Category: Causes of Eating Disorders

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Transformative viewing of the Your Fat Friend film

Transformative viewing of the My Fat Friend film

The film Your Fat Friend is a documentary about fat activist Aubrey Gordon, an author, columnist, and podcaster. Gordon’s books, What We Don’t Talk About When We Talk About Fat and You Just Need to Lose Weight and 19 Other Myths About Fat People transformed the conversation about weight and health in moving yet wickedly funny ways. She’s the cohost of the podcast Maintenance Phase, which reaches millions and debunks wellness and weight loss trends with a delightful mix of fact and humor. 

The film shows us an inside look into Gordon’s path from anonymous blogger to NYTimes bestselling author and podcaster with millions of listeners. In addition to a lifetime of experiencing brutal weight stigma, Gordon was enrolled in a diet class in her early teens, which she says contributed to an eating disorder.

In July dietitian Lizzie Briasco and others in North Carolina organized a screening of the film, which provided an opportunity for eating disorder professionals and community members to gather and watch Gordon’s story in a supportive environment. Along with other informative materials, attendees were offered our Please Don’t Weigh Me Cards, which were created to counteract weight stigma at the doctor’s office.

Here’s Lizzie’s inside scoop of the event: 

How many people came?

We had 70 attendees – a full house! The event could not have gone better. I’m not sure what I was expecting, but we surpassed it.

Why do you think people came to the screening? 

People came to the screening because they were curious to learn more about the body liberation movement, find community, and learn more about sizeism/anti-fat bias through this film. 

They were looking for hope, connection, and the opportunity to feel seen, heard, and understood – and it was pretty clear they got that during both the film and our post-film discussion. By the end of the film, the whole room had laughed and cried together. It was magical to see, and very inspirational to hear people’s thoughts and insights afterwards. 

At the end of the day, we all want to feel like we’re a part of something – we don’t want to be alone. But that’s one of the biggest harms of sizeism – making people feel alone and vulnerable when, in reality, there’s a whole lot of other people struggling with similar feelings and lived experiences. To see so many people come together and realize this during this screening was awesome.

What was the vibe in the room?

The general vibe was anticipation, some apprehension, and excitement. We had a lot of resources and some activities for people to participate in which fostered some thought-provoking dialogue around people’s experiences with diet culture and sharing some of their own stories with friends and even some strangers who may have felt safer to talk with because of the atmosphere.

I observed the audience showing rapt attention, relief, grief, anger, surprise, and hope. I saw people laughing together, crying together, and friends rubbing friends’ backs. 

Some expressed frustration and anger at how much Aubrey’s family misses the mark at holiday gatherings by celebrating her work but then immediately makes negative food and body comments. I think the whole room was shocked, disappointed, confused, and hurt when we were watching the scene with the gluten-free, sugar-free birthday cake her dad got her. 

How did people feel after watching the film?

I think people felt gratitude, thoughtfulness, validation, anger, and hope. Everyone had very positive things to say about the film and screening in general. The most meaningful part for a lot of folks was someone finally saying what they have been trying to say their whole lives. 

Other things people highlighted were the very real danger that can come just from existing in a fat body, learning how cyclical (and ineffective) the diet/”wellness” industry is, and finding some relief in knowing that their bodies were never actually the issue–the messages they’ve received about their bodies pretty much their whole lives are.

Event Organizers & Sponsors

Ginny Jones is the founder of More-Love.org, and a Parent Coach who helps parents who have kids with eating disorders.

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Parent guide to how childhood trauma causes emotional eating

How does childhood trauma cause emotional eating and can parents help?

Emotional eating is a way to define a disordered way of eating, and it’s strongly associated with childhood trauma. 

That’s what led Brittany to call me about her daughter Candice. “I’m worried that she’s emotional eating,” Brittany said. “Candice has always been anxious, and she’s experienced some serious social and medical trauma. She’s always loved sweets, but lately, it’s as if she’s addicted to cake and candy. She just can’t get enough. It’s causing her a lot of pain, and she cries because she’s so miserable. I want to help her, but I don’t know how.” 

I understand. Watching your child go through this can be excruciating. Brittany has been doing the best she can by trying to limit sweets, but it’s backfiring. “The less access she has to sweets, the worse it gets,” she says. “I keep finding evidence that she’s eating them every day even though she swears to me she doesn’t want to. She keeps begging me to help, but I don’t know what to do.” 

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I know how badly Brittany wants to help Candice feel better, so I walked her through how childhood trauma can impact emotional eating and how common approaches like limiting sweets can make the problem worse, not better. Brittany changed her approach and is now on the path of supporting her daughter with childhood trauma and disordered emotional eating.

Does childhood trauma cause emotional eating?

Yes, childhood trauma is a major cause of disordered emotional eating. Disordered eating behaviors span a range of severity, from disordered emotional eating to binge eating disorder. Disordered eating is strongly associated with trauma. According to a recent study, over 80% of Americans diagnosed with binge eating disorder experienced childhood abuse, neglect, and other forms of trauma.

Many people can imagine using food as a psychological coping behavior. It’s commonly suggested that food and eating are a disordered way to soothe unhappy thoughts and feelings.

This suggests that disordered emotional eating is a mental process that can be changed with new/better education. It perpetuates the false belief that eating disorders are a choice and that someone can simply “choose” to recover from them. However, disordered eating is rarely an educable condition. In fact, most people who have disordered eating are exceptionally well educated about what they “should” and “shouldn’t” do with food.

Effective treatment must address the biological, psychological, and social causes of eating disorders. 

Food is naturally soothing for many complex biological reasons. Therefore, all eating is inherently emotionally-driven. Disordered emotional eating is rarely a simple mental issue of seeking comfort through food.

Emotional eating, binge eating, and food addiction cause a great deal of distress and are not mental choices. It’s not as simple as saying “I feel stressed, so I’ll eat,” and lacking the self-control to do otherwise. Rather, several physiological cues including hormones and brain pathways drive obsessive thoughts about food and a compulsion to eat beyond comfort. 

How does trauma impact emotional eating?

Trauma has a physiological impact on the body that can lead to adverse health consequences including disordered eating. These consequences are not due to active mental choices. They are responses to internal signals and drives outside the person’s rational, decision-making brain. 

Keep in mind that almost all the brain’s activity is non-conscious. Scientists estimate anywhere from 80-95% of how our brain functions is non-conscious. Therefore, most of our behaviors are “driven” more than “chosen.”

For example, researchers have identified a particular brain circuit that is susceptible to the impact of trauma and chronic stress, leading to its dysfunction. Additionally, certain hormones, including acyl-ghrelin, often called the “hunger hormone,” are associated with emotional eating and binge eating. These processes are completely outside of conscious awareness or choice and can’t be overcome with food rules and willpower.

How do I know if my child has disordered emotional eating?

Ultimately all eating is emotional. It’s encoded in our DNA to find food emotionally stimulating and pleasurable.

There’s a difference between everyday emotional eating and disordered emotional eating. It’s important not to pathologize kids’ natural hunger and appetite. For example, there’s nothing wrong with enjoying sugary treats, salty snacks, and other highly palatable food. It’s genetically programmed.

Likewise, it’s completely normal for people to occasionally eat more than is technically necessary to meet their caloric needs, even to the point of physical discomfort. 

On the other hand, if your child appears to be obsessed with food or feels a compulsive need to eat beyond comfort repeatedly, they may be struggling with disordered emotional eating. Obsession is defined as having constant thoughts, cravings, and fantasies about food. Compulsion means feeling as if you are out of control and there’s a disconnect between conscious choice and behavior. The key difference between intuitive eating and disordered eating is not so much what’s happening with food but how it feels. Someone with disordered eating experiences extremely high levels of distress related to food and eating.

If you’re concerned that your child has disordered emotional eating, please reach out to a trained non-diet professional. It’s vitally important that you seek someone who operates from a non-diet or anti-diet perspective to avoid adding more shame to your child’s relationship with food.

What types of childhood experiences create trauma associated with emotional eating?

Childhood experiences of trauma are highly correlated with disordered emotional eating, including:

  • Emotional neglect, emotional abuse, physical neglect, physical abuse, sexual abuse
  • Victimization and shaming, including teasing, criticism, bullying, and social exclusion
  • High levels of emotional dysregulation
  • Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD)
  • Elevated adverse childhood experience scores (ACEs)
  • High levels of childhood cumulative trauma and emotional abuse

The link between childhood trauma and disordered emotional eating has been largely overlooked in both scientific literature and common culture due to outdated beliefs that eating is 100% within mental control. The belief that willpower and food rules can overcome disordered eating is outdated and counterproductive.

People with disordered emotional eating are accused of poor judgment, intellectual capacity, and morality. They are given nutrition information, told to “just eat less,” and “just stop eating.” This approach increases trauma around food, eating, and self-worth. In other words, common approaches to disordered emotional eating increase trauma and make things worse.

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Free Guide: How Parents Can Help A Child With An Eating Disorder

Master the secrets to supporting a child with an eating disorder. Thousands of families like yours are stronger today because of these six vital lessons drawn from lived experience, best practices, and extensive study.

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Rather than assuming that people who have disordered emotional eating are lazy, weak, or immoral, we should support them in getting treated for childhood emotional neglect, abuse, and trauma. As long as we continue to treat emotional eating as a moral failure, we impose further trauma upon someone who is already traumatized.

What are the symptoms of emotional eating caused by childhood trauma?

Most disordered emotional eating behaviors are driven by non-conscious processes including brain activity, hormones, and hunger cues. We must be careful not to be too focused on the thoughts and beliefs that surround disordered emotional eating since these are often an over-simplification of a complex behavioral pattern. 

Observable behaviors of emotional eating

  • Eating large quantities of food
  • Feeling full but continuing to eat anyway
  • Eating to the point of physical discomfort
  • Intentionally restricting food for long periods 
  • Forgetting or avoiding eating for long periods

Thoughts and beliefs about emotional eating

  • I’m always hungry
  • I can’t stop myself
  • It’s as if I’m controlled by food
  • I use food as a way to cope when I have big feelings
  • It feels as if I’m addicted to food
  • I forget to eat and get too hungry
  • When I feel stressed or excited, I eat
  • I want to stop, but I can’t
  • I hate myself for eating this way
  • Make sure I don’t do it by never buying that food
  • Keep me away from that food

Many times parents, loved ones, and well-meaning healthcare providers assume thoughts and beliefs are the cause of emotional eating. However, this can lead to inadequate and even harmful treatment approaches. 

For example, when providers assume thoughts are the cause of emotional eating, they may suggest treatment that limits access to food and minimizes eating pleasure. Paradoxically, this approach often increases hunger, which cues the drive to binge eat. In other words, it backfires and causes more harm than good. 

It also perpetuates the experience of trauma by treating the person as if they are bad or make bad choices.

What are the different types of emotional eating?

