The other day, I took Olivia shopping for clothes. She'd received some money for Christmas and was eager to spend it, as 13 year-old girls are wont to do.
We schlepped down to the mall and started looking and I was appalled. Not by skimpy or slutty clothing, but by the sizes. I don't know who they are making these clothes for, but some of the size smalls would have fit my three year-old.
Olivia isn't skinny. She's built like me - busty and hippy. It's a pain in the butt to shop when you're built like that. But she only weighs 130 lbs - she's not overweight. She's normal. She's curvy. She looks like a young woman, not like a scare crow.
As I helped her pick out clothes and watched her try stuff on, I could see the discouragement and pain on her face. Nothing fit. Even larges were too snug. She was almost in tears by the end of the day. I felt so bad for her because I know exactly what she's going thru.
And then I read stats like this: University of Toronto researchers found that type 1 diabetic girls are two to three times more likely to develop an eating disorder than their nondiabetic peers. (MSNBC) and I start to really worry.
When I dropped Olivia off at camp over the summer, I overheard two girls talking about how they skip insulin so they won't gain weight. I know this technique is out there and known to kids that Olivia knows, kids she IMs with, kids she emails. It scares the hell out of me.
Our society is so obsessed with being skinny - not just shapely, but skeleton-thin - that eating disorders are already a huge problem among teenage girls and young women. When you add diabetes into the mix, a disease that makes you hyper-focus on food anyway, it seems like a sure fire way to send someone into a downward spiral.
I'm not really sure how to handle this. I can tell Olivia that she's perfect until I'm blue in the face, but with the media, the clothing industry and her friends putting this incredible pressure on her to be thin, I don't know if I'm enough to combat that.
Is there anyone who's gone thru something like this, either themselves or with their own child? I'd love some advice or reference materials to look to on the subject. It really worries me, but I don't want to bring it up to Olivia for fear of planting the idea in her head that this is something she can do to make herself skinny.
