School weigh-ins cause anorexia (article)

[M. Lopez]

I read this on another forum, and it has to be the most sickening and infuriating thing I've ever read. A school's weigh-ins actually caused a young girl to develop anorexia.

Read it for yourselves:

http://www.news.com.au/story/print/0,10119,17757468,00.html


I'll post this horror below, but for the ultiimate insult, listen to what the principal said to "defend" this barbarity:

"If it was a terrible program, wouldn't there be 400 others?" he said.
Can you believe it? So one person developing anorexia isn't bad enough for him? How many would have to develop this life-destroying disase to make him think his program is terrible? What kind of monster could be this callous- first to create such an abusive, humiliating program, and then to brush off the suffering of one of its victim?

School weigh-ins led to anorexia
By Matthew Schulz and Mary Papadakis
08-01-2006

A SCHOOL weigh-in program has been blamed for a 12-year-old Mildura girl's anorexia.

Eleisha Lay has claimed her eating disorder was triggered when she was subjected to regular weigh-ins and huff 'n' puff exercise programs at Mildura South Primary School.

The 159cm girl's weight plummeted from a healthy 55kg to only 46kg - a loss of 20 per cent of her body mass - between April and September last year.

She is still struggling to regain the lost kilos and weighs less than 50kg.

"I was so intimidated by having my weight taken, and I was frightened other students would find out," Eleisha said this week.

"After you had your weight taken all the kids were pressuring you to tell you how much you weighed.

"I felt like people were looking at me like I was a big girl."

Eleisha stopped eating foods including yoghurt, ice cream and hot chips.

But her mother, Sherryn, said alarm bells rang when she turned away from water.

"She was lucky to drink a glass of water a day," Mrs Lay said.

"We started seeing our doctor and a health counsellor about it, but it didn't get any better."

A dietician and psychologist had diagnosed Eleisha as having "borderline anorexia," she said.

Mrs Lay said her normally athletic daughter had to give up sport because of weakened bones.

"Even if she has a small fall she could break something," Mrs Lay said.

She said Eleisha's periods had stopped and that doctors feared her growth might be stunted.

"To see what it does to someone, you honestly can't imagine the sheer hell that you go through," she said....

[HSG]

<br>This is an unconscionable outrage.

In one of the more important <a href="http://www.judgmentofparis.com/forums/forum1/messages/1619.html" target="_blank">posts</a> that appeared on last year's forum, we pointed out that for schools to be focussing on girls' waistlines rather than on their education represented an egregious case of mistaken priorities.

But this article reveals that the educational system's weight-related abuse of young girls is far worse, and far more sinister, that one could ever have imagined.

It is simply unthinkable that any civilized society could permit educators to oppress young girls in this manner.

It is the kind of practice that (one would think) could only happen in a repressive political regime, such as in the communist dictatorships of eastern Europe.

A program such as this treats girls as if they are not free and independent human beings with basic rights to liberty and to personal dignity, but as if they are <i>the property of the state.</i> For how else could any government justify dictating how young girls are supposed to look, and what they can eat, and how much they should weigh, than if the state assumes <i>ownership</i> of these individuals?

Moreover, it is unthinkable that anyone who is in a position of responsibility over young girls--such as a principal, or a teacher--could even be <i>able</i> to treat young girls in such a humiliating way. It reveals nothing less than a blatant streak of <i>sadism</i> in such a person's character, an almost pathological lack of empathy, and the complete absence of conscience.

Any individual who can conceive, or manage, or enact a program as barbaric as this should never be allowed to involve him- or herself in young girls' lives.

And shame on any parents who allow their daughters to be subjected to this kind of humiliation. Shame on any teachers who do not protest a school board, or an individual school, that implements as monstrous a program as this.

We live in an excessively litigious society, in which people sue corporations and individuals over even the most trivial and absurd matters. But here, finally, is a matter that urgently <i>warrants</i> lawsuits, and merits litigation. Any school board that implements a policy as inhuman as this should be sued by parents, everywhere.

When a democratic state allows a school board to brutalize the daughters of its citizens in such a manner, and to inflict the kind of psychological trauma on them that could quite conceivable ruin their lives, then the legal system is the only recourse left to defend the rights of these, its most vulnerable members.

And where, pray tell, is the self-righteous press in all of this? The same press that acts as the mouthpiece for the diet industry, and uncritically propagates its thin-supremacist message; the same press that claims to be "the voice of the people," and the defenders of the welfare of the public--where is its famous civil outrage? Where is its vocal indignation over this state-sanctioned sadism?

Or are some manners of abuse acceptable, while others are not to be tolerated, according to their own personal preferences?

Quite simply, this is a vicious and mean-spirited practice that must be stopped, immediately. Young girls should go to school to have their minds developed, and their horizons expanded, not to have their body-image ruined, and their self-esteem destroyed.

Lindsey Garbelman modelling for Aurora Formals--showing just how gorgeous young women can be, <i>without</i> any interference from educators who abuse the public trust:<p><center><img src="http://www.judgmentofparis.com/lindsey/aurora20b.jpg"></center>

[Relena]

That's disturbing. What kind of person would humiliate children like that, possibly scarring them for life? That's child abuse, plain and simple. Whoever came up with that idea should be fired.

[BigTC]

That's just pain SICK! S-I-C-K! No wonder why society is messed up these days in terms of weight.

[ampcbj]

This has been going on for years. I still remember having to go through this when I was in 5th grade. The scale was in the hallway outside the nurses office and during gym class we were lined up and were weighed. I remember the harsh words from the school nurse. I was already 5'7" tall and I only weighed 132lbs. Her words stuck with me throughout my teens and twenties. I'm turning 40 this year and I still remember it but now it just pisses me off.