There is a continuum of eating behavior that ranges from intuitive eating to various forms of emotional eating. The symptoms differ in terms of severity, level of obsession, degree of compulsiveness, and how much a person is distressed by their behavior. Here is one way of identifying different patterns of eating: 

1. Intuitive eating

This is when a person eats according to hunger and appetite approximately every 2-5 hours throughout the day. They typically don’t feel either extreme hunger or extreme fullness and have a peaceful relationship with food. 

2. Mindless eating

This is when a person eats without paying attention to hunger cues but purely in response to emotional or environmental cues. For example, they may eat in response to feeling stressed or bored. Or they may eat because the food is in front of them, such as when there’s a candy jar on the counter. 

3. Restrictive + binge eating

This is when a person restricts food in an attempt to control their behavior, only to become overwhelmingly hungry and have a binge eating episode to make up for missed calories. While this may look like emotional eating, oftentimes it is a response to physiological hunger cues, though they are often below the level of consciousness. 

4. Binge eating episodes

These are when a person is not restricted and feels adequately fed but eats a large quantity of food in a short period. Research has shown that this is often in response to a physiological, non-conscious drive to eat rather than a mental choice. 

5. Binge eating disorder

This is when a person has repeated binge eating episodes. Many times these people are in a restrict + binge eating cycle. Increasingly, binge eating disorder is seen as a physiological response to restriction combined with differences in brain functioning and hormones. Binge eating disorder is strongly associated with a history of weight-based teasing and criticism from family, peers, and healthcare providers, repeated experiences of weight stigma, restrictive eating patterns, and weight cycling caused by dieting.

How to help your child who is using emotional eating to cope with childhood trauma

Your child can recover from both childhood trauma and emotional eating, and parents are key to the process. You can help your child heal from their trauma and support them in moving towards recovery from emotional eating. Here are five things to keep in mind when parenting a child who has childhood trauma and disordered emotional eating:

1. Inventory past experiences

Seek to understand how traumatic experiences have impacted your child. In addition to classic forms of trauma, look for very common but often overlooked forms of emotional trauma. For example, have they been teased, bullied, and criticized by peers, coaches, teachers, healthcare providers, siblings or parents? This is especially common if they are/were in a larger body.

2. Process your feelings

Get support if you feel guilt or shame about your child’s experiences. Parents are all doing the best we can, but sometimes our children still experience trauma in childhood. Before we can support them fully in recovery, we need to heal ourselves. Get professional support and guidance so you can process your feelings about your child’s trauma. 

3. Seek trauma treatment for your child

Cognitive behavioral therapy is the most common therapy in the United States, but it’s not often the best approach to healing childhood trauma. Seek options like EMDR, somatic therapy, trauma-informed therapy, and psychodynamic therapy, which are generally better at uncovering and addressing childhood trauma. 

4. Create a positive eating environment

Rather than try to change or fix your child’s eating behavior right now, begin by improving their eating environment. Trauma is healed in loving, accepting relationships. How you approach eating with your child can either help or hinder their care, so get some guidance about increasing and improving your child’s eating experiences with you. The less you try to “fix” your child’s eating by controlling their access to food, the greater your chance of leading them toward healing their relationship with food.  If you need support with what to feed your child, find a non-diet dietitian who can help.

5. Ditch the myths

Stop repeating popular myths about emotional eating. Most people see emotional eating as an issue of how someone thinks and what they do with food. They repeat popular myths like “just tell yourself to stop eating,” or “just stay away from sweets,” or provide nutritional facts and information. These approaches are popular and make a lot of intuitive sense, yet they are harmful and dangerous. Most people who have disordered eating are already more aware of common food rules and nutritional advice than the average person. Eating myths cause harm by increasing a sense of shame and judgment for people who have childhood trauma and emotional eating. Simple, easy fixes that have been repeated ad nauseam for decades don’t address childhood trauma and emotional eating. And they can cause more harm than good. Please seek support and guidance to optimize your ability to support your child.

Ginny Jones is the founder of More-Love.org, and a Parent Coach who helps parents who have kids with eating disorders.

See Our Parent’s Guide To The Causes Of Eating Disorders

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Empowering your highly sensitive child with an eating disorder

Empowering Your Highly Sensitive Child with an Eating Disorder

It’s very common for people who have an eating disorder to identify as a highly sensitive person (HSP). While it may sound like a made-up term, this is actually a scientifically studied genetic condition. One of the notable traits is that HSPs are often more sensitive to food and eating. They may have significant differences in how they experience food and sensations like nausea and hunger. 

Many times when a parent is perplexed by their child’s eating disorder we discover that the missing piece is high sensitivity. If your child is an HSP, they need a higher level of patience, understanding, and support when eating. Once this understanding is incorporated into treatment, recovery may become easier.

Highly sensitive kids and eating disorders

Kids who are highly sensitive are at high risk of being overstimulated by food and eating. Common symptoms include:

  • Picky eating
  • Food aversion
  • Food refusal
  • Refusing to eat in public places
  • Refusing to eat with the rest of the family
  • Tantrums during meals
  • Throwing food
  • Criticizing/complaining about food and other people at the table
  • Under-eating (appetite and digestion are both affected by overstimulation)
  • Binge eating (either as an attempt to cope and/or when overstimulation has caused under-eating and the body needs a high volume of calories to compensate)
  • Weight loss/gain

What is high sensitivity?

A highly sensitive person (HSP) registers and processes more sensory information from their five senses, their internal organs, and other people’s emotional states. As a result, they often have strong reactions to things that individuals with typical nervous systems barely notice.

It’s important to note that HSPs are not being dramatic or making things up. Their highly sensitive nervous system is a biological and genetic feature. It’s found in approximately 20-30% of humans, as well as over 100 other animals, ranging from fruit flies to primates.

Being highly sensitive is a biological trait that carries both positive and negative aspects. On the positive side, many inventors, explorers, artists, musicians, and critical thinkers are HSPs. 

Some notable individuals who exemplify HSP traits include Abraham Lincoln, Jane Goodall, Princess Diana, Albert Einstein, Emily Dickinson, and many more. Being highly sensitive is truly a gift that enriches not only the individual but also their family, community, and society as a whole.

However, their highly-sensitive nervous systems put HSPs are at risk of becoming overwhelmed. Eating is particularly stimulating for HSPs, so they often are picky eaters with intense food aversions and can develop disordered eating and/or eating disorders.

We live in a highly stimulating and unnatural environment, so HSPs face a higher risk of experiencing anxiety, depression, eating disorders, and substance use disorders. However, these conditions can often be managed or even eliminated when parents help HSPs learn effective strategies to regulate their emotions.

HSP traits

Here are three key traits associated with being highly sensitive that might lead to an eating disorder:

  1. Extreme noticing: HSPs have a heightened awareness and perception of the sensory information bombarding their nervous system. They notice and react to more subtle details that others may overlook. For example, they may experience intense discomfort from an imperceptible itch in a seam, be highly sensitive to certain sounds, or feel nauseated by specific sensory aspects of food. Eating, which engages all senses, can be particularly overstimulating for HSPs.
  2. Emotional contagion: As social beings, all humans possess mirror neurons that enable them to pick up on the emotions of others. HSPs have a greater number of mirror neurons in their brains, resulting in an increased sensitivity to nonverbal emotional cues. If someone close to them, like a family member, friend, or teacher, is emotionally dysregulated, HSPs often feel the same dysregulation. This heightened emotional contagion can make various social experiences, such as family dinner tables, school cafeterias, and restaurants more challenging for highly sensitive people.
  3. Overstimulation: With their heightened ability to process sensory information, HSPs are more susceptible to being overwhelmed by information from both internal and external sources. This means that things like noise, smells, light, other people’s emotions can quickly become overwhelming for them. Additionally, internal sensations such as upset stomachs, nausea, physical pain, and anxiety symptoms are intensified in HSPs. When overstimulated, highly sensitive individuals may exhibit behaviors that seem like overreactions to others, such as refusing to eat, throwing food, and extremely picky eating.

HSPs and neurodivergence

In our ancestral environment, the heightened sensory abilities of HSPs were essential for detecting threats and protecting the tribe. However, living in our modern, noisy, and overstimulating culture can be overwhelming for highly sensitive individuals.

Due to the unique wiring of their nervous systems, HSPs can fall under the category of “neurodivergent.” Importantly, not all HSPs have formal diagnoses for conditions like autism or ADHD. Nevertheless, it’s common for them to relate to some of the symptoms associated with these conditions.

It’s important to recognize that being highly sensitive is a biological trait. It is not a disorder or illness. However, HSPs benefit from developing skills that help them cope with our overstimulating environment. This is especially true if they’re struggling to eat.

How to help your highly sensitive child with an eating disorder 

If you suspect that your child may be highly sensitive, one of the most effective ways you can support them is by helping them develop emotional regulation skills. Many highly sensitive individuals express a need for downtime to rest and recover from stimulating experiences. They also thrive with clear boundaries to protect them from emotional contagion. Finally, they need the freedom to explore their rich inner world on their own terms. Here are important ways you can help: 

  1. Teach them emotional regulation. All children are born with immature nervous systems, and parents are essential in teaching kids to regulate their emotions. If you have a highly sensitive child, they need a high level of support and skill-building. You can help them learn how to regulate their nervous systems given their unique biology.
  2. Support them with eating. A highly sensitive child who has an eating disorder needs a lot of support. You can help them learn how to eat in a more regulated way. Remember that they taste and experience food differently from others. Validate their unique experience even as you insist upon eating enough food, often throughout the day. Both parts (validating and boundaries) are essential to eating disorder recovery. This is a skill you can learn and practice every day as you support your child in recovery.
  3. Accept (and nurture!) their quirks. Highly sensitive people perceive the world differently. This is a major strength and is why so many notable figures in history have highly sensitive traits. Don’t try to turn your highly sensitive child into a typical child. Instead, nurture their unique strengths and support them in finding their way in the world with (not in spite of) their beautiful differences.

Ginny Jones is the founder of More-Love.org, and a Parent Coach who helps parents who have kids with eating disorders.

See Our Parent’s Guide To The Causes Of Eating Disorders

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Please don’t say that eating sugar and sweets causes diabetes

When parents say sugar causes diabetes it can lead to an eating disorder

3 real-life stories of women whose parents warned them about diabetes (and what to do instead)

“If you eat too many cupcakes, you’ll get diabetes.”

“Chocolate milk is like drinking a tall glass of diabetes.”

“Eating that much sugar will make you diabetic like Grandma.”

Some version of this has been said to too many children to count. It’s hard to speak with an adult from Gen X down to Gen Z who hasn’t heard some version of this warning. The parents who say this aren’t trying to cause harm. In fact, they’re most likely hoping to protect their child from a serious disease. And yet these comments are both inaccurate and cause harm every day. Sugar does not cause diabetes, and many people in eating disorder recovery cite parental warnings about the link between sugar and diabetes as contributing to their disorders. 

