getting rid of school co-ed lunches ...to prevent EDs! WTH?!

livingtx · **Posted:** Fri Mar 18, 2011 6:24 pm

Posted this in rants earlier this week after hearing it on the radio but found the article online and decided to post it here. Is this ever misguided?!

Quote:

More Schools are Getting Rid of Co-Ed Lunches To Cut Down On Fights . . . and Eating Disorders?

More and more schools across the country are moving away from co-ed lunches, and making boys eat with boys, and girls eat with girls. And the reasons are pretty sad for both genders.

For the boys, schools have found that if they're not around girls, they're less likely to show off and FIGHT. For the girls, schools find that if they're not around boys . . . they're more likely to EAT.

There's no official count on the number of schools that have unisex lunches . . . but there is a count on schools that COMPLETELY divide up the sexes so they can focus just on their classes and not on their hormones.

As of January, there were 524 public schools nationwide that have single-sex classrooms. That's up from TWELVE gender-divided schools in 2002.

(Hartford Courant)

That is just screwed up logic. Do these people even realize what causes EDs?! I've never once seen "co-ed school lunches" blamed as a cause and I find it so unlikely it's laughable!

violetcrumble_99 · **Joined:** Mon Nov 30, 2009 8:15 pm **Posts:** 224

I cannot even fathom the sheer extent of how ridiculous this is. :ooook:

As you noted, eating disorders are caused by far more complex physiological and psychological issues than the fact you're being observed by a boy!

So dumb. Soooooooo dumb, man. And a bit insulting towards sufferers by implying we would develop this illness based on the genders present at the lunch table. What the hell?

By the way - on the contrary - I find I actually eat more when with guys, compared to when I'm with girls. Because my natural appetite is very large (since I have a high metabolic rate and I'm very active and so on) and boys tend to match that great appetite, whereas girls (not to generalise, but just from what I'm observed) tend to eat less, I thus feel more comfortable satisfying my appetite properly when I'm with boys who do not hesitate to go back for that second serve either! :lol:

Becky · **Posted:** Fri Mar 18, 2011 8:00 pm

Um...wouldn't getting rid of co-ed school lunches just make things worse? I mean, boys can suffer from EDs too, but girls are especially awful when it comes to triggering each other, egging each other on to skip lunch, and so forth.

livingtx · **Posted:** Fri Mar 18, 2011 8:54 pm

Quote:

Um...wouldn't getting rid of co-ed school lunches just make things worse? I mean, boys can suffer from EDs too, but girls are especially awful when it comes to triggering each other, egging each other on to skip lunch, and so forth.

Yes, this is my thought exactly!

Kate the great · **Posted:** Sat Mar 19, 2011 1:34 am

violetcrumble_99 wrote:

By the way - on the contrary - I find I actually eat more when with guys, compared to when I'm with girls. Because my natural appetite is very large (since I have a high metabolic rate and I'm very active and so on) and boys tend to match that great appetite, whereas girls (not to generalise, but just from what I'm observed) tend to eat less, I thus feel more comfortable satisfying my appetite properly when I'm with boys who do not hesitate to go back for that second serve either! :lol:

I'm in a similar spot. When I "eat" with a group of only girls I eat as much as whoever is eating the least, and since half of them are generally on diets that means not much if anything. With a co-ed group I am more comfortable deciding what to eat based on what I need rather than what everyone else is eating since there is a wider range of diets.

SeetherChick · **Posted:** Sat Mar 19, 2011 8:14 am

Yes, yes, yes. Girls are awful to try and eat around sometimes. :-(

At any given time on my table, one girl is throwing her lunch at the ground by 'accident' in a dramatic manner, another is taking forty minutes to eat a small plate of wedges, someone else is moaning about how much they eat, three people have no lunch and one is casually telling everybody else how disgusting their meals look/ smell/ are.

In comparison, boys sat at our table tend to eat a lot and talk about stuff everybody else gives a crap about, not bodies and calories.

andi · **Joined:** Wed Mar 10, 2010 9:25 pm **Posts:** 427

Yeah I relly don't see the logic on this one. From what I've seen boys usually aren't concerned with how much they or anyone else is eating. It seems like the girls would be the ones to influence each other to diet or eat in other unhealthy ways.

komich · **Posted:** Sun Mar 20, 2011 6:13 pm

I prefer eating with those of the male persuasion myself, fewer men go on about diet this and diet that while I'm trying to eat.

IJustWantToBeOkay · **Joined:** Wed Jan 04, 2012 6:31 am **Posts:** 47

I also feel that it would be easier to eat around a table of boys then I table of girls, just looking back at my high school experience with dieting friends and other friends with ED's.

I do remember classmates occasionally saying, as well as classmates of my sisters, who are currently juniors in high school, remarking to one and other that "they don't eat around boys." But I don't think this is an eating disordered behavior.

getting rid of school co-ed lunches ...to prevent EDs! WTH?!

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