I’m happy to read about your organization and how you’re helping families. After reading through your Web site, I’d like to note that anyone can become a member (it’s free!) and also volunteer. And I hope many do.

As an advocate for parents of eating disorder patients, I can tell you that the anti-obesity hysteria is causing all sorts of collateral damage.

For one thing, it increases the use of food in unhealthy ways, like dieting. Dieting (eating less or differently with the sole goal of changing body composition) is known to be ineffective, unhealthy, and can trigger eating disorders in those with a genetic predisposition.

It also, by normalizing the idea that eating is bad and restricting is virtuous, makes it hard to tell when a person HAS an eating disorder.

The approaches you mention are good and positive things for all children – and ourselves.

One thing I would like to point you to, though, is that “body image” distortion is often a sign of a distinct mental disorder, body dysmorphia, which is often present in eating disorder patients when they are undereating or eating erratically. It can also happen to people who have no eating disorder. BDD is a serious brain disorder that requires specialized treatment.

Please welcome families concerned about eating disorders to our site, http://www.FEAST-ED.org – we are an organization of parents, serving parents.