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{{B}}Losing Weight{{/B}} Girls as young as 10 years old are dieting and in danger of developing unhealthy attitudes to weight, body image and food, a group of Toronto researchers reported Tuesday. Their study of 2,279 girls aged 10 to 14 showed that while the vast majority had healthy weights, nearly a third felt they were overweight (超重的) and were trying to lose pounds. Even at the tender (幼稚的) age of 10, nearly 32 percent of the girls felt "too fat" and 31 percent said they were trying to diet. McVey, a researcher at the Hospital for Sick Children in Toronto, and her colleagues analyzed data collected in a number of surveys of southern Ontario schoolgirls between 1993 and 2003, reporting their findings in Tuesday's issue of the Canadian Medical Association Journal. Nearly 80 percent of the girls had a healthy body weight and only 7.2 percent were considered overweight using standard weight-to-height ratios. Most researchers suggest the rate of overweight children in this country is several times higher than that figure. Nearly 30 percent of the girls reported they were currently trying to lose weight, though few admitted to dangerous behavior such as self-induced vomiting (自导的呕吐). Still, a test that measured attitudes towards eating showed 10.5 percent of survey participants were already at risk of developing an eating disorder. "We're not talking about kids who've been prescribed (嘱咐) a diet because they're above average weight or overweight. We're talking about children who are within a healthy weight range. And they have taken it upon themselves to diet to lose weight," McVey said, acknowledging she found the rates disturbing. She said striking a balance between healthy weights and healthy attitudes towards food and body image is a complex task, with no easy solutions. |