Middle Aged Women: Thin at All Cost

It is probably a real phenomenon there and also in the U.S., and likely media- and celebrity-driven. It's a shame, at least to the extent health can be endangered by eating disorders.

The pressure exerted on middle-aged women to look like 18-year-olds is also regrettable.

One way to counter the trend is for celebrities such as Tyra Banks to come out and say, "I weigh a hundred and sixty pounds and I'm fine with it. This is me. Get over it." (I'm paraphrasing. You remember the media mini-frenzy a year ago?)

-Steve
www.AdvancedMediterraneanDiet.com/blog/

I am a member of a WW message board and have noticed lately a lot of older members with goal weights at the very low end of the healthy weight range for their height.

It's the world's obsession with youth. We equate skinny and young, and staying young means staying skinny. A woman in her 50s can be healthy without being the same weight she was when she was 18 years old, but the pressure to never weigh more is in her face, all the time. You see articles like, "Sexy at 50 and Beyond" everywhere, but the women pictured in such articles are usually model skinny. I'm not saying anyone ought to be obese or even overweight, but a healthy range is meant to be just that...a range. We don't all need to aim for the lowest possible weight!

The mothers posting on the Special K diet post right here are freaking me out. I assume they are mostly late 20s or 30s, and they are even more disturbed than the teens with all the self-hatred.

The culture of hatred to our bodies is disturbing, and affects so many women (and men).

I always try to emphasize in my own life, and would emphasize with clients: Pay attention to HEALTH more than anything -- exercise, eat healthy foods, and love yourself. Don't worry about 5-10 lb, worry about what is best for you health-- mental and physical combined.

I spent a long time with eating disorders to learn this, and I only hope that more women pick up this message. Our culture is not conducive to this though, as it derides extra (or even normal) weight with an almost fear. It pushes thinness as godliness, as the holy grail, and it's just not so. Beauty comes in all shapes and sizes, and health comes in a wide range.

I know a woman around the age of 50 who's had an eating disorder since she was in her 30's. She still exercises compulsively and won't eat anything unless it's "safe" or fat free. She told me just because you get older doesn't mean you stop wanting to be skinny (this was after I said I'd prefer to be a bit heavier as I aged so not to look haggard). She basically doesn't think she'll ever be free from it. It's sad.
I do agree that the media makes it worse. Marcia Cross of Desperate Housewives has said in interviews that she pretty much has to go hungry.

it's definitely a double-edged sword. on the one hand, getting older definitely is not an excuse to let yourself get fatter. on the other, it may be tough to toe the line between being merely conscious of health and appearance and having a full-blown ED. i hope i can keep up my stringent workout and food regimen for the rest of my life. i also know that i'm a little obsessive now. i wonder if my obsession will deepen or subside if/when i get married, have kids, and have a million other things on my plate.

I think a lot of it is media-driven. You see older actresses like Madonna and Angelina Jolie who have children AND have a model-perfect body and then mere mortals like ourselves who can't afford to spend 5 hours a day in the gym see them and want to emulate them. I think it's also a stress response. I suffered with bulimia in the past and I find now that when I get stressed out, I still turn to the ED behaviors to cope. I wonder how many of those women had EDs when they were teens and they are now resurfacing now that they are no longer having kids and are trying to look younger.

LMAO @ Jan's comment..."at a certain age, you have to choose between your face or your ass". Classic! One look at Janice Dickinson or Madonna and you'll understand that quote a lot better. I bet the Botox industry wouldn't be so lucrative without skinny wrinkly women in their 40's buying them out.

I think this is silly. I guess it is much more interesting for those of us in the overweight, inactive majority to tut-tut about the dangers of too much diet and exercise (on the part of a small minority) than it is to come to grips with the much more prevalent dangers of our own lifestyles.

I think as we mature we see that time is running out and we tend to go over board trying to make up for lost time. but no matter what your age you can get healthier and fitter, just do it right.

I am 53 and the first person I ever heard of having anorexia was Karen Carpenter. I think the trend having reached the middle age group is because the potential anorexics of 20 years ago are now middle aged -- doesn't really take a rocket scientist to figure that one out. It is the social clime we were raised in. I so hope that the advances in this area have created a better social environment for my 11 year old granddaughter to grow through adolescence, without that poor self image many of the women in my generation and my daughter's generation had.

Why do we never hear from healthy fit thin women? They do exist.
Women who eat a healthy diet, exercise moderately, and are thin... AND in excellent health.

What is it with this obsession we have with weight? "Don't be too fat, but don't get an eating disorder."

Studies show that the number one predictor of health is your cardio fitness level, NOT your weight. Even if you are 40 pounds overweight, being physically fit is better than being inactive and ten pounds underweight. Being fat, in an of itself, is not unhealthy.

It is as if we rationalize the hatred of fat people, especially women, by finding any health correlation to justify society's penchant to marginalize people who are different. And when she goes to extremes to achieve it, we punish her for not doing it the right way.

Then, the medical community and society harps on weight and we beat ourselves up over it. Why not just encourage people to ignore the scale and look at how much they exercise? It has much greater immediate health benefits and is a realistic goal that people can easily achieve. Anyone can achieve 30 minutes of exercise a day, statistically very few people will ever achieve keeping off 30 pounds.

Imagine if all those resources were directed to something worthwhile, like world peace, ending hunger, or just treating each other with more kindness. Imagine if women were valued for what they did instead of how they looked. Wouldn't the world be a much better place?

Look at the comments here. . . how many talk about Angelina Jolie and how she looks, instead of her work with orphans. I don't see any mention of celebrity men. Did you realize that Brad Pitt is technically overweight by medical standards? Why doesn't anyone mention that?

Why do women perpetuate this when we realize how utterly brutalizing it is?

Why do we bash ourselves?

I personally think people tend to ignore basic healthy lifestyle fundamentals and then when their body chemistry changes and staying in shape actually takes work, they go to extremes to combat it as opposed to the proper long lasting methods of consistent balanced eating, exercise and moderate supplementation

On the other hand, being at goal weight feels so great, and being fit with energy to spare, makes it a pleasure to continue with the nutrition and exercise. Staying within 2 lbs up or down is easy. Especially when I love what I am eating and I get a kick out of the exercise routine, neither of which, is extreme.
But you might have a point about body chemistry. Maybe it is easier when one is older.

There's a reason why women gain wait around menopause. From what I understand from what I've learned at the Menopause Clinic I attend, if you are a bit fat, you naturally retain more oestrogen. Which is GOOD for women's health.

Im a mother of 3 and a grandmother of 9.I'm @ 123lbs and I watch what I eat and the amount. But don't count cals. or carbs.I don't think I have a eating disorder.But everyone else around me seems to think I do.Just because I take good care of myself.I know that there are people in my own family that do have a eating diorder and I know what they go through everyday.And my heart goes out to all those men and woman that do have a eating disorder.
Because it is something that affects their whole family not just them.And it does destroy many lives everyday.

Madonna just had a couple of concerts here in Boston and I was blown away by how good she looked on stage.

I definitely think the celebrity driven image ideal is associated with a rise of eating disorders in older women.

Another thought is that the older women of today are actually the first generation of obsessed dieters from the 1980's.

In the 1980's aerobics classes, lifting weights at the gym, and fad diets took off like rockets. Teenagers and 30 year old dieters of the 80's are the 40-60 years olds of today.

Just like the baby boomers created a wave in every industry, they are likely creating a wave of eating disorders also.

I started using www.GoWorkoutDaily.com and feel great now, is anyone else using it on this dicussion board? I live in Boise and if anyone is looking for a workout partner let me know.