Note: Eating disorders have biological, psychological, and social causes, so these sorts of comments alone don’t cause an eating disorder, but they can increase risk.

What causes diabetes?

Diabetes is primarily caused by genetics. In fact, Type 2 diabetes has a stronger link to family history than Type 1. People who develop diabetes are usually not the first in their family to get it, and saying it’s caused by sugar is a massive oversimplification of how our bodies work. If sugar causes diabetes then everyone with a sweet tooth would have diabetes, which is not true. 

“Genes play a large role in the development of diabetes. We’re all born with challenges in our genetic code — as well as in our life circumstances — and this is one of the challenges you were dealt. Your body was vulnerable to difficulty with glucose regulation, and some combination of factors triggered that genetic propensity.”

Lindo Bacon, PhD and Judith Matz, LCSW, Diabetes Self Management

And yet social stigma persists, and parents everywhere continue to warn children not to eat too much sugar, something that is delicious and rewarding. This creates a deep and confusing fear of a disease that kids can’t even understand yet. It’s terrifying and creates cognitive dissonance. The idea that sweets, which they (of course!) love so much, could kill them is overwhelming for kids.

Does being fat cause diabetes?

Similarly, if being fat causes diabetes, then everyone who is fat would have it, which they don’t. About 10% of Americans have diabetes, yet about 65% of Americans are on the higher end of the weight scale. So clearly not all fat people get diabetes. And thin people get diabetes, too. 

A word about the word “fat”

The word fat can be used as a negative or a neutral descriptor. In its neutral form, saying fat is the same as saying thin, tall, or brown-eyed. Other words for fat bodies, such as overweight and obese, are currently considered to be stigmatizing. Many fat justice leaders have reclaimed the word fat as the preferred neutral descriptor for their bodies. As such, I typically use the word fat when referring to body weight as a physical feature.

However, due to our culture’s terrible history of weight-shaming, we should not call an individual fat unless we 1) are doing so kindly 2) have zero thoughts that they should lose weight; and 3) clearly have their permission to do so. And nobody should ever use fat as an insult. It’s always best to let people who live in marginalized bodies to define themselves rather than assuming a label on their behalf. And never tell a person in a larger body that they are not fat or should be proud to be fat. It’s their body and their choice to define themselves on their own terms.

In other words, being fat doesn’t mean you’ll get diabetes, and being thin doesn’t protect you from it. Genes above all, followed by lifestyle factors like stress reduction, healthy social interaction, and exercise matter far more than your weight. 

“One cupcake won’t give you diabetes and joking that it will is dangerous on two levels: It creates misinformation about this disease and furthers the stigma that acquiring diabetes is something one has control over.”

Alysse Dalessandro for Healthline

Being fat does not cause diabetes, but the fear of being fat and eating foods associated with being fat like sugar can contribute to an eating disorder. Incorrect and harmful beliefs about sugar, diabetes, and fat are all driven by weight stigma, not science.

The biggest risk is stress, not sugar

The largest environmental factor leading to diabetes is not sugar, but stress. And one of the leading causes of stress for people who are at the higher end of the weight spectrum is their weight and the fear of getting diabetes. In this way, the fear of fat and diabetes can increase the conditions most likely to trigger it.

Parents who use the threat of diabetes and fat to restrict their kids’ eating sugar mean well, but they can accidentally create a cascade of negative outcomes, including an eating disorder.

For ideas about what to say to your child if another adult says something about sugar causing diabetes to your child, here’s a great post from Zoë Bisbing, LCSW (click to view full video and post on Instagram)

Here are three real-life stories of adults who were told to avoid sugar in childhood to avoid diabetes: 

Sonja developed at eating disorder at 8 years old and is currently in treatment

My dad and his mother, who lived with us, both made regular comments that my being overweight would lead to me developing diabetes and “my feet would fall off.”  They said things like “Sugar makes you fat,” and “Being fat gives you diabetes.”

I remember feeling so uncomfortable in my body, like it was a prison I just wanted to escape. I’ve always carried extra weight and no matter how much I dieted and exercised (this was a core piece of my childhood) my body wouldn’t change. I felt betrayed by it, like there was something inherently wrong with me, and that I was trapped by a disease that was going to happen to me no matter what I did.

Comments about sugar and diabetes led to an eating disorder that started as early as age eight. I developed a very complicated love/hate relationship with food and eating that I am still trying to heal 24 years later. 

I had a very negative body image and developed body dysmorphia in high school. Because I was eating so little and exercising so much, my health was very poor. I was sick all the time and had no energy and awful moods. Now that I’m in recovery I recognize the profound health effects starvation had on my growing body and mind. I have been in treatment for 3 years now and I’m just starting to develop a healthy relationship with food and my body.

If I could go back in time and talk to my younger self, I would tell myself that those comments were based on my family members’ own insecurities about their own bodies and health, and it had nothing to do with me. I would also tell myself that scientifically we know that the best way to avoid conditions like diabetes is to take good care of our bodies, not neglect them. I would encourage myself to challenge my caregivers’ narrative and to find a professional to support me in finding my way to my own personal best health.

Andrea has struggled with body image and disordered eating since she was about 7 years old

I remember being about 7 and I wanted ice cream. My mom would use an ice cream scoop and scrape off the excess from the top of the scoop then serve it to me. I wasn’t allowed to just add some spoonfuls to my bowl without measuring it. She said, “You don’t want to be fat like Mama, right?” She lived in a bigger body her whole life. Mom would say “My Grandma died from diabetes, we can’t let that happen to us so we shouldn’t eat so much sugar.”

Hearing that “diabetes can kill you” scared me. At that young age I thought because I was fat and liked sugar that eventually that’s what I would die from. I would grab my belly rolls and squeeze them as hard as I could while looking in the mirror. I’m not sure what I had hoped would happen, maybe so I could make my fat body smaller.

At home I knew that I couldn’t drink sodas or eat sweets so I would go to a friend’s house and binge on whatever I wanted. 

If I could talk to my younger self I would say that there is no “bad” or “good” food. You are worthy and are so much more than your body. Don’t let anyone treat you like you are less than. Your body is amazing, it keeps you alive! 

Family and friends fueled my eating disorder by linking my weight and sugar to diabetes. If I lost weight it was always met with, “Wow what are you doing? You look great.” Now that I have children I want them to know that they are so much more than a number on a scale or a squishy belly. I WILL break the cycle. It isn’t always easy but I’m working on loving all of me. 

Marie has struggled with body image and disordered eating since childhood

My mom constantly commented on what people were eating, particularly how much sugar. When we would see people drinking a soda or eating candy, for example, she would comment that they were consuming so much sugar.  She said that sugar was “addicting” and that a bad diet, including too much sugar, gave people Type 2 diabetes. If someone had Type 2 diabetes, she would comment that a better diet would make their diabetes go away. 

I was diagnosed with insulin resistance at 20, which can be a precursor to Type 2 diabetes. My mom immediately signed me up for a personal trainer and would comment on my need to lose weight and eat less sugar. She would say I was “obsessed” with sugar on occasions where I would eat more than a small serving of dessert. When I lost weight (mainly due to my eating disorder), she would constantly tell me that my diet cured my insulin resistance. 

I felt a great sense of shame about my body. I had learned that only “fat people with bad diets” had ailments like diabetes. Her comments made me feel nervous. As a child, I was always concerned I was too fat and often felt tense and nervous.

I was very concerned about my weight and what I ate in front of my mom (I still am). I have struggled with eating disorders and body dysmorphia since childhood. When I was in my mid-20s, I started purging and calorie restricting, to the point where I was underweight and incredibly anxious. When I was underweight, my mom would talk about how proud she was of how I had lost weight. Now that I have gained the weight back, I still struggle with shame, but through therapy and self-guided work, I am trying to heal.

My mom cared about my well-being, but it was incredibly misguided and actually harmful. I wish I could tell my younger self that my mom’s issues do not have to be mine. I’m loved just as I am. I am enough just as I am. Food is just food – not a moral judgment. 

Ginny Jones is the founder of More-Love.org, and a Parent Coach who helps parents who have kids with eating disorders.

See Our Parent’s Guide To Diet Culture And Eating Disorders

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Helpful ways parents can improve girls’ body image

Helpful ways parents can improve girls' body image

“My body image has been terrible my whole life, and now I see the same thing happening with my girls,” says Liz. “I want to improve my daughters’ body image, but it feels impossible sometimes.”

Liz isn’t alone. Negative body image is a major issue, particularly for girls. One survey of 11–16-year-olds found that 79% said how they look is important to them, and over half (52%) often worry about how they look.

Poor body image is associated with many negative health outcomes, from anxiety and depression to eating disorders and suicidality. Given this, Liz is right to worry about her girls and it makes sense to find ways to improve their body image as much as possible.

Luckily, there is a lot that parents can do to improve girls’ body image.

How to help a girl with body image issues

To get some help with this topic, I spoke with Amelia Sherry, MPH, RD, CDCES, founder of NourishHer.com and author of Diet-Proof Your Daughter: A Mother’s Guide to Raising Girls Who Have Happy, Healthy Relationships with Food and Body. She knows personally how hard it is to navigate body image issues when raising daughters. 

“When my own daughters’ bodies started changing in preparation for puberty, it triggered a lot of emotion in me ,” she says. “And seeing my discomfort with those changes made me realize that I still had  a lot of work to do with regard to my own body image issues. I had to remind myself that weight gain, particularly in adolescent girls, was perfectly normal and perfectly healthy. ”

“As a dietitian, I knew the “right” things to say and do in terms of allowing them to eat food they enjoy and eat as much as they need to feel full and satisfied,” says Amelia. “But because of my own history with disordered eating and dieting, trusting them with food and giving them that freedom didn’t come naturally. It was challenging, and a lot more triggering and a lot more emotional than I realized it would be.”

At least as far back as middle school, Amelia remembers feeling judged and criticized about her body. “I was chubby, so I started dieting and trying to lose weight,” she says. In high school she experimented with purging, and in college she used exercise to control her weight. 

Luckily for Amelia, when she started living on her own and feeling less judged, she started resolving her relationship with food and her body. Healing her relationship with herself led her to become a dietitian who helps families develop positive, happy relationships with food.

How to improve girls’ body image and self-esteem

After helping her own daughters get through puberty with their body image and a set of positive eating skills intact, Amelia started using the same framework to help other mothers who have a history of disordered eating do the same. Here are her five  top tips for improving body image and self-esteem in girls:

1. Trust girls to eat as much or as little as they like

Encourage girls to listen to their bodies as opposed to taking information about how much to eat from the outside world. We can show our trust by avoiding commenting on how much they are eating. And if our daughters’ eating or appetites make us uncomfortable, we can look inward to ask ourselves why. 

2. Accept our daughters’ natural body size and shape

Being accepting of their appetites as well as their food likes and dislikes. That doesn’t mean we avoid exposing them to new foods or offering balanced meals, by the way. 

