Beef Up Your Teenager's Body Image
Teenage girls with body image problems are at higher risk for eating disorders. A teenager with a distorted body image will see their body differently than others see it. That is, what they see in the mirror (fat) is often a grossly exaggerated perception. While many factors shape a teen's body image, parents are more important than they may think in helping their teenagers to have a healthy feeling about their bodies.

Look at Your Own Behavior
One of the hardest things to do is to look at how our own behaviors may reflect upon our children. How do you feel about your own body? Do you discuss your weight with your teen, call yourself fat, or diet frequently? The feelings you have about your own body and how you handle your own weight and shape issues has an impact upon your children.

You can help your teemager to feel good about her body if you:

  • Avoid talking negatively about your own body, which gives the message that it's okay to dislike your body.
  • If you are overweight and need to diet, let your teen know that you are trying to lose weight to improve your health rather than to be a certain weight or shape.
  • If you must diet, do so by eating healthy, balanced meals. Avoid fad diets, skipping meals and diet pills.
  • Model good exercise habits. Moderate, regular exercise will help you to stay healthy and help your child to see this as a healthy thing to do all of the time-not just when on a weight loss program.

Other Influences
Actresses, models and other celebrities that your child sees on television, in movies and magazines may also influence her body image. It's important to discuss this with her so that she can develop a realistic perspective. Help her to see that people come in all shapes and sizes and that body shape is largely determined by heredity. Most models and actresses have the genetic tendency to be thin. They also spend many hours per day maintaining that look-sometimes at great cost to their health.

Friends, too, can shape your child's body image. She may want to look, dress and act like the cool kids-and may be teased if she doesn't. Help her to be her own person and to take pride in her health rather than in striving to look like someone else.

There are many things you can do to help beef up your teen's body image. If in spite of this, your child seems to have a consistent problem with feeling bad about her weight and shape, make an appointment with a doctor or counselor so that she can discuss her concerns with a professional.

How to Lower the Risk of Eating Disorders Associated With Athletics
Your 8-year-old daughter talks of nothing but figure skating. She's been skating since she could barely walk-and she's good, too. You're thinking of finding a serious coach who can help her to develop her talents so she can compete. But a little voice in the back of your mind reminds you that you've seen reports about competitive figure skaters being vulnerable to eating disorders. Should you discourage your daughter's passion?

There's no easy answer to this. It's true that a higher than average percentage of eating disorders exists among those involved in certain high performance sports, such as figure skating, gymnastics, dancing, distance running, and swimming. But while the involvement in sports that place a great emphasis on being thin certainly predispose the athlete to disordered eating, many of those who are drawn to such sports have personality characteristics that make them more vulnerable to an eating disorder. Those who single-mindedly pursue their sports passion are often self-disciplined perfectionists, highly competitive, driven to achieve and succeed. They like to please others.

Which is exactly why these athletes may fall victim to eating disorders. In sports where misguided coaches pressure athletes to be extremely thin, a desire to please the trainer may result in a serious eating problem. In 1994, at 22 years old, Christy Henrich, a US top gymnast died of complications from an eating disorder. Six years earlier a remark from a judge about her being too fat to compete in the Olympics drove her to begin a course of unhealthy eating behaviors that only ended with her death.

The enormous pressure to be thin for aesthetic reasons is coupled with many athletes' belief that they will perform better if they are thinner.

What can a parent do to prevent a child's athletic passion from ending in disaster? Your best bet is to find the right coach. An ideal coach should be well versed on the dangers of eating disorders, and trained to recognize the symptoms that an athlete may be suffering from such a problem. A good way to determine whether a coach or trainer cares more about the physical and emotional well being of your child than whether she wins the next competition is to observe some training sessions. Does the coach praise efforts and instill a sense of pride-no matter where the child finishes in a competition? Does he or she ask that your child do her best, or does she demand that your child is number one?

Keep the lines of communication open with your child, too. Remind her that while it's true that in the short term, a lower body fat percentage might improve athletic performance, in the long run, extreme thinness results in loss of muscle, which reduces speed and power. Teach her that the stress that strenuous exercise places on the heart demands that her heart must be healthy. Help her to plan meals for success in athletic performance-and for good health.