Guest column: Raising a red flag on school obesity prevention programs

Once upon a time, schools typically sold foods associated with weight gain, such as pop, chips, chocolate bars, and fried food. But in 2011, the government of Ontario decided to save children from bad foods by creating the School Food and Beverage Policy, which provides guidelines for foods sold in school cafeterias. As a result, more "healthy eating" teaching surfaced in every part of the province's school curriculum, from counting calories in math class to food label-reading in gym class.

Two years later, Canadian health practitioners and researchers have found a link between well-intended healthy weight and eating programs and the development of eating disorders in students. In a recently released study titled Trading Health for a Healthy Weight, the authors note that "a 14-year-old, grade-A student with perfectionist tendencies decided he was going to be 'the best' at following the healthy living program at school. He signed up for track and field and soccer and began exercising compulsively. He ate only chicken, fruit and vegetables in ever-shrinking portions and began reading food labels."

The main author, who also happens to be a psychiatrist at the Sick Kids hospital in Toronto, states that "the programs present this idea that weight loss is good, that only thin is healthy" and something small like a healthy eating lesson from a dietitian could trigger a dangerous change in eating habits. "In one case, a 13-year-old girl’s 'progressive food restriction' began after a visiting dietitian talked to her class at length about what foods students should and should not be eating."

While not all dietitians speak about good and bad foods, I can’t help but see a red flag here. Children and society as a whole are being convinced that being or becoming fat is something to be ashamed of. We need to re-write this story and create an ending that results in children being free of food prescriptions and health-ism. To find out how we can shift our focus away from weight discrimination to body acceptance and health at every size (HAES), visit the Shift the Focus website today.

Julie Rochefort (BSc, MHSc, RD) is a HAES Registered Dietician at the Noojmowin Teg Health Centre in Little Current, Ontario. She writes and speaks for the Shift the Focus project and is a recent graduate of Ryerson University. This article is an edited version of a post that originally appeared on the Shift the Focus website.