Healthsifter by mary desmond pinkowish, since 2003

Read this Book: The Mirror Effect: How Celebrity Narcissism is Seducing America

Don't go there, baby!

I don't plug books often in posts (although I have a typelist of good health books over there...to the left), but I want to recommend this one, which I've just finished: The Mirror Effect: How Celebrity Narcissism is Seducing America, by Dr. Drew Pinsky. You'll find mostly positive reviews over at Amazon. As the mother of two teens (ok, buddy, I know you're actually 20 now...) I urge parents of younger kids to read this too, before they become inculcated with celebrity-itis and all its attendant nonsense. Don't wait to learn about this till they're in 6th or 7th grade and you find yourself doing more explaining about celebrity behavior and misbehavior than you ever dreamed you'd need to do.

One example: My daughter and her friends became insanely brand-conscious starting in late elementary school. I was denied very little in the material department when I was a kid, but only rarely did my friends and I crave particular brands of shoes or jeans. We had a rough few years with our daughter on that score. I call it the Battle of the Brands--so many confrontations about what we would and would not purchase for her. The problem wasn't necessarily the thing she wanted so much as the source of the brand-itch: Britney was carrying a particular bag or Paris (OMG--NO!) had a certain breed of dog.

Anyway, read the book.

Teen Vegetarians: Covering for an Eating Disorder?

Here's an interesting story from this week's Time about teens and vegetarianism. They're reporting on a new study in the Journal of Adolescent Health that raises the disturbing possibility that some teens become vegetarians to mask an ongoing eating disorder. The study, conducted in Minnesota, included more than 2500 people aged 15 to 23 years. The surprising finding was the percentage of vegetarians who reported binge eating. Here's an excerpt from the Time story:

"...approximately 20% of the vegetarians turned out to be binge eaters, compared with only 5% of those who had always eaten meat. Similarly, 25% of current vegetarians, ages 15 to 18, and 20% of former vegetarians in the same age group said they had engaged in extreme weight-control measures such as taking diet pills or laxatives and forcing themselves to vomit. Only 1 in 10 teens who had never been vegetarian reported similar behavior."

This reminded me of comments that my friend Lou Aronne, MD made when I interviewed him for an article on vegetarianism that appeared in Westchester magazine late last year: 

"While it’s challenging enough for adult vegetarians to make the proper dietary choices, Dr. Aronne is alarmed by the kind of vegetarianism he sees practiced primarily by poorly informed teenage girls. “They eat toast with butter and jam for breakfast, a cheese sandwich for lunch, and pasta with tomato sauce for dinner,” says Dr. Aronne. “This is a problem because it’s totally unbalanced. Where are the vegetables? Starch is not a vegetable. If you’re a vegetarian, eat vegetables!” Several studies, including one published in the New England Journal of Medicine in December 2001, have found evidence that teenage girls who become vegetarians are at higher risk than others of having or developing eating disorders and engaging in unsafe weight control behaviors. In a study of young Australian women, which included more than 9,000 participants, vegetarians and semi-vegetarians reported more depression than non-vegetarians (22 percent vs. 15 percent), along with low iron levels and menstrual difficulties."

Teen Girls at Risk for Weight Gain: Internet Blamed. Just Like I Keep Saying!

Trying too hard?

Maybe my daughter will believe me now....An article appearing in the July 10 issue of the Journal of Pediatrics reports on more than 4,400 girls and young women, aged 14 to 21, who participated in the Growing Up Today study, an offshoot of the venerable Nurses Health Study II. A weight gain of 4 lb per year was associated with several factors, including having less than 5 hours of sleep a night, drinking 2+ alcoholic drinks per week (most of these ladies were under age when the study was done, by the way), and camping out for fun on the Internet for chunks of 1 hour or more.  AMEDNews reports on the study today. Here's a quote from that article:

"The Internet is the new watching television for this particular generation of adolescents and young adults," said James Farrow, MD, professor of pediatrics and medicine and director of the student health service at Tulane University in New Orleans. "It's a sedentary way of socializing instead of playing a sport or something like that, and I would not be surprised if they were eating at the same time they were on the Internet."

Ladies, have a look at some of the other posts here about how hard it is to take off this weight once you've put it on! Be different! Put that laptop down. Walk around the mall or something.