Q: "Am I overreacting by worrying that my child who eats healthfully now might one day develop an eating disorder?"
  Unless your eyes have been closed to the forces all around us, you are attuned to the influences of a society where youngsters (and oldsters alike) feel driven to strive for thinness as a route to beauty, success, popularity, and happiness. High schools and colleges have been joined by middle and even elementary schools, in experiencing the phenomenon that kids as young as age 5 and throughout their adolescence, young and middle adulthood years, are becoming vulnerable to the destructive influence of society, of peers and the media.
   The good news is that parents, though they cannot protect their children from the forces that their children encounter outside the home daily, can provide their children strength, resiliency and an immunity to developing body image disturbances and eating disorders. A parent with know-how can virtually "eating disorder proof" his or her child.
   Parents need to assume responsibility and take control when and where they have control; they need to teach their children what healthy eating is and to "live" that message themselves, providing healthy role modeling for their child with meals and exercise. Parents who cook and provide meals, and who sit down to enjoy them together with the family, can do a great deal to counteract even the most pernicious of outside influences.

Q. "I am told that I must never discuss food with my child, so what should I do if I notice her putting on a lot of weight, skipping meals, or eating restrictively?"
  The theory behind this "hands off" policy is that parents should avoid becoming involved in fruitless power struggles with their child. In actual fact, power struggles are not an option when it is understood that the parents, in intervening, are joining, not opposing, the child in the battle against eating dysfunction. Kids and parents ultimately share the same goals, that being to have the child grow up to become an independent and highly functioning and productive adult who is a healthy eater, and a gratified individual.
   If parents feel a power struggle brewing, this is their cue that they have not yet been successful enough at listening deeply enough to the underlying feelings behind the child's words, at hearing the true essence of what their child needs and wants to convey. In such instances, even more important than speaking, parents need to listen to encourage the child hear herself. "Tell me more.." Or "..and what else?." are generally two phrases that will facilitate these goals.
   In confronting a child, it is important for parents to be persistent and to speak from the "I" position, stating their own observations, concerns, thoughts, and suggestions about options, then noting realistic consequences of the child's actions. Your child was not born spontaneously competent to know what is healthy and how best to nourish herself. She is counting on you to become her teacher, mentor and guide.


Last updated on 04-05-2002