ParentLine

Dear ParentLine,

My daughter is 14 years old and she is obsessed about being thin.  She has started to cut back drastically on food and I’m getting concerned.  She doesn’t want to talk about it.  With all of the stories around about eating disorders, I worry she’s not getting the food she needs.  What can I do? 

Signed, Nervous in NH

 

A teen’s obsession about food is a definite red flag.  ParentLine recommends positive action, not panic on your part.  Your marching orders are as follows.  Get informed about anorexia and bulimia—causes and symptoms.  Engage professionals to help your daughter and your entire family, if necessary.  Inventory your family’s eating habits.  Take a hard look at your own body image issues and do the work that may be needed to help both you and your daughter have realistic ideas about what a healthy body looks like.

 

Though theories abound, the causes of eating disorders are unknown. Emotional and physical changes, academic and/or peer pressure can be triggers for eating disorders in teens ages 13-17.  Sometimes, issues related to anxiety, depression or obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) or other mental health problems contribute to eating disorders.  Is anything unusual going on in your daughter’s life?  Has there been some difficult change, such as divorce or death of a loved one?  Can you connect the changes in her eating patterns with a significant event in her school or social life?

According to experts at the Nemours Foundation (www.kidshealth.org), the two most common eating disorders are anorexia nervosa and bulimia nervosa.  Both are extremes in eating behaviors.  People with anorexia have an extreme fear of weight gain and a distorted view of their body size and shape.  As a result, they are unable to maintain a normal body weight, restrict their food intake by diet, fasting and excessive exercise, and can develop obsessions about the small amount of food they do eat.  With bulimia, the person binges on food and then tries to compensate in extreme ways, such as forced vomiting, excessive exercise to prevent weight gain.  Here are signs that a person may have anorexia or bulimia:

Anorexia:

  • Becomes thin, frail, emaciated
  • Obsessed with eating, food, and weight control
  • Weighs self repeatedly
  • Counts or portions food carefully
  • Exercises obsessively
  • Feels fat
  • Withdraws from social activities, especially meals and celebrations, involving food

Bulimia:

  • Fears weight gain
  • Intensely unhappy with body size, shape, and weight
  • Makes excuses to go to the bathroom immediately after meals
  • May only eat diet or low-fat foods (except during binges)
  • Regularly buys laxatives, diuretics, or enemas
  • Spends most of their time working out or trying to work off calories

In an article titled, “Information for Parents of Anorexic Teen Girls,” (www.essortment.com), the authors urge parents who suspect their daughter is suffering from anorexia to seek professional help.  They state, “This is not the type of thing that you can handle on your own, and you shouldn’t try to.  The first step is to your family doctor.  From that point, your doctor will probably recommend one of three options: counseling, in-patient treatment or out-patient treatment.”  Often, counselors will hold private sessions with your daughter as well as family therapy sessions.

Another article titled, “Most Teen Girls With Eating Disorder Symptoms Deny They Need Help,” warns that 40 percent of girls with full-blown eating disorders and 57 percent of those with serious symptoms believed that they didn’t need counseling.  The most common reason they gave was that the “problem was not worrisome enough to me,” or that they, “didn’t have a problem at all.” 

As you work with a family therapist and/or a physician, please consider the following two suggestions as additional ways in which you can help your daughter.  First, encourage your family to sit down together for meals.  Recent research by Dianne Neumark-Sztainer, lead investigator of Project Eating Among Teens (Project EAT) found that adolescent girls who frequently eat meals with their families are 29% less likely to use diet pills, laxatives or other extreme measures to control their weight.  Binge eating and other disordered eating behaviors also tended to be less common for those accustomed to eating meals with their families.  “Family meals may offer more benefits to adolescent girls, who may be more sensitive to and likely to be influenced by interpersonal and familial relationships,” researchers wrote.

Secondly, Mom, remember that what we see when we look at ourselves in a mirror is often distorted by our own self-image!  Never mind media pressure about what women’s bodies ought to look like, as her role model, consider whether you may be sending mixed messages to your daughter about how you feel about your body without knowing it!

Dr. Susan Bartell in an article titled, “Help Your Daughter Create a Healthy Body Image,” invites moms to ask themselves the following questions:

  • Do I like my body?
  • Do I keep negative feelings about my body to myself, rather than voicing them to others (especially my daughter)?
  • Am I satisfied with the way I look in clothes?
  • Do I diet frequently, and/or does my weight yoyo up and down?

Barnett suggests these can be difficult and even embarrassing questions to think about.  However, she says one of the most important things that mothers need to learn is that the way you think about and manage your own body image and weight issues will be communicated to your daughter and impacts upon the way she thinks about her own body.  Barnett offers the following as ways you can communicate messages about a healthy body image and encourage one in your daughter:

  • Don’t talk negatively about your own body
  • Try not to lose or gain weight dramatically and don’t utilize fad diets
  • Model healthy exercise behavior
  • Refrain from discussing your weight with your daughter
  • Try not to hide your body from your daughter

ParentLine is a free and confidential service of Child and Family Services, a statewide, independent, nonprofit organization dedicated to advancing the well-being of children and families.  Call ParentLine, 1-800-640-6486;  write ParentLine, c/o Child and Family Services, P.O. Box 448, Manchester, NH; email parentline@cfsnh.org or visit our website at www.cfsnh.org.