This quiz will help you find out if your child has an eating disorder. While eating disorders have a lot to do with eating and weight (obviously!), they are mental disorders. This means that the diagnosis really requires behavioral and mood symptoms that go beyond eating and weight. In fact, the significant majority of people who have eating disorders hide in plain sight. Additionally, many eating disorders can look “healthy” according to popular opinion about how people “should” eat. The fastest-rising type of eating disorder is Orthorexia, which is an obsession with “healthy” food.
Take the quiz: Does my child have an eating disorder quiz
Maybe you have noticed that your child has been behaving differently around food lately. Maybe you’ve noticed changes in how your child eats. Or maybe you just have a sneaking suspicion that your child is keeping something secret from you. The bottom line is that if you have landed on this page, then you have some concerns about your child’s eating patterns. That’s a significant reason to be concerned and take some action.
Common signs of an eating disorder
You are probably familiar with some of the common criteria used to diagnose an eating disorder. They include:
- Restricting food
- Binge-eating food
- Purging food using vomiting, laxatives or exercise
- Intense fear of gaining weight
- Inaccurate self-image in terms of body weight and shape
Sometimes a parent can recognize these obvious signs in a child. However, more often, the signs are subtle and hard to spot for three main reasons:
- Secrecy: It is common for a child who has an eating disorder to hide their major symptoms. Parents are often not aware they exist.
- Diet Culture: Our society applauds weight loss and efforts to control the body through food restriction. Parents can miss critical eating disorder behaviors because they fall under socially-acceptable dieting behavior.
- Denial: Both people with eating disorders and the people who loved them can get stuck in a denial trap. None of us wants to see our child suffer, and mental disorders, especially eating disorders, carry a lot of stigma that can get in the way of diagnosis and treatment.
Does my child have an eating disorder quiz
This quiz will help you hone in on your concerns about whether your child has an eating disorder. This quiz cannot take the place of a medical and psychological evaluation. It’s only designed to help a parent whose “spidey senses” are tingling to determine the next course of action.
No online quiz can take the place of a parent’s intuition that something is wrong. So even if you don’t get a clear result, an evaluation could be helpful. It may not be an eating disorder. It may be something entirely different. But you should listen closely to your instincts that something is going on with your child. Please seek help from someone who is qualified to help you figure out what it is.
Parent Scripts For Eating Disorder Recovery
Scripts to help you figure out what to say to help your child with an eating disorder. Use these scripts:
- At the dinner table when behavior is getting out of control
- When you need to set boundaries – fast!
- After something happened so you can calmly review the triggers and events
Take the quiz: Does my child have an eating disorder quiz
Ginny Jones is on a mission to empower parents to raise kids who are free from eating disorders. She’s the founder of More-Love.org and a Parent Coach who helps parents navigate their kid’s eating disorder recovery.
Ginny has been researching, writing about, and supporting parents who have kids with eating disorders since 2016. She incorporates the principles of neurobiology and attachment parenting with a non-diet, Health At Every Size® approach to health and recovery.
Ginny’s most recent project is Recovery, a newsletter for deeply-feeling people in recovery from diet culture, negative body image, and eating disorders.
LEGAL DISCLAIMER: The information on this website is not intended or implied to be a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis or treatment. All content, including text, graphics, images, and information, contained on or available through this website is for general information purposes only.
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