Way Too Young

Over the summer, we had a 10 year old who had a very strange attitude toward food.

It took awhile for us to catch on, since we switched shifts during the day... lots of different people, lots of different opportunities to eat/not eat. The atmosphere was hectic and until we had a chance to really compare notes, we didn't realize what was happening.

But Alayna* was quite sneaky about it, it's possible that a less observant crew wouldn't have noticed anything.

Breakfast was picked at. She sat at a table with a lot of kids, chatting and laughing and sort of pushing her food around. She would take a graham cracker and sort of scrape it with her front teeth, then set it back down. Pretend to chew.

Spent the time at the table goofing around and waiting for everyone else to finish. When they did, she got up with them and threw her food into the garbage.

She did the same during lunch. We had the USDA feeding program (your taxpayer dollars at work, folks) which means that parents don't have to pack a lunch for most of the summer.

Alayna would take a lunch with the rest of the kids, sit and chew tiny bites off the edge of her sandwich until the sharing cart was opened, hide the food she had nibbled on in her brown paper bag and go for a second sandwich and another carton of milk when the sharing table was opened. Then she'd repeat the breakfast act. Sit and pretend to eat until her friends were finished, and then get up, toss all the food into the trash and go on with her day.

During the afternoons, she played the eating games at snack time, too.

Finally, after conferring with each other, we realized that she was going for entire days without eating while she was with us.

Phone calls were made.
We talked to her parents, too.
They had not been aware of the issue.

I don't know how she's doing now, she doesn't attend one of our regular programs. But for the rest of the summer, we gently made sure she ate. We had to sit with her at the table and watch, which felt like an invasion but of course we were worried over her and her parents had asked it of us. We tried to be unobtrusive and kind, but I'm sure she hated the loss of control. I know she moved away at the end of summer, and I fervently wish her well and hope she's eating and taking care of herself.

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Another child was having food issues over summer, too.

She learned that the other kids would laugh if she ate a lot of food. And under USDA rules, we weren't allowed to tell her no.

So one memorable afternoon, she ate seven bagels. 12 little packages of cream cheese. Four apples. Drank six little cartons of milk. All from the sharing cart.

This happened during lunch but since I was doing the afternoon shift, it fell to me to bring it up to her parents.

I had a long talk with her mother, who told me that they'd been working on her food issues at home. Lots of professionals involved.

But until her mom gave permission, we weren't legally allowed to tell her something like, "That's enough." Her parents actually decided that they were going to pack her a lunch and drinks, and unless we were having an ice cream bar or otter pop, for the rest of the summer she was to eat nothing she didn't bring from home. I don't know if I will see her again, but she's another little person I'm sending good thoughts to.

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I overheard a couple seven year olds not too long ago. (not kids in my program) They were poking each other in the tummy and giggling. One of them told the other, "You need to work out. You don't have any abs."

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So how did we get there as a society?
I know it utterly horrifies me.

It was fairly recently I saw this on Facebook. Katie here was in good shape and looked healthy. Then she lost 15 lbs and went skeletal. And the advertiser using the photo would like us all to think she looks better.

What do you think?