Eating disorders prompt changes to the Curriculum
Have you ever reflected on your school days and realised the lasting impact they’ve had on your relationship with food, weight, and body image? For many, school serves as the initial battleground where our perceptions of these aspects of life are shaped. However, there’s been a long-overdue shift in the way these topics are addressed, particularly in Australia.
The Australian Curriculum was updated in February 2024 with the aim to change the way that food, weight, health, and wellbeing is taught in schools.
The removal of content promoting weight stigma and diet culture was in response to several petitions to prevent triggering the development and relapse of eating disorders in school.
The updated Curriculum acknowledges that sensitive topics include body image, food selection, eating and physical activity habits. Due to the harmful consequences of labelling food as “good/bad” and the oversimplification of health to body mass index (BMI), the focus of the new curriculum shifts to promoting healthy eating habits and body movement.
The new curriculum’s recommendations are aligned with the National Eating Disorder Collaboration (NEDC) National Strategy for Eating Disorders, which set the global precedent for eating disorder prevention and care.
To reduce unintended harm, the new curriculum advises teachers to avoid activities that include calculating calories, BMI, body measurements, or recording food intake. The Curriculum discourages teachers from using the terms “good” and “bad” foods. Teachers are also recommended to abstain from critiquing and comparing food and wellbeing choices and habits.
Further to this, the Eating Disorders Families Australia website is listed in the Curriculum’s supportive resources.
Hilary Smith, National Manager at the NEDC, said “It is wonderful to see these changes to the curriculum coming into effect as a key action in promoting body appreciation and positive relationships with food and eating, particularly in this critical developmental stage when the risk of eating disorder onset is high.”
Despite these positive changes to the Australian Curriculum, they are not mandated and it will be up to each school to decide whether they implement them.
It’s important that the changes are adopted by schools Australia-wide
The changes to the Australian Curriculum are an important step in reducing the perpetuation of weight stigma and diet culture for school students. The changes hope to safeguard against the development of disordered eating and eating disorders in response to classroom learning.
Teachers have an important role in educating children about having a healthy relationship with their bodies and foods.
Children start learning about their bodies and nutrition at school, and this can be where a lot of disordered thinking and behaviours begin. In a study from The Butterfly Foundation, 43% of adult respondents reported developing an undiagnosed eating disorder between 5-12 years old.
Weight stigma starts developing early in childhood from as young as 3 years old. Approximately 50% of pre-adolescent girls report body dissatisfaction, and a third of 5-year-old girls report a desire to engage in dieting behaviours.Evidence shows that labelling certain food as “bad”, shaming bigger bodies, and encouraging dieting for weight loss can lead to the development of disordered eating and eating disorders in children and adolescents. These topics can also contribute to the bullying of peers which has been associated with disordered eating behaviours in children as young as 8-12 years old.
Dr Stephanie Damiano, manager of Butterfly Body Bright, said: “More school staff are becoming aware of students being dissatisfied with their bodies and engaging in disordered eating behaviours in primary school…”
“We’re increasingly hearing reports of students expressing low self-esteem, not eating at school or who are uncomfortable doing so in front of others, students overeating and under-eating and expressing a desire to count calories and diet from a young age.”
In 2022, mum Leah shared the following story of her nine-year-old; “They were all asked to weigh themselves at school today as part of their phys ed class… There were comparisons, commenting on other people’s numbers and calling out the heaviest kids as ‘fat’,” she continued.
Hopes for the future
Due to the harmful consequences of activities such as taking body measurements and calculating calories, we hope that schools across Australia adopt the Curriculum overhaul and change how health is taught in school for the better.
References:
Australian Curriculum. Understand this Curriculum connection: Food and wellbeing. Accessed 7/2/2024 at: https://v9.australiancurriculum.edu.au/teacher-resources/understand-this-curriculum-connection/food-and-wellbeing
Isabella Ross for Mamamia. Comparisons, comments and fat shaming: Why are we still weighing kids at school? (10 February 2022) Accessed 7/2/2024 at: https://www.mamamia.com.au/weighing-kids-at-school/
The Butterfly Foundation. New primary school program proven to support positive body image in pupils (1 March 2022) Accessed 7/2/2024 at: https://butterfly.org.au/news/new-primary-school-program-proven-to-support-positive-body-image-in-pupils/
overdue (6 February 2024) Accessed 8/2/2024 at: https://theconversation.com/no-more-bmi-diets-or-bad-foods-why-changing-how-we-teach-kids-about-weight-and-nutrition-is-long-overdue-222605
The Embrace Collective. Bye bye BMI: Food and wellbeing education in schools overhauled to prevent eating disorders in young people (25 January 2024) Accessed 7/2/2024 at: https://theembracecollective.org/blog/bye-bye-bmi-food-and-wellbeing-education-in-schools-overhauled-to-prevent-eating-disorders-in-young-people
