What's Eating Our Kids

An Emotional Component to Obesity?

By Kelly Burgess

Pages: 1 2 3 4

Dr. Rimm says her research indicates that children rarely eat because of outside stressors in the same way that adults do, but that being overweight tends to be a self-defeating cycle. In other words, children are overweight, get teased and then eat even more. Her results also show that the busier children tend to be with extracurricular activities such as sports and the arts, the less they tend to eat and thus weigh, a finding that directly contradicts the idea that the stress of being highly scheduled leads to emotional stress and, thus, overeating.

"There is always an emotional component to being overweight, but children do not eat when they're stressed in the same way adults do," Dr. Rimm says. "Our findings [are] clear: The less kids do, the more they eat."

While O'Donnell's observations are based upon anecdotal experience and Dr. Rimm's are based upon surveys taken by the children themselves, the truth is probably somewhat more nuanced. The children that need the types of services O'Donnell's organization provides may tend to be children who are more emotionally fragile and worry more about the world around them. They may have less stable family lives and less involved parents. The children Dr. Rimm surveyed may not have recognized that they sometimes eat in response to outside stressors.

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What's Eating Our Kids

An Emotional Component to Obesity?

By Kelly Burgess

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