Boarding Schools for Girls

A reporter for the Wall Street Journal followed up on a story he wrote in 1986 about fourth-grade girls on diets. The girls are now 32-year-old women who believe that society's obsession with female body images is worse now than ever.

When Jeffrey Zaslow interviewed the fourth graders, they were students at Marie Murphy School in Wilmette, an upscale suburb of Chicago. More than half of them were dieting to lose weight, and told Zaslow things like, I just want to be skinny so no one will tease me or Boys expect girls to be perfect and beautiful.

There may have been some truth to their beliefs, because one male classmate told Zaslow, Fat girls aren't like regular girls. They aren't attractive.

Today, the women, who are mostly in professional careers, believe that today's fourth graders have it worse, because models now look like toothpicks compared to the popsicle sticks they resembled in 1986.

Zaslow noted that in 2006, a Harris survey of 1,059 girls found that 60 percent believed you must be thin to be popular. That was up from 48 percent in 2000.

As one of the young women told him, Our Diet Cokes and Jane Fonda videos seem innocent compared to today.

Labels: social standards, body image

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In a July 6 letter to boston.com parenting expert Barbara Meltz, a parent expressed concerns about her young daughter's worries about weight and body size:

QUESTION: My daughter, age 9, has recently started talking about her weight. She refers to herself as fat, talks about how big her tummy is. Initially, I ignored this, hoping it was short-term. Well, it's not - this has persisted for 3 to 4 months. She is not fat: she is very muscular and athletic and just right.

ANSWER: While you don't want to over-react, disordered eating is what leads to eating disorders, and disordered thinking is a big piece of that. So keep your pediatrician in the loop and familiarize yourself with the danger signs of eating disorders just as a point of education.

Now, since she eats a pretty healthy diet as it is, ramp down the conversation about what she eats. Stop making suggestions (unless she asks your opinion) and relegate the topic of food to a minor one in your home.

Meltz also advised the mother to monitor the types of media her child is viewing, set a positive example, emphasize healthy behaviors instead of merely healthy eating, and develop an appreciation for the beauty of size diversity.

Other experts have noted that parents play an important role in helping daughters develop healthy self-esteem, which can significantly reduce their risk of struggling with an eating disorder.

Labels: weight-gain, self-esteem, body image

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A group of high school girls in Rochester, Minnesota, want their peers to stop "body bashing" and learn to appreciate the way they look. With that in mind, the group has joined a decade-old effort entitled "GO GIRLS!"

"GO GIRLS! is a 12-week curriculum developed in 1998 by the National Eating Disorders Association as a tool to prevent eating disorders among girls," the Post-Bulletin newspaper reported. "The curriculum focuses on body image issues and self-esteem, the effect media has on body image and awareness of eating disorders and prevention."

The GO GIRLS! program began in 1999 as a pilot project at Minnesota's Red Wing High School, where it continues to this day.

Labels: self-esteem, body image, peer_pressure

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Most women admit to being dissatisfied with their bodies. But most are also focused on the wrong things: size instead of health, or calorie reduction instead of healthy eating. Even women whose body mass index (BMI) were within a healthy range said they thought they were overweight.

"The priorities are flipped," Dr. Molly Poag, chief of psychiatry at New York's Lennox Hill Hospital, said in a May 11 article by Associated Press writer Lauran Neergaard. Female athletes, Dr. Poag told the AP writer, are much better role models than supermodels are. "There's an undervaluing of physical fitness and an overhauling of absolute weight and appearance for women in our culture."

An AP-iVilliage poll of 1,000 adult women found that half didn't like their weight, but just one-third disliked their physical condition. This evidence supports the common perception that the popular focus in our society is on appearance, rather than health -- a notion that is both backwards and potentially dangerous.

At boarding schools such as New Leaf Academy in Hendersonville, North Carolina, providing a wide range of academic support services and therapeutic opportunities are among the many efforts that are focused on building female students' self-confidence and improving self-esteem for girls.

Labels: health, self-esteem, body image

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