3. Rethink what it means to be a healthy eater

We have been conditioned to think of healthy eating as eating in a way that controls our weight. However, when we understand that body weight is not an indicator of health we allow ourselves and our daughters to eat in more relaxed, confident ways as opposed to being restrictive and fearful. 

4. Be aware of the influences and pressures our daughters are under

From social media and peers, to diet culture and health culture. Teaching them to be critical thinkers, and conscious consumers of media can help them avoid ramping up their own body dissatisfaction. We can also protect our daughters from dieting by being aware of the influences in our own lives as a parent, such as the pressure to raise a perfect eater. 

5. Keep nutrition simple

Emphasizing the importance of getting enough to eat and eating variety–more diversity means more nutrients–as opposed to focusing on complex information and avoiding foods and food groups and specific nutrients can help protect our daughters from diets. Teaching them to be skeptical of eating fads and trends as well as being aware of the dangers of dieting is essential too. 

What do you say to your daughter with body image issues?

It’s very common to praise little girls for their looks. Whether you call your daughter beautiful or cute, appearance-based praise can work against positive body image because it reinforces the idea that girls and women are valued primarily for their appearance. 

“Non-looks-based compliments boost our kids’ resilience against dieting, disordered eating, body comparison, and body dissatisfaction,” says Amelia. “Specifically, I suggest we move away from saying things like “you’re so cute” or “you’re so pretty” and instead say things that focus on who your daughter is and what she’s capable of.”

Here are some ideas for non-looks-based-compliments Amelia suggests:

  • I love that you’re not afraid to show your emotions
  • You’re really loyal to people you care about and I admire that!
  • I love that you feel comfortable enough to tell others how you feel.
  • I appreciate how brave you are when it comes to meeting new people.
  • You’re really good at being open to people who are different from you.
  • It’s awesome that you’re always willing to make a new friend.
  • I like how you choose to wear something comfortable – that was well thought out!
  • I’m so impressed that you’ve been getting to bed on time – that’s not always easy to do!
  • I admire how you listen to your body and eat as much or as little as feels right for you.

Social media and body image

Body image has always been tricky for girls in our society, but it has definitely gotten worse with the rise of social media. And while it’s very challenging to change social media usage in kids, it can make a huge difference in their mental health and wellbeing. 

Teens and young adults who reduced their social media use by 50% for just a few weeks saw significant improvement in how they felt about both their weight and their overall appearance compared with peers who maintained consistent levels of social media use, according to research published by the American Psychological Association.

If you’d like some more ideas about limiting your daughter’s social media use, here are a few articles: 

Raising a diet-proof daughter

Dieting is the best predictor of eating disorders, which affect about 9% of the population and are the second-most deadly mental disorder. But dieting has many other negative health outcomes. For example, almost everyone who diets ends up weight cycling, which reduces cardiometabolic health. 

Amelia encourages families to raise diet-proof kids who will not fall prey to dangerous weight loss programs. “When you’re raising a diet-proof daughter, you’re teaching her to listen to her body, enjoy her appetite, take pleasure in food, and have a good perspective on eating and physical health,” she says. “You want her to listen to herself, honor herself, respect her body and her needs, her pleasures and appetite. If you do that, she’ll find a good balance between good nutrition and self-care.” 

“Elements of diet culture–such as cutting out specific nutrients or entire food groups–will put her health at risk, which is the exact opposite of what diet promoters and “health gurus” promise our girls,” says Amelia. “Feeding yourself is the ultimate act of self care. It’s the most basic thing, and it gets overlooked. So that’s what I want parents to focus on with their girls, making sure they are well fed–that they get enough food and that they feel good about eating. This is the best way to make sure they’re well-nourished both physically and emotionally. I want families to raise girls who are able to eat without feeling judged. There are so many benefits to that.”

With these ideas and more, parents can do a lot to improve girls’ body image.

Ginny Jones is the founder of More-Love.org, and a Parent Coach who helps parents who have kids with eating disorders.

See Our Parent’s Guide To Body Image And Eating Disorders

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True (and painful) stories of complex trauma and eating disorders

True (and painful) stories of complex trauma and eating disorders

Complex trauma is trauma that happens over a long period of time, often beginning in early childhood, and it’s strongly associated with eating disorders. Traumatic experiences range from physical and verbal abuse to less-obvious but still deeply damaging behavior like criticism, emotional neglect, weight teasing, food insecurity, and food shaming. 

Complex trauma can lead to a syndrome called C-PTSD or complex post traumatic stress syndrome. PTSD, which is more commonly discussed, is event-based. It shows up following events such as an accident, assault, or natural disaster. However, C-PTSD is layered into a child’s life, sometimes from birth. 

How complex trauma leads to eating disorders

People who identify as having complex trauma are affected as much by what did happen, such as teasing, criticism, and physical violence, as what did not happen, such as unconditional positive regard, emotional caregiving, and support. 

All children need emotional caregiving from parents. However, many parents aren’t raised in an emotionally nurturing household and therefore don’t have the skills to provide it to their own children. Thus, complex trauma often happens even when parents have the very best intentions. Almost no parents intend to cause complex trauma, and yet its effects are devastating and can lead to eating disorders and other problems.

Both PTSD and C-PTSD have chronic symptoms, including flashbacks, depersonalization, and dissociation. A person with these symptoms will naturally reach for coping methods, which range from zoning out, avoiding events, people, and situations, and behaviors like eating disorders, substance use, and self-harm. 

Researchers say that “the eating disorder may function as a survival mechanism, and may have a protective function to avoid the emotional confrontation with the trauma experience.” Here are a few true stories of complex trauma and eating disorders:

Jenn’s story

Jenn’s eating disorder started, as so many do, with a diet. Her mom took her to Weight Watchers starting at age 9. Today, at age 38, she is married and has a 3-year-old son, and she started serious treatment for her eating disorder last November. “I see an eating disorder therapist and a dietitian, which is required by my therapist, twice per week,” she says. “This takes the food out of therapy so we can focus on the trauma.” 

Jenn believes that complex trauma was the catalyst for her 30-year eating disorder, which began at age 9, alongside those Weight Watchers meetings. She’s now in recovery and is working on her PTSD. She didn’t believe she had PTSD at first. “My therapist said ‘you have complex PTSD,’” says Jenn. “And I said ‘that’s not a thing, I wasn’t in a war!” 

Yet after further work with her therapist and reading about C-PTSD all the symptoms lined up. “Getting help consistently has been the best thing I’ve done,” says Jenn. “I’m someone who’s experienced significant trauma and experiences intrusive thoughts all the time – all day, every day. I thought this was all part of my personality. Growing up I thought this is just who I am. Now I realize there’s so much more going on.”

Like so many adults with long-term eating disorders, Jenn is dealing with paying for treatment herself. “My therapist is extraordinary,” says Jenn. “I’m paying for both her and my dietitian out of pocket, which isn’t great, but it needs to happen. I have a son and it’s really important for him to not have to worry about the things I’ve dealt with.” 

Tina’s story

Tina remembers first restricting food at around 9 or 10 years old. “When I did eat I had very few safe foods and I’d almost always eat alone,” she says. Today, at age 37, she says she’s healing from both her eating disorder and complex trauma. “I am 37 and I finally, for the first time in my life feel free of my eating disorder,” she says. “I don’t like ‘healed;’ that feels false. My anorexia and body image issues will likely always be with me in some way but I don’t believe my anorexia-driven thoughts and feelings anymore.” 

Tina sees her eating disorder as intrinsically linked to the complex trauma she experienced. “Given the situation at home, I was going to develop a coping mechanism,” says Tina. “My eating disorder is how that manifested for me. My sister is a perfectionist who attempted suicide in high school. And my brother struggled with alcoholism and self-harm and died by suicide last year. My eating disorder may very well have saved my life.”

While this idea may surprise you, many people with complex trauma and an eating disorder see their disorder as the only way they could cope with their life. Tina describes her eating disorder as a way to “not know” about how bad things were for her and her siblings at home. “The not knowing made it tolerable,” she says. “If I knew how love should feel I would have known I was starving in more than one way.”

Tina began healing from complex trauma and her eating disorder by reaching out to her sister. “We were able to hear and validate our experiences as children and as adults with our parents,” she says. “This was invaluable. We sought out literature together and slowly learned about emotional neglect, abuse, and complex trauma. We are both in therapy now.” 

“Healing has felt emotionally what I assume waterboarding must feel like physically,” she says. “At every turn I feel like l will surely die, that the pain is too great and then, I do not die. I learn I have more capacity than I knew and I can trust my body.”

Tina has found validation, meditation, breathwork, and finding ways to feel safe in her body most helpful. “Emotional flashbacks are so difficult,” she says. “Meditation and being present in the moment, in my body, is my lifeline.”

How parents can help kids with complex trauma and eating disorders

If your child has both complex trauma and an eating disorder, you can make a big difference. Your child’s mental health and eating disorder recovery will depend on their ability to process their complex trauma. Keep the following ideas in mind as you help your child heal:

  • Do not debate the validity of your child’s memories of their childhood. That will only hurt them more. 
  • Listen and be compassionate to their experience of their childhood.
  • Your job is not to correct your child’s memories, but to compassionately witness their memories and hold them in ways you were unable to before.
  • If your child asks you to go to therapy with them, go.
  • Get yourself a therapist or coach who can work through your own trauma of supporting a child who has complex trauma. You deserve a safe space to work out your feelings about this. You will be better able to support them if you get support for yourself. 
  • Keep in mind that most children who have complex trauma have parents who have complex trauma. It tends to run in families. Have a lot of compassion for yourself in this process. It didn’t start with you, and together you and your child can end the cycle of complex trauma.

This is hard for everyone, but never doubt the transformative potential of sitting with your child in their pain and grief. Your ability to do so is beyond powerful. And while you may not want to face this, doing this can result in a deeper, more meaningful relationship with your child.

Ginny Jones is the founder of More-Love.org, and a Parent Coach who helps parents who have kids with eating disorders.

See Our Collection of Eating Disorder Recovery Stories

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Loneliness and eating disorders: a guide for parents

loneliness eating disorder

Jill is beside herself with worry. Her daughter Melody has an eating disorder and is struggling with loneliness. Between treatment, COVID restrictions, and starting high school, she has become very isolated. “She has always been more on the introverted side,” says Jill. “But it’s gotten to the point where I’m pretty sure she doesn’t have a single good friend.”

“She has people she talks to in class,” says Jill. “But there’s nobody she can call or share notes with or hang out with after class or on the weekend. I think that loneliness is making it harder to recover from her eating disorder. But loneliness is also partly driven by the eating disorder. I don’t know what to do.”

Jill’s worry makes a lot of sense. And she’s right that loneliness is both a contributing factor to and a symptom of an eating disorder. Melody is naturally introverted. But she’s also been hit with a triple whammy: a pandemic, the transition to high school, and eating disorder recovery.

