "fat people eat too much." Interventions should focus not only on providing opportunities for appropriate levels of physical activity and healthy eating, but also promote self-esteem, body satisfaction, and respect for body size diversity.

(cont. below)
There is ample scientific evidence that an environment focusing on weight and thinness is a risk factor for eating disorders. Moreover, a reliance on BMI as a proxy for health leads to many "false positive" assumptions of illness in healthy heavier children and adolescents, and many overlooked problems of disordered eating and harmful weight loss practices in average-weight children and adolescents.

The World Health Organization defines health as a state of complete physical, mental and social well-being and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity. Consistent with this definition, interventions aimed at addressing weight concerns should be constructed from a holistic perspective, where equal consideration is given to social, emotional and physical aspects of children and adolescents' health.

Requests

We ask that all aspects of the initiative consistently reference the importance of health for all rather than being framed around weight.

We urge consideration of the social environment, including the elimination of weight stigma and stereotyping, and eating disorder prevention, be a central part of the "Let's Move" initiative.

We ask that information about eating disorders and how to prevent them are included onLetsMove.gov. You can link to Office of Women's Health eating disorders campaign athttp://www.womenshealth.gov/archive/bodyimage/kids/bodywise/.

We ask that eating disorders organizations and human rights organizations representing the citizens most at risk for harm from weight stigma be included in the ongoing design and implementation of "Let's Move."

Binge Eating Disorder Assocation (BEDA) was founded to help those who have binge eating disorder, their friends and family, and those who treat the disorder.

BEDA provides the individuals who suffer from binge eating disorder the recognition and resources they deserve to begin a safe journey toward a healthy recovery. BEDA also serves as a resource for providers of all kinds to prevent, diagnose, and treat the disorder.

By establishing strong connections among members and sister organizations, BEDA's goal is to give everyone access to the tools they need to live with, treat, and, ultimately, prevent the disorder.