Healthy eating schemes to tackle obesity are "propelling" schoolgirls towards anorexia, according to new research.
Attempts by schools to drum home a healthy eating message are making pupils acutely aware of their weight and inadvertently driving some to potentially dangerous behaviour, it is claimed.
Researchers say teachers are being influenced by health experts who are on an "obesity crusade" which is making it acceptable to mock and laugh at the overweight.
Interviews with girls aged between 11 and 18 and who suffer from eating disorders, have revealed that many of them "strongly believed that their illness was nurtured, exacerbated or sometimes even caused by the well-meaning action in schools".
Prof John Evans, of Loughborough University, who led the research, said: "The tales they told were incredibly revealing about what schools were doing, in good faith, that was propelling these girls towards this damaging relationship with food and exercise. One girl told how, in class, the PE teacher pointed to a broomstick and said, 'That's the shape we are aiming for.' "
An estimated 1.5 million people in Britain have eating disorders such as anorexia and bulimia. Girls as young as eight and nine reportedly worry about their weight and watch what they eat. There has also been a marked increase in body dissatisfaction and eating disorders among men.
The researchers, who interviewed 40 girls in a four-year study, say the problem is being fuelled by an increased focus on "healthy living" in schools.
The National Healthy Schools Programme, launched in 1999, requires schools to provide visible evidence of healthy eating, physical activity and emotional wellbeing. The Government's target is for all schools to be in the programme and for three-quarters to have achieved "healthy school status" by next year.
Ministers published their anti-obesity plan in January, and have pledged to halt, by 2010, the year-on-year rise in obesity in under-11s. Such targets drive some schools to weigh children in class, according to Prof Evans. One girl told him: "The whole class got weighed and the teacher said, 'Oh, it's the big one,' and I was the heaviest in the year."
The pressure to monitor their bodies led to fear in some girls about the effect certain foods would have, it was claimed. Official advice, such as eating five portions of fruit and vegetables a day, passed on in lessons, was used to rationalise their behaviour.
"Of course teachers need to think very carefully about what they say. Some people are always going to be heavier than others and are still healthy. That will be the message good schools are passing on."
Susan Ringwood, the chief executive of Beat, the eating disorders charity, said: "There is anecdotal evidence that some public health messages can make children who may have a difficult relationship with eating or exercise worse.
"Government agencies have got to treat this area sensitively. But I can see how difficult it is for schools."
(Telegraph)
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