Katie Parrott has only been a mum for a few months but after giving up years of her own life to an eating disorder, the idea of a stranger weighing her daughter at school makes her furious.
“I thought that societally, we were past this idea that there is something wrong with people’s bodies, particularly the bodies of children,” the 30-year-old from Tasmania told 9news.com.au.
Her rage is directed squarely at the Australian College of Nursing’s (ACN) controversial proposal that every school-aged child in the country should have access to a nurse who could weigh them in a bid to “combat childhood obesity”.
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Under the reform, nurses could “identify children at risk” of obesity and provide intervention in the form of discussions focused on “growing into” weight, not going on a “diet”.
But Parrott warns the language doesn’t matter when the message – that a child must lose weight – remains the same.
As a child and teen, she was inundated with subtle messages about weight, her body and what it was expected to look like.
No one had to tell her point-blank to go on a diet for it to affect her mental health and self-confidence.
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“I certainly remember from my childhood feeling very surveilled, in terms of the people around me watching what I ate and how much exercise I did,” she said.
“It’s not an uncommon story to hear of people my age who remember going to Weight Watchers (now WW) meetings with their mums at age 10.”
The result was devastating, and could have been deadly.
After finishing school, Parrott developed atypical anorexia, meaning she ticked all the boxes for an anorexia nervosa diagnosis but was not underweight.
Because she didn’t fit the stereotype of a waif-thin anorexia sufferer, Parrott struggled to get help or even have her symptoms taken seriously.
In fact, people congratulated and praised her for restrictive eating and over-exercising.
Now a mum to four-month-old daughter Juniper, Parrott doesn’t want to see the cycle repeat itself; but that’s what she fears will happen if nurses weigh children and promote weight loss in schools.
“Why are we going backwards with this idea that what people need, what children need … is more policing of their bodies?”
ACN chief executive Professor Leanne Boyd said in a statement that nurse-led interventions are “crucial … in combating childhood obesity”, but some experts disagree.
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Dr Stephanie Damiano, manager of the Butterfly Foundation’s body image program Butterfly Body Bright, told 9news.com.au the proposed measures could cause “so much harm” for Australian children, who are already struggling with body dissatisfaction at alarming rates.
More than half of Aussies aged 12 to 18 reported dissatisfaction with their bodies in recent Butterfly Foundation research, and there has been an 86 per cent increase in eating disorders among Australians aged 10 to 19 in the last 12 years.
Today almost 30 per cent of Australians with an eating disorder are aged under 19, and eating disorders have one of the highest mortality rates of all mental illnesses.
Damiano fears weighing our kids will only make these damning statistics worse.
It has the potential to increase a child’s risk of body dissatisfaction, preoccupation with weight, anxiety, restrictive and binge eating behaviours, and overall poor self-esteem, all of which can last well into adulthood.
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“Many adults are currently struggling with being weighed at medical appointments and within sporting settings, so thinking that children will be resilient to the potential harms is misguided,” she added.
The proposed measures are also unlikely to benefit children deemed obese or “at risk” of obesity.
“Contrary to popular belief, shaming people for their weight does not result in improved health behaviours or weight loss,” Damiano warned.
These children could also already be suffering from disordered eating behaviours, which may only worsen if encouraged by nurses to pursue weight loss.
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Parrott struggled to get support and treatment for her eating disorder because she was in a bigger body and doesn’t want to see the same thing happen to more of Australia’s youth, especially now that she’s a mother herself.
“The goal of having healthy young people is not addressed by having nurses who weigh and monitor kids’ weight,” she said.
“That’s not really achieving anything other than being highly stigmatising [and] reinforcing a lot of these fatphobic structures that are already in place.”
Despite it all, she and Damiano wholeheartedly support the ACN’s recommendation that all young Australians have access to a nurse at school; they’d just prefer nurses be trained to identify and intervene with disordered eating instead of weighing kids.
“I am horrified by the idea of Juniper going through something like that in a school environment where she should be safe,” Parrott said of her baby daughter.
“There’s a lot to be worried about having a small female child, but if there is anything that I would want for her, it is to grow up knowing that there’s nothing wrong with her body.”
For support with eating disorders or body image concerns, call Butterfly’s National Helpline on 1800 ED HOPE (1800 33 4673), chat online or email support@butterfly.org.au, 7 days a week, 8am-midnight (AEDT).
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