What are the actual figures on whether anorexia is on the rise in men, or whether awareness of it is? I read a very long time ago that ~10% of anorexia sufferers are men. And I hate the term "manorexia." It's medically (and linguisically) misleading. It's the same disease whether suffered by a man or a woman.

Not to say that men and women might not have varying experiences of it, and the proportion of boys under 10 being identified is frightening.

Children need food to thrive, starvation will have lifelong repercussions for these children. I wonder how many kids are hurting themselves by dieting, but are less obvious because they're merely stunted rather than deathly ill. I hope they all can be helped.

I also thought diets were "cool" when I was little. After all, my sisters and mom all did it together. I didn't want to be left out of the club! Luckily I realized that I was very bad at it (and actually gained weight every time) and even luckier, I eventually realized that dieting was stupid, period (particularly as keeping meat on my bones was always more of a problem than the vice-versa.) But I was glad (or sad) to hear that I wasn't the only one who had this impression as a youngster. It's certainly made me realize I will not ever casually talk about dieting in front of my child.

How is this even close to a major problem? 102.5 kids a year go to the hospital for self inflicted injuries this is insignificant for a population that runs a few million. You might as well talk about shark attacks.

My mom's diet drink was Diet Shasta. Today even the thought of Shasta makes me retch.

If there's a moral to this story, I think it might be "Never act like an idiot because you don't know who might be watching." No one was ever hospitalized for trying to eat healthy nutritious meals just like Mom.

First of all, virtually all women in industrialized countries are on diets ALL THE TIME. It is unrelated to actual medical obesity. Even slender women diet continuously, because they fear even the POTENTIAL of obesity (there was a very good study about this recently).

It doesn't matter whether the diet works or not (most, obviously, do not) -- you don't dare not diet. Nothing receives more criticism (or nasty, snarky envy) than the idea of a person (especially a woman but also men) who engages in "unrestricted eating", i.e., is not on a weight reduction diet.

It is impossible for children to escape this juggernaut. They learn as toddlers what is and what is not acceptable, and a body (no matter how healthy) that does not conform to the ideals of society MUST BE STARVED INTO COMPLIANCE.

How on earth could a mom (or dad) teach healthy eating habits to small children, when that parent themselves is filled with self-hatred, despair, anger and frustration AT THEIR OWN BODIES? What does a child learn, when the family eats a treat (like ice cream) and mom has a diet Coke? when they go to McDonalds for burgers but mom has to have a dry, tastless salad? when she slaps cookies or treats out of your little hands, and shrieks "do you want to be fat?"

I see this happen all the time, to the children of friends, neighbors and relatives. None of these people suffer from real medical obesity -- some are pudgy, some are underexercised, but mostly they are normal sized. But, in American, that's not good enough. Most women want to be MUCH thinner than normal, they want to be a size 2 or even zero. To quote the film "Devil Wears Prada"...size six is the new fourteen.

I accompanied a friend to her 3 year old's ballet class this week. We sat on the sidelines with the other moms and dads. What did we discuss? How cute the kids were? the teacher? the music? the value of arts education?

No. The sole topic of discussion was how fat or skinny various children were. Skinniness, even when extreme, was praised. Tininess is cute. ANY chubbiness or baby fat is commented on, along with suggestions that the child needs to diet and the parent is "making them fat". Frankly, these comments were pretty loudly whispered, and I am sure that the heavier kids over heard at least some of this, and even at 3-5, were humiliated. You have to wonder how this will affect how they feel about food and/or their bodies.

I know 9, 10, and 11 year old children who are dieting. Some of these girls weigh 65 and 70 lbs! They are already skinny, but terrified of "getting fat". I see girls of 12 and 13 who express dread about puberty -- not fear of menstruation, but fear of "getting fat". Breasts and hips are considered "fat". The ideal is to look like a skinny 12 year old your whole life (perhaps with fake breast implants), and this pressure NEVER lets up, even when you are well into middle age. How can even small children fail to internal this?

I see many MANY children being given Diet Coke to drink, because their moms perceive a carbonated, caffeine-based, aspartame full, bottled drink as PREFERABLE to fruit juice or milk because IT HAS NO CALORIES. They feed toddlers SKIM milk -- a friend asked me to pick up some milk for her toddlers recently, and when I innocently brought her organic 2% milk, she dumped the entire (expensive) container down the sink. "Two percent milk is FATTENING", she screamed, "what were you THINKING?" This woman routinely gives her 2 and 5 children diet sodas and sugarless (aspartame) popsicles. I have no doubt she feels she is being an EXCELLENT and caring mom -- and she is, in the sense that she is doing everything humanly possible to prevent obesity.

In a society where obesity is considered worse than any kind of immorality, dishonesty, or failure -- starving and shaming your young children is "normal" and good. Any remotely intelligent child can and will pick up on this, and internalize "life long dieting" as an important life goal, and equate eating or enjoying food with "shameful behavior".

It is interesting to me that in previous generations, when a person said "they had been BAD", they meant that they lied or cheated or gossipped or were disobedient to parents or authorities. Today, when a person says "I have been BAD", they inevitably mean that they have eaten something good-tasting that has too many calories.