News / Articles

Eating Disorders, Body Image, and Our Children

Ed Series
EATING DISORDERS, BODY IMAGE, AND OUR CHILDREN

By: Kathleen Someah | December 7, 2023

Children are sponges. They absorb whatever we put down and are quick to mirror our own experiences. We know to censor what we say to others in consideration of a child’s listening ears, but what we sometimes forget is that how we speak towards ourselves matters as well. No parent is perfect. I, for one, have almost no idea what I am doing on a daily basis, and the moment I think I have found the secret sauce to being a mom, is the moment I am thrown a curveball. Parenting is hard. We don’t know what we don’t know and sometimes we just have to wing it and hope that whatever we’re doing will yield a positive outcome.

As a Clinical Psychologist I make a living helping others figure out how to thrive. I specialize in treating eating disorders in adolescents and support parents along the journey from illness to recovery. As a mom and someone who is recovered from an eating disorder, I worry that former body-related insecurities will be passed down to my daughter. Afterall, she is genetically wired to have an unhealthy relationship with food. That said, how we nurture our children has a tremendous impact on how they develop, tipping their future along a positive trajectory. I have a lot of compassion for parents of children who struggle from disordered eating. When they seek out my counsel, parents are usually relatively despondent and stuck in the cycle of “what did I do to cause this?” What I typically find is that eating disorders are multifactorial in nature, and the specific cause is murky at best. However, there are some things that are more likely than others to instill dysfunctional attitudes about food and weight in our youth. Here are several things to consider that can have a large impact on a child’s well being as it relates to food and weight:

Avoid labeling food as good and bad. Most people enter parenting with the best intentions. We aim to provide adequate, predictable, and nutritious food to our children that supports them as they grow. Messaging around food is important and it’s hard to wade through the waters of information about how to educate children when it comes to nutrition and general health. We place a moral value on food when we label it as healthy, unhealthy, good, or bad and in doing so we set a foundation for children to internalize that they too are good, bad, etc when they eat a particular food. Instead, try thinking of all the other reasons beyond nutrition that food is beneficial. Hint: taste, pleasure, part of cultural traditions, etc.

Avoid using food as a reward, bribe or punishment. As a child I was easily incentivized by a chocolate sundae at TCBY. It was my favorite after school reward and something my parents used often as a form of motivation or reward. The withholding of it was also common. Although effective strategies for shaping behavior in the short-term, using food as a reward, bribe or punishment can also convey that a person must earn food based on worthiness. It inappropriately equates food with a person’s value.

Be aware of your own body image. Parents lead by example and in doing so, sometimes we unintentionally lead towards the wrong goal. How we eat and how we talk about bodies, whether our own or others, has an impact on how children view their own. Discussing diets, expressing a desire to lose weight or “eat clean,” although seemingly innocuous, influences our children to adopt similar attitudes and behaviors.

Although there is no recipe for protecting our children from developing eating disorders and/or body image concerns, what we model matters. If you are interested in learning more about eating disorders and how to support your children in cultivating a positive attitude towards food and body image, please join my Zoom presentation with fellow mom and clinician, Danielle Colborn, Ph.D on Monday, December 11 at 2:00pm. We will discuss how to spot disordered eating in your child or teen, what to do if you are concerned, as well as debunk common myths associated with this illness.

Kathleen Someah lives in Mill Valley with her husband and daughter, Lennon. She is a Marin native and grateful to be back in her old stomping grounds. Professionally, Kathleen is a Licensed Clinical Psychologist and specializes in treating adolescents and adults with disordered eating, in addition to other mental health conditions. Personally, she enjoys spending time with her family and two dogs, Monty and Taco, going to concerts/fan-girling over the Head and the Heart, and supporting other strong women as they navigate motherhood.