Loneliness and social isolation

Loneliness is a major factor in mental and physical health. In fact, social relationships are the most important lifestyle factor in longevity. Social connections are even more important to health than avoiding tobacco and alcohol. Humans are social beings, and connecting with others is essential to our health and well-being.

How to help a child who has an eating disorder decrease loneliness

Of course parents like Jill desperately want their kids to form social connections and feel a sense of belonging. This is especially important during the teenage years, so it’s understandable that Jill is concerned. But what can she do? How can Jill help Melody reduce her loneliness during eating disorder recovery?

Friendships lead to positive life satisfaction, minimize stress, and even contribute to better physical health outcomes. And the good news is that there is a lot that parents can do to support social connections. Here are five places to start:

1. Reduce the pressure

The first thing to know is that every person has a different need in terms of social connections. And while most of us think about a large pack of kids getting together on the weekends, it’s perfectly acceptable if your teenager has just one or two good friends. In fact, set your sights very low: one.

“The biggest return we get in friendship is going from zero to one friend in terms of its impact on our mental health and well-being,”  says Marisa Franco, author of Platonic: How the Science of Attachment Can Help You Make — and Keep — Friends. “If you can get that deep with one person, it’s going to be powerful and it’s going to be impactful, and you don’t need to have a ton of friends.”

Taking the pressure off having a large number of friends can be a great place to start. Find ways to weave this idea into your conversations with your child. You can talk about your own friends individually vs. as a group. And when your child complains about having no friends (plural), help them understand that just one friend would be awesome. Encourage them to look around for just one person at school who they can eat lunch with. Set your sights low, and normalize the idea of just one friend.

2. Family relationships

Your child wants and needs peer friendships, but that doesn’t mean they can’t get a lot of benefits from their social connections with family.

Our first social group is our family. How strong are your family ties? Does your child feel integrated and as if they “belong” to your family? Start by building family traditions and telling stories that help your child see how they fit into the family. Spend time building family integration every single day. A great place to begin is a family meal, which has countless health benefits, probably in part because of the social belonging it builds.

If possible, schedule activities with extended family members. It’s OK if you don’t have a strong connection with biological family – can you build a family of friends? Do what you can to expand your child’s social interactions within the scope of your family. And don’t forget to help them integrate into family activities. This may be uncomfortable if your child is feeling lonely and vulnerable, but parents can help grease the wheels of interaction!

3. Social skills

If your child is struggling with loneliness and an eating disorder, combined with COVID and a major transition like starting high school, they may need to brush up on their social skills. This can be a tricky area for parents to get involved, but the first thing to consider is whether your family is upholding and modeling good social skills.

Many families slip into dysfunctional patterns of not being friendly, not speaking politely to each other, not managing their emotions, and acting out against other family members. If you see these dynamics in your family, then get some coaching or family counseling to work on interpersonal boundaries and emotional regulation. Before you decide that your child is the one who has a problem with social skills, consider whether this is a family dynamic. It will hurt your child’s chances of success if you treat a family problem as if it is a personal failure.

Next, talk to your child about social skills. The easiest way to do this is to talk about your own experiences or use characters on TV and movies. Ask questions like: How would that behavior make you feel? What do you like about that character? How do you think that character could be a better friend? Remind your child that relationships can’t be adequately portrayed in the media, and that just like bodies, we need to take media relationships with a grain of salt.

4. Formal social groups

Teens have undergone tremendous upheaval in the past few years, and lots of them are struggling with loneliness. This is the perfect time to use formal social groups and organizations to help support social development. Ask your child to investigate clubs at school.

Many schools have a wide variety of clubs that appeal to a broad array of personalities and interests, but you can also look for clubs in the community and at your place of worship if you have one.

Encourage your child to join at least one club. This may require some well-placed parental pressure. Someone who is lonely may resist the idea of joining a club because they are stuck in a cycle of feeling low. It’s OK for you to insist on some participation. You can’t force your child to go, but don’t underestimate the power you have to influence them to give it a try. Sometimes lonely kids need a lot of verbal encouragement and requests to get out of their rut.

5. Get help

If you do all these things and your child’s loneliness is not lifting at all, then you and your child need more help. Talk to your child’s eating disorder care team. They are probably as concerned about loneliness as you are. Find out if they have any suggestions or can help your child get involved in activities. Sometimes having a non-parent make these suggestions is the key to getting them done.

A worthy focus

Loneliness is a contributor to the psychology of an eating disorder, so supporting them in addressing this is a worthwhile activity. You want to understand your child’s loneliness and support them in feeling better. Loneliness has been correlated with eating disorders and other mental disorders. It is also correlated with the No. 2 and No. 3 mortality factors: tobacco and alcohol addiction.

Jill was relieved to know that she wasn’t being silly worrying about loneliness. “There was a part of me that thought maybe I was worrying about nothing,” she says. “Or that this is none of my business. But now I feel as if my worries make sense, and I’m going to take some action to start helping Melody feel better.”

loneliness eating disorder

Ginny Jones is the founder of More-Love.org, and a Parent Coach who helps parents who have kids with eating disorders.

See Our Parent’s Guide To Mental Health And Eating Disorders

Research links

Social relationships and mortality risk: A meta-analytic review, Holt-Lunstad, Julianne, Smith, Timothy R., and Layton, Bradley J, PLOS Medicine, 2010

Loneliness and Social Isolation as Risk Factors for Mortality, Julianne Holt-Lunstad, Perspectives on Psychological Science, 2015.

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The 3 types of stress and eating disorders

The 3 types of stress and eating disorders

Monique is very worried about her daughter Maya. After a few years of struggling to deal with stress, Maya is now deep into an eating disorder. Monique and her husband Leonard are dedicated to helping her recover, but they are worried that stress is a major ongoing problem. 

“I worry that unless we address her stress, she’s still going to struggle,” says Monique. “Eating disorder treatment is hard, and it seems to me like if we don’t figure out how to reduce her stress, we’re just treading water with her mental health. I just don’t know what to do about it.” 

Maya, 16, has always been a sensitive child. “When she was a toddler, she was really picky about her food and clothing,” says Monique. “So I adjusted her diet and made sure I didn’t buy her any clothes with tags. She seemed to do OK for years, but when puberty hit, she started spiraling into stress. Now it seems like she just can’t handle life, and it’s not as simple as it was when she was little and I could control everything and reduce the stressors.” 

Everything that Monique says makes sense. And she’s right: without addressing Maya’s struggles with stress, it will be hard to achieve eating disorder recovery and, ultimately, mental health. 

Why so stressed?

To get started, I asked Monique some questions about what stresses Maya out. Based on her childhood experiences, it sounds like Maya is a highly sensitive individual. This means that she is naturally more sensitive to stressors. But what exactly is creating so much stress for Maya right now?

I started by defining the three types of stress and how they appear when a person has an eating disorder. Stress is an important part of the psychology of an eating disorder. The three types of stress are:

1. Healthy stress

Not all stress is bad! We need stress to learn and grow. Without stress, we would never achieve maturity. This stress is healthy and adaptive, but that doesn’t mean it’s comfortable. In fact, healthy stress can trigger all the troubling signs of emotional dysregulation, including yelling, crying, and avoiding tasks that seem impossible. However, when a person faces their healthy stress with courage, their struggles build emotional resilience and maturity. A person cannot mature without healthy stress! 

It’s not really the type or size of the stress that you experience but your ability to cope with the stress that defines whether stress is helpful or toxic. 

Some forms of healthy stress that your child must navigate if they have an eating disorder include:

  • Eating enough food
  • Eating regularly throughout the day
  • Body changes (e.g. weight gain)
  • Going to therapy, medical, and nutrition appointments
  • Disagreeing with parents and siblings
  • Being assertive about needs and boundaries
  • Going to school
  • Completing difficult school tests and assignments 
  • Studying
  • Having reasonable expectations of extra curricular activities
  • Making new friends and socializing
  • Having social media limits
  • Getting to bed at a healthy time each night

🔑 The key if your child is experiencing healthy stress is to validate their experience (e.g. “this is hard”) while also expressing confidence in their ability to handle it (e.g. “I know you can handle this.”). Seek ways to support your child through healthy stress daily, and get coaching and support if this is a struggle for you.

2. Traumatic stress

This sort of stress is related to a specific event or action. It overwhelms a person’s coping resources and may become stuck if not processed. Common forms of traumatic stress include:

  • Serious accident 
  • Physical or sexual assault
  • Physical or emotional abuse
  • Exposure to traumatic events at home, including domestic violence
  • Serious health problems, such as heart surgery, cancer, etc.
  • Having a sibling or parent with a chronic illness (physical or mental)
  • The death of someone close, such as a parent or sibling
  • Divorce
  • Vomiting, choking, and painful gastrointestinal episodes

The interesting thing about traumatic stress is that it doesn’t impact everyone equally. Two people can face the same traumatic event, and one may develop traumatic stress symptoms while the other may not. The difference between ongoing symptoms after traumatic stress is whether the event is processed healthily. Some people can do this by themselves, but many others need a lot of emotional support to process a traumatic event. 

For example, many kids get through their parents’ divorce without any PTSD, while others need some help processing their feelings about the divorce and its impact on the family.

🔑 If your child is experiencing traumatic stress, the key is to get them professional support to process their trauma. A therapist specializing in PTSD will support your child in facing their fear and overcoming the long-term impacts of traumatic stress. You can also learn skills to respond to your child’s PTSD appropriately.

3. Chronic stress

Chronic stress builds over time. A person experiencing chronic stress often feels stuck and unable to make changes to improve their life. This sort of stress is often entrenched and hard to break out of, but parents can help. According to Yale Medicine, some symptoms of chronic stress include: 

  • Aches and pains
  • Insomnia or sleepiness
  • A change in social behavior, such as staying in often
  • Low energy
  • Unfocused or cloudy thinking
  • Change in appetite
  • Increased alcohol or drug use
  • Change in emotional responses to others
  • Emotional withdrawal

Common stressors to be aware of in your child’s life include:

  • Difficult family relationships, especially with parents and siblings
  • Lack of sleep
  • Lack of family structure and support
  • A heavy workload at school 
  • Pressure to achieve certain grades and achievements
  • Intense sports activities/expectations
  • Pressure to perform at very high levels at school or in extracurricular activities
  • Bullying
  • Overuse of social media 

Chronic stress needs to be addressed to recover from an eating disorder. Your child’s lifestyle must change to reduce chronic stress and build experiences of healthy stress. 

🔑 There are two keys if your child is experiencing chronic stress. The first is to reduce unnecessary stressors in your child’s life. This can begin by looking at their schedule and removing non-essential activities and pressure to perform. The second is to turn the necessary stressors of life (e.g. eating, going to school) into healthy stress. With the right approach, you can help your child gradually turn chronic stress about eating and other stressors into healthy stress. 

Maya’s stress and eating disorder

I reviewed Maya’s stress with Monique using a worksheet I created. Together, we identified three primary issues that need to be addressed right away: 

Eating Stress (chronic)

Maya feels tremendous stress about eating. She is worried about food all day, and it is hard for Monique to calm Maya enough to get the nutrition she needs to recover. 

🔑  This is chronic stress that can be turned into healthy stress. In combination with Maya’s eating disorder treatment team, Monique can support Maya and help her face the stress of eating with courage and determination. Over time, she will learn to face eating and mealtimes as healthy stress. While eating may continue to be challenging for her, she can transform it from chronic stress to healthy stress. 

Sibling Stress (chronic/traumatic)

Maya and her brother Victor have a negative relationship. Victor is aggressive with Maya and frequently criticizes her. Sometimes he even gets physically violent and pushes or pinches her. 

🔑  This is chronic stress that needs to be eliminated. Monique and Leonard need to immediately seek therapy for Victor and set firm boundaries around how he treats his sister. Monique and Leonard must intervene whenever they observe Victor being aggressive, critical, and violent with Maya. There should be a zero-tolerance policy for these behaviors in the household. Additionally, they should have Maya see a trauma specialist who can determine how best to address any trauma resulting from her brother’s treatment.

Performance Stress (chronic)

Maya feels overloaded with homework and tests. She has a lifelong dream of attending an Ivy League university. The pressure to perform has become overwhelming, and Maya spends hours trying to motivate herself to do homework and study. Her grades have been steadily slipping, and she often stays up until 2 a.m. trying to complete her work.

🔑  This chronic stress needs to be adjusted. While academic goals can be a healthy form of stress, it is clear that they have crossed the boundary and become chronic stress. Maya needs support from her therapist to re-evaluate her goals and get healthy study habits and boundaries in place. Monique and Leonard should meet with Maya’s school counselor to determine reasonable expectations and help Maya manage her academic goals. 

Moving forward

Understanding Maya’s stress helps Monique and Leonard see how stress affects Maya and how they can help her start having less toxic stress in her life. Knowing the three types of stress affecting eating disorder recovery has given them the confidence to start making changes at home and in Maya’s treatment program. 

Ginny Jones is the founder of More-Love.org, and a Parent Coach who helps parents who have kids with eating disorders.

For privacy, names and identifying details have been changed in this article.

See Our Parent’s Guide To Mental Health And Eating Disorders

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Mental health checklist for eating disorder recovery (free download)

Mental health checklist for eating disorder recovery

If your child has an eating disorder, recovery means more than simply gaining weight and/or stopping eating disorder behaviors; it means becoming mentally healthy. Eating disorders are frequently misunderstood, and people don’t always realize that mental health, not just eating disorder recovery, is the goal. 

That’s why I’ve put together a mental health checklist to help you set expectations and goals as your child recovers from their eating disorder. This mental health checklist is especially important if your child is returning to college or independent living after undergoing recovery in your home and/or a treatment facility.

Eating disorders are often layered on top of poor mental health and other mental disorders, so if parents don’t pay attention to mental health overall, they risk having a boomerang effect of having a child leave and return to eating disorder treatment. While you can’t control their recovery, you can do your best to set your child up for success. Nobody wants your child to feel they are ready to return to independent living or go to college only to discover that they are not yet equipped to care for themselves, so the more you can help them build the skills they need to be mentally healthy, the better. A mental health checklist to be used during and after eating disorder recovery can help.

Free Download: Mental Health Checklist for Eating Disorder Recovery

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How to measure mental health

Mental health sometimes feels arbitrary. But in fact, we can measure mental health based on the behaviors that lead to and indicate mental health. It’s just like eating disorders. Except for medically-underweight anorexia, eating disorders don’t often have measurable physical symptoms. Instead, they are diagnosed based on the behaviors observed. 

For example, eating disorders are measured by how often a person eats, how much they eat, and how they feel about eating. Similarly, mental health can be measured by how well a person takes care of themselves and how they feel about themselves.

In addition to your child’s recovery process, they should be learning to take care of their physical health, which includes at a minimum: 

  • Getting adequate food and water
  • Moving their body appropriately
  • Getting enough sleep
  • Basic hygiene

Beyond basic physical healthcare, your child should also take care of their emotional health, which includes at a minimum: 

  • Connecting with others
  • Managing social media use
  • Practicing mindfulness
  • Getting outdoors
  • Asking for help
  • Taking breaks
  • Having self-compassion

Physical self-care after an eating disorder

Even if your child is cleared of an active eating disorder diagnosis, they are still at risk of mental illness. They will need to care for their bodies and minds intentionally for life. This is important for every person, but particularly for someone who has/had an eating disorder. Here are the basic physical care steps that your child should take to improve mental health. 

Getting adequate food and water

All bodies need enough food and water to function. And a lack of food and water has a significant impact on both mental and physical health. When someone has/had an eating disorder, it’s an indication that they may need to be more vigilant than others about caring for this most basic element of self-care. As your child transitions to living independently from you, they should demonstrate an ability to feed themselves adequate quantities of food every 3-4 hours and drink at least 6-8 glasses of water daily. 

Moving their body appropriately

Our bodies are made to move. Regular movement is essential to both physical and mental health. The tricky part is that many people who have eating disorders incorporate excessive exercise and/or are at risk of serious health complications if they exercise. However, as your child recovers from their eating disorder, they should work in regular movement to maintain health. This can be functional like having a walking commute to work or school, going for a short walk each day, doing a brief home exercise routine, or joining a gym or attending fitness classes. Your child should demonstrate an ability to move their body regularly, not too much and not too little.

Getting enough sleep

Getting enough sleep is a cornerstone of mental health. Your child needs 8-9 hours of sleep per night. People with eating disorders and other behavioral and mental health problems often experience sleep loss. Your child may have insomnia or struggle to settle down and get to sleep. While it’s easy to dismiss sleep as unimportant, it is as important as food, water, and movement to the human body and mental health. Sleep loss is no joke for anyone, but it is particularly risky for someone who has been diagnosed with a mental disorder like an eating disorder. Losing sleep is a major risk for someone with a history of mental disorders. Therefore, your child should demonstrate an ability to get adequate sleep each night and wake up at an appropriate hour in the morning. 

Basic hygiene

While basic hygiene may seem like a given, it can be a major struggle for someone with an eating disorder, anxiety, depression, or other mental disorder. On the one hand, if your child has OCD, they may lead towards overdoing hygiene. Some people will wash and clean themselves excessively. On the other hand, someone who is depressed or has ADHD may feel unable to clean themselves adequately. Either way, taking care of basic hygiene is essential to mental health. Like exercise, you’ll need to measure whether your child’s challenge is doing too much or too little and work from there. Set some basic expectations, like flossing and brushing teeth twice daily. Bathing can vary per person, but discuss the maximum number of days between showers and/or the maximum number of showers per day. Your child should demonstrate an ability to take care of their basic hygiene. 

Free Download: Mental Health Checklist for Eating Disorder Recovery

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Emotional self-care after an eating disorder

An eating disorder is a mental illness. This means that while physical symptoms and/or behaviors are used to diagnose an eating disorder, it is emotional and mental in nature. This means that your child needs to care for their emotional health. This is important for everyone, but particularly for someone who has/had an eating disorder. Here are the basic emotional self-care steps that your child should take to maintain their mental health. 

Connecting with others

Human connection is as important as food, water, sleep, and movement. It is a sign of mental health to reach out to other people. It doesn’t have to be lengthy or intense. Still, you should feel confident that your child has some human connection daily. It might be a phone call to a loved one, but it could also be as simple as going in person to get groceries or food and speaking to someone while getting it instead of ordering contactless delivery. 

Managing social media use

Social media can be a major impediment to mental health for numerous reasons. It is particularly dangerous for people who have/had eating disorders due to the algorithmic preference for very thin people who promote “healthy lifestyles” that include eating disorder behaviors and beliefs. While zero social media use might be ideal for mental health, it’s not realistic or necessary for most people. Your child should demonstrate that they can set limits on their usage. 

Practicing mindfulness

One of the symptoms of an eating disorder is a disconnection between the mind and the body. It’s as if the brain-body connection is severed. To recover and maintain mental health, your child needs to practice a mindful connection between the brain and body. Your child should have a daily mindfulness practice that actively connects the brain and body.

Getting outdoors

Studies have shown that being in nature, even for a few minutes daily, has numerous physical benefits, including less pain and lower diastolic blood pressure. It improves mood and reduces the risk of mental illness. Support your child in getting outdoors for at least a few minutes daily. They can combine this with either exercise or mindfulness, or both. They should take a few moments to feel the air in their lungs and look at the sky, a tree, or anything natural and not human-made.

Asking for help

There is a tendency when someone has a mental disorder like an eating disorder, anxiety, depression, etc., to self-isolate. They reach out less to people who care about them and say less about how they are feeling. You want to support your child in reaching out for help when they feel sad, scared, or angry. Nobody can take their feelings away, but sharing our feelings with other people is soothing and improves mental health. 

Free Download: Mental Health Checklist for Eating Disorder Recovery

Get Yours

Taking breaks

The brain-body disconnection common in eating disorders often translates to ignoring signs of mental or physical fatigue. A mentally healthy person recognizes when they need a break and takes breaks to improve their health and performance. Help your child learn to take breaks when they are overwhelmed or having physical or mental symptoms of fatigue.

Having self-compassion

A mentally healthy person has compassion for themselves. They don’t beat themselves up when they make mistakes and don’t speak cruelly or dismissively to themselves. They know how to soothe themselves when things go wrong and treat themselves as they would a good friend. Help your child learn to speak to themself with self-compassion and love.

Giving your child a mental health checklist for eating disorder recovery

Discussing mental health with your child while they are still recovering from an eating disorder and preparing to leave your daily care will help them build mental health. You can create your own checklist or use the one I created. The checklist I created includes both daily actions and warning signs to keep in mind. You can provide this to your child and talk with them regularly about both elements: are they doing daily self-care, and are there any warning signs to address? This can help you communicate your concern for their mental health, even if your child isn’t living with you.

Ginny Jones is the founder of More-Love.org, and a Parent Coach who helps parents who have kids with eating disorders.

See Our Parent’s Guide To Mental Health And Eating Disorders

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How to talk about your daughter’s body

How to talk about your daughter’s body

Many parents wonder how they can talk about their daughter’s body without hurting her body image. I’ve come up with some guidelines for what to say and what not to say when you talk about your daughter’s body. I’ve also included the three things you should also be talking about that will impact your daughter’s body image and mental health. Combined, this advice will have a significant impact on how she feels about herself. 

What you can say about your daughter’s body

There are a lot of wonderful things you can say that will increase your daughter’s sense of worth and strength. But the fact is that female bodies are under tremendous pressure in our society. This means that when you talk about your daughter’s body you need to be aware of the social pressures on her body and adjust your comments accordingly. This will help her grow into a strong, resilient, and self-aware person.

Talk about what her body does

The majority of your comments about your daughter’s body should be related to what her body can do instead of what it looks like. For example, talk about how she uses her body to have fun, like turning cartwheels or running down a hill. Or you can talk about how she uses her body to get places and do things like walk to school, eat delicious food, and laugh with her friends. Her body is involved in all of those activities, and they have nothing to do with what her body looks like. When you talk about your daughter’s body you should spend most of your time focusing on her body’s incredible functionality. For example*:

  • Your legs were flying when you ran down that hill!
  • I’m really glad that you’re able to walk to school every day and that your body is able to get you where you want to go.
  • Aren’t you glad you have a tongue to taste this delicious ice cream?
  • Do your eyes see how delicious that pizza looks? I wonder if it tastes as good as it looks?

*My examples assume ability. Of course, not all bodies can do all things, and I acknowledge that.

Talk about how her body feels

It is a key skill for a woman to tune into whether she feels comfortable or uncomfortable, pleasure or discomfort. This is a skill that will keep her safe, healthy, and happy for life. You want her to be able to tune into her body’s signals and trust herself to make good choices. 

Therefore, try to avoid telling her what her body should feel and whether she is comfortable or uncomfortable. Instead, be curious about her experiences of comfort and discomfort. Here are some ways you can talk about her body’s comfort level and raise her self-awareness:

  • It looks like you feel uncomfortable in that shirt, is it itchy or scratchy?
  • Grandma’s hugs feel warm and cozy to me, how do they feel to you?
  • I’m sensing you might be cold, is that true?
  • Your body looks angry right now because your fists are clenched, is that true?
  • It seems like you’re feeling worried because you’re pacing around the room.
  • Would you like to hug Uncle Jeremy goodbye today?
  • You’re telling me your tummy is very full, which is uncomfortable. Let’s just rest here together for the next 20 minutes and see how you feel.

Talk about how she looks

There will be (hopefully many) moments when your daughter seems like she is the most beautiful thing in the world. It’s OK to think your daughter is beautiful! Beauty is something we find in nature every day. The important thing to notice is that natural beauty is never perfect. It also isn’t being marketed and sold to us. Unlike the beauty industry, which enforces harmful standards and extracts a hefty price, we don’t have to pay for nature, and it’s not selling us a solution to a manufactured problem. 

Look at your beautiful daughter as a part of nature. When you talk about your daughter’s beauty, you should feel deeply that she is 

beautiful inside and out …

with, not in spite of her flaws …

and she does not need* to do anything to make herself more beautiful.

*she may choose to do things like dress up, use makeup, etc., but those should be choices she’s making, not compulsions she’s performing to seek worthiness.

But sometimes it’s not a deep existential experience. You just want to give her a quick compliment and tell her she’s cute, adorable, or gorgeous. Maybe she looks great in that color, or her eyes are sparkling today. That’s OK, too! Just keep these compliments short and sweet. Avoid making them the main way you share your admiration of who she is.

What you should not say about your daughter’s body

Unfortunately there are some major landmines when it comes to talking about your daughter’s body. You should avoid talking about the following things:

Don’t talk about what she weighs

Body weight should be a neutral number, like height or shoe size. But of course that’s not the case. Decades of intense marketing and advertising have taught us that the higher a woman’s weight, the less attractive and worthy she is. This is appalling, but it’s the society we live in. 

Therefore, I typically advise parents to not talk about weight in any way unless they have been specifically coached in anti-diet, weight-neutral practices. This is because all of us need significant un-training in order to talk about her weight without stigma and shame.

Don’t talk about how she compares

Women are taught to compare body parts, outfits, and all aspects of their appearance to other women. They are taught there is a scarcity of love and worthiness that can only be attained through “winning” at beauty standards. Your daughter deserves to grow up knowing that she is worthy exactly as she is, and that she does not need to compete against others to earn your (or anyone’s) love.

Don’t compare your daughter’s body, beauty, weight, or appearance (positive or negative), to anyone else. Show your daughter that her body’s weight and appearance have nothing to do with her value by never comparing her body to another’s body.

Don’t talk about what she’s wearing

Your daughter will wear clothes that you don’t like. Think very, very carefully about what you say about those clothes. Because her body should, first and foremost, belong to her (not you or anyone else). That means that what she puts on her body should almost always be up to her.

If you feel compelled to comment on what she’s wearing, take a breath. Think deeply about whether your comments about what she is wearing are necessary or helpful. Are they kind? Do they respect her as the sovereign ruler of her own body?

If you truly believe her clothes are “inappropriate” (look out for fatphobia and rigid gender norms here), you can make a simple statement. Say something like “I’m sorry, but I’m having a hard time with that outfit. I need to think about why it’s hard for me in order to give you a good explanation, but right now I’m not comfortable with you wearing that to school.” 

Only use this statement rarely. Trust that she will find her own path. Support her in wearing clothes that feel authentic to her unique self, not your vision of what you wish she would look like. Remember that fashion crimes are not criminal, and bodily autonomy is a basic human right.

The foundation of self-acceptance

The dos and don’ts of body talk are important. But it’s also important to build a foundation of body acceptance. Here are three essential steps to raising a daughter who doesn’t hate her body:

1. Watch how you talk about your body and other bodies 

Think carefully about how you talk about your own body and other people’s bodies. Our kids learn from what we do more than what we say. So if you are criticizing your own body or talking negatively about other people’s bodies, that’s a problem. 

Rigid and ridiculous beauty standards are fatphobic, sexist, and damaging to mental health. Eating disorders are skyrocketing, and anxiety and depression about weight and appearance are a major problem. Girls and women experience both at much higher rates than boys and men, making this an important thing to think about if you have a daughter.

Here are common things you might be tempted to say about your body that you should stop saying:

  • I can’t wear that (subtext: it’s not flattering/I’m too fat)
  • No way could I eat that (subtext: it will make me gain weight)
  • I can’t leave the house without makeup (subtext: my natural face is unacceptable)
  • If I eat that I would have to spend the rest of the day in the gym (subtext: eating food requires compensatory behavior)

Here are common things you may be saying about other people’s bodies that you should stop saying:

  • She looks amazing now! (subtext: because she lost weight/is thin)
  • That person just doesn’t look healthy (subtext: they are fat and fat is bad)
  • She’s let herself go (subtext: she’s gained weight and that’s bad)
  • How can she leave the house like that? (subtext: she’s not meeting societal beauty standards and she should)

Remember that even very young children (toddlers!) will pick up the subtext. It’s impossible to live in our society and not translate technically benign statements into fat-shaming and body-shaming. Your daughter is watching and listening to you all the time. For the sake of her long-term health, work on your own body image and weight stigma, and release outdated gender norms.

2. Build media literacy

Our society is cruel to bodies. Parents need to counterbalance this cruelty by teaching media literacy. These conversations need to happen early and often.

Sexism, fatphobia, and objectification are a significant part of our media landscape, and if you aren’t talking about this, your child is picking up messages about beauty and how women are valued without your consent or input. You don’t need to raise your child in a bubble, but you do need to actively counter-educate her about how the media influences what we think and believe.

At a minimum, you should talk to your daughter often about these concepts: 

  • Almost all advertisements, TV shows, movies, and social media posts involve heavy editing and filters. Even if they don’t use filters, the person has likely spent hours perfecting their hair, makeup, and outfit, getting the right pose, and setting up professional lighting, etc. What you see on the screen almost never represents what a person looks like in real life.
  • Bodies, particularly women’s bodies are often used as sales tools. For example, an apartment building may use a photo of a woman in a bikini to advertise their apartments. This advertisement may appear next to another one featuring a man who is wearing a suit and tie. We need to ask questions about this. For example: why is the man wearing clothing but the woman is wearing almost none? Also notice that many times women’s bodies appear without their heads or even as individual body parts in order to sell products. This depersonalizes the female body and treats it as an object and a sales tool.
  • Just because someone on social media or TV says something is true does not mean it is true. Many times the person is speaking from personal experience, but that experience cannot be extended to you. Additionally, a lot of times the person is being paid or is hoping to be compensated when they promote products or services.
  • If something on social media or TV sounds too good to be true or promises a quick, easy fix, then it’s probably not true. Most things in life are full of nuance and complexity.
  • Pay attention to diversity – or lack thereof. If everyone you see in the media is white, thin, heterosexual and cisgender, then adjust your media consumption, or at least talk about the problem.
  • Advertisements are successful when they create a problem that the product can solve. Therefore, media messages about “problems” are made up by advertising agencies. For example, wrinkles, weight, cellulite, and skin color are largely genetically predetermined. We have very little control over these features. The products designed to “solve” the so-called problems are neither necessary nor do they work as promised.

3. Talk about her other qualities 

Spend the bulk of your time talking about your daughter’s non-body qualities. This is really important, because the problem is not talking about your daughter’s body, but rather talking about her body at the exclusion of her other qualities. Her body is a part of her, but she should not believe that her value and worth are based on her appearance.

In general, you should spend the majority of your time focusing on her non-body-based qualities. Body and appearance comments should be the small minority of what you talk to your daughter about.

Instead of focusing on your daughter’s body, talk about her:

  • Creativity
  • Sense of humor
  • Kindness
  • Thoughtfulness
  • Attention to detail
  • Mental flexibility
  • Courage
  • Friendliness
  • Trustworthiness
  • Dependability
  • Grit
  • Passion
  • Purpose
  • Curiosity
  • Dedication
  • Adventurousness
  • Daring
  • Warmth
  • Loyalty
  • Open-mindedness

When you talk about these qualities, praise her for her behaviors, not the outcomes. This has been demonstrated in the research around the “Growth Mindset,” which is that focusing on outcomes can raise a perfectionistic, rigid mentality. Outcome-based praise can also be de-motivating and spoil the joy of trying new things. Here are a few examples:

BehaviorOutcome
It’s really great that you put so much effort into your school project.I’m proud of you for getting good grades.
I love that you’re putting so much creativity into your role in the play.You’re the star of the show!
You were very brave to try out for the softball team.You making the softball team is very important to me.

As with appearance, of course you can sometimes mention outcomes, but be sure that the majority of your praise is about the behaviors you admire. Navigating body image and eating disorders is difficult, but following these steps should help you raise a strong, confident person!

Ginny Jones is the founder of More-Love.org, and a Parent Coach who helps parents who have kids with eating disorders.

See Our Parent’s Guide To Body Image And Eating Disorders

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How to help when your tween says they’re “fat” and other tricky situations

What to do when your tween says they’re “fat” and other tricky situations

It’s not uncommon for a tween to say they’re “fat” or otherwise struggle with their body image.

This is an understandable but devastating side effect of living in our culture. One study found that nearly half of girls aged 3-6 years old are afraid of being fat. It only gets worse as they get older unless parents actively intervene.

Our society is deeply fatphobic. Our kids are not immune.

Parents need to help kids, particularly those who are larger, live in their bodies safely and without shame. Here are my eight tips for parents facing tricky body image situations. 

This advice helps when treating eating disorders, preventing eating disorders, and preventing a broad array of mental health issues.

1. Don’t tell them it’s just baby fat/they’re not fat, etc.

When your tween says they’re “fat,” your first response may be to try and convince them they are not. But that’s not the best approach.

Don’t say that they will grow out of it. And don’t insist that they are not fat, they are beautiful.

These statements can make a child feel even more ashamed of their body. And it also opens the door for your child to perpetuate anti-fat bias in the world.

Teach them to be a good friend to themselves and a good citizen at the same time by acknowledging anti-fat bias and teaching them how to talk about bodies with dignity and respect. 

Don’t say anything that suggests that fat is bad and something to get over and/or be ashamed of. 

Instead, talk about what it means to live in a larger body in our society. Help them understand that we are more than bodies. Give them the tools to live in the body they have.

Read more: How to protect your daughter from diet culture and fatphobia

2. Find out the feelings behind the word “fat”

Fat can be a neutral descriptor, but it can also be a way to be cruel to ourselves.

Teach kids that it’s not OK for them to be rude to themselves or use the word “fat” as a stand-in for negative feelings. 

Often when kids call themselves “fat” in a negative way, it means they are struggling with negative feelings. Ask questions.

Find out what “fat” means to them. Help them find the feeling words that fit.

In our society a tween who calls themself “fat” often means they feel sad, lonely, or rejected. 

Seek to understand and validate the feelings without trying to convince your child that they are already thin enough. The more we deny their experience, the deeper it will dig into their psyche. 

Read more: What to do when your tween daughter calls herself fat

3. Teach them about weight stigma and fatphobia

Bodies are a social justice issue. Body politics are filled with racism, sexism, and sizeism. Parents need to recognize that weight discrimination is harmful just like other forms of discrimination. Parents need to become social justice warriors who are willing to fight back against our culture of body hate.

We can build a kinder world for our children (and everyone), but it’s not going to happen without effort. 

Teaching kids about weight stigma and fatphobia is protective and will help you raise a kinder human. Bodies are beautiful, unique, and healthiest when treated with dignity.

We need our kids to recognize that trying to control bodies or judging people for their bodies is harmful and unacceptable.

All bodies deserve dignity. Help your child know this deep in their bones.

Read more: Weight stigma and your child

4. Work on your own food and body issues

Your own body and food issues will trickle down to your child. Our kids are finely attuned to how we feel, so we have to work on ourselves to help them grow up strong and healthy.

I’m not blaming you here. We have all grown up in a toxic culture that treats bodies as objects to be controlled and criticized. But when you have a child, it’s time to dig deeper and uncover your own food and body issues.

If you are dieting or otherwise controlling your weight, it’s time to stop. I know this is revolutionary, but we need to heal ourselves so we can help our kids thrive.

Please get support if you don’t know how to live without your bathroom scale and food plans. A therapist, dietitian, or coach can help you learn to practice Intuitive Eating and find peace with your body.

Read more: Get off the diet cycle and raise healthier kids

5. Teach them to accept their bodies (and never diet)

Trying to change our body size and shape doesn’t work, and dieting increases the risk of an eating disorder by up to 15x. 

To prevent eating disorders and other serious mental health issues, I encourage parents to commit to the goal of helping kids never, ever, diet. 

This means we need to help them accept their weight, whatever it is. This is counter-culture, so we need to constantly remind our kids that body acceptance is the best path to health.

You may feel proud of a child who says they want to “eat healthier,” but this is the modern-day code for dieting. Instead, teach your child to listen to and trust their body instead of following external rules and goals. 

Of course, you can stock and serve fruits, vegetables, grains, and proteins. But serve them alongside carbs, fats, cookies, chips, and other great foods. 

All foods fit in a healthy lifestyle. And the more you support a nuanced, gentle approach to bodies, the healthier your child will be.

Read more: The science to support a non-diet, weight-neutral approach

6. Help them manage peer teasing (and bullying)

It sucks, but kids are cruel to other kids’ bodies. If you have a child who is larger, they will likely experience discrimination and teasing. But even smaller kids may experience cruel body-based taunting and jeers. 

It’s not fair, but don’t make it worse by ignoring it or pretending it doesn’t happen.

Teach your child to be confident and assertive about their body. Give your child some possible responses to fatphobic jokes, and support them in standing up for themselves and others. 

This is not unlike anti-racism work, where it’s very important to prepare kids to not be passive bystanders when they witness body-based teasing and bullying. All kids should be given the tools to be “upstanders” when it comes to body-based teasing and bullying.

Make it easy for your child to report body-based teasing and bullying to you. And be prepared to speak with your school’s administration when it inevitably happens. This is an under-reported aspect of bullying, so don’t hesitate to say something!

Read more: Help your child deal with body shaming

7. Teach them to respond to adults who say “watch your weight” and “eat healthy”

Kids know that “watch your weight” and “eat healthy” is code for “your body and appetite are unacceptable.” Teach them that these comments are common, but they may hurt your child’s feelings, and you understand why.

Empower your child to politely but assertively respond to these adults. A simple “I’m good, thanks,” can work well. They can also say “please don’t talk about my body/weight/food.” 

Some adults may become offended, but that’s just because they haven’t thought about how harmful their comments about weight and food can be. There’s nothing inappropriate about your child setting boundaries about what adults say to them about their body and food.

Read more: Don’t talk about my child’s weight

Read more: Opt-out of school weight programs

8. Work harder to find age-appropriate, comfortable clothing

If you have a child in a larger body, you’ll need to work a little harder to help them have fun with fashion. Larger kids need a little extra effort and attention because the clothing industry does not recognize size diversity. 

Do your research and make sure that stores carry their size before you take them shopping. 

Remind them that the problem is never their body, it’s the sizeist fashion industry. And when things don’t fit, teach them to blame the clothes, not their body. 

Read more: How to shop for clothes when your daughter wears plus size

It’s sadly normal

It’s sadly normal for kids to feel bad about their bodies in our culture. It’s not uncommon for a tween to say they’re “fat” or otherwise struggle with their body image.

The best thing parents can do is be prepared and proactive rather than reactive when it comes to body image issues.

And if your tween does say they’re “fat” or are otherwise distressed about their body, respond with compassion and understanding rather than trying to dismiss their feelings.

Ginny Jones is the founder of More-Love.org, and a Parent Coach who helps parents who have kids with eating disorders.

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How to protect your daughter from diet culture

How to protect your daughter from diet culture and fatphobia

If you have a daughter, then you can and should protect her from diet culture. While this isn’t one of the things most of us think about when we have a child, it has become critically important as body hate, disordered eating, and eating disorders are on the rise. 

Women in our society are constantly told to control their hunger and weigh less. Diet culture indoctrination begins early in a girl’s life. As a result, most kindergarten girls will tell you they don’t want to be fat because being fat is bad. They already believe that the path to not being fat and bad is to eat less and exercise more. 

All of this pressure and noise about women’s bodies begins early in our daughters’ lives. Over time it flourishes and often blossoms into body dissatisfaction, dieting, disordered eating, and eating disorders.

But you can protect your daughter from diet culture. You can help her respect her body and live a healthy life. Here are five steps to doing it:

1. Educate yourself

Begin by learning about weight stigma and weight cycling. These are the major problems associated with diet culture and weight stigma and are therefore a key way to protect your daughter from them.

Weight stigma is discrimination against fat people and being fat. It’s closely aligned with racism, classism, and sexism. When internalized, it turns into body hate – the belief that your body (and by extension you yourself) is bad if you have fat. Weight stigma is strongly associated with disordered eating.

Next, dieting predicts weight cycling. While the $70 billion diet industry sells the promise of lasting weight loss, the truth is that while many people can lose weight initially when dieting, most gain it back, often plus more, 2-5 years later. Weight cycling is associated with poor cardiometabolic health.  

Finally, dieting is predictive of weight gain and eating disorders. In other words, it’s not healthy and does the opposite of what it promises. 

Take some time to learn about the truth about intentional weight loss, and once you’re ready, start educating your kids. This is a great way to protect our daughters from diet culture. Teach them: 

  1. Diet culture is rooted in discrimination, racism, classism, and sexism
  1. Dieting is not actually healthy for our bodies, and in fact predicts weight gain
  1. The $70 billion diet industry creates and profits off body dissatisfaction and weight stigma

Our children deserve to know the truth about diet culture and weight stigma, and it’s unlikely they’ll learn it out in the wild. This is something that needs to come from you.

2. A body-positive household

Most households are living with some form of weight stigma and/or diet culture. Maybe you actively diet every January. Or maybe you are naturally thin but constantly talk about your aunt, who is naturally fat, as someone who needs to “take care of herself,” by which you mean “lose weight.” 

There are so many ways that we accidentally promote weight stigma and diet culture in our homes, and I’m not here to criticize you for doing any of these very normal things in the past. Truly. I get it. I lived it! 

But I am asking you to give it up now that you know better. Here are the beliefs that a body-positive household adheres to: 

1. Nobody should be criticized or shamed for their body at any weight.

2. You can take good care of your health without focusing on weight as an outcome or result.

3. Health includes physical, mental, social, and emotional factors. It cannot be determined or measured by weight.

4. There is no body size that deserves more or less respect. All bodies deserve respect at any weight.

A body-positive household will protect your daughter against diet culture because she will live in a pro-body environment rather than an environment that shames and criticizes bodies. At the heart of body positivity is dignity. All human beings deserve the dignity of living in their bodies without criticism or judgment.

3. An anti-diet approach

Once you know all of this, the next step is to institute an anti-diet policy at home. This means that barring any medical restrictions for medically-diagnosed allergies or diseases, nobody should be restricting food. This includes all forms of food restriction and banning foods for any reason other than that you don’t like them.

This is a revolutionary way to live and can be scary for anyone who has been following diet rules for most of their lives (e.g. most of us!). My greatest assurance for you is that following an anti-diet lifestyle will give you and your children greater freedom and better health – both physical and mental. 

An anti-diet lifestyle is also protective against eating disorders and disordered eating. One study found that girls are up to 18x more likely to develop an eating disorder if they diet. And girls are more likely to diet if they live in a home in which dieting is modeled and permitted. That fact alone should be enough to encourage you to implement a no-diet rule in your home. 

Hundreds of studies have found that Intuitive Eating, which is a way of eating that is responsive to hunger and appetite, is healthier than any type of diet. It may surprise you to know that weight-loss diets do not improve cardiovascular fitness long-term, but Intuitive Eating does.

The important thing is that nobody in the home should be actively trying to control, manage, or lose weight. It is important to get rid of household scales and any other tools that are used for the purpose of weight management. This can be a huge adjustment, so it may help to work with a Registered Dietitian to help you get started. 

4. Dealing with society: 

