[Credit: Amber Simmons, http://www.flickr.com/photos/amberlaine/4107540182/in/photostream]

 by Arielle Duhaime-Ross

“School-based ‘healthy living’ programs triggering eating disorders in some children: Canadian study” was the headline of a Postmedia News article published in the National Post, one of Canada’s top newspapers. The article — which only quotes the lead researcher of the study, forgoing the recommended practice of obtaining outside commentary  from other researchers in the field — raised concerns that “healthy eating” programs in schools might be causing some children to develop anorexic-like behaviours.

But the study, conducted by researchers at the Hospital for Sick Children in Toronto and the Children’s Hospital of Eastern Ontario and published in Eating Disorders, is based on four cases of disordered eating —yes, four — in Canadian adolescents. And ever since this news article, published in late February, made a sweeping statement about healthy eating programs in schools, without properly evaluating the evidence, I haven’t been able to let that go.

The study tells the tale of four children, aged 13 to 14, who developed disordered eating behaviours within six to seven months of the introduction of a classroom healthy eating program. One 14-year-old girl was asked to research eating disorders as part of a health and nutrition section of her gym class. Six months later, she was emulating the behaviours she had reviewed for her class. Another child, a 14-year-old boy, started exercising for two to four hours each day and skipping meals after the introduction of a “healthy living” program at his school. The researchers note that he wanted to be “the best” at healthy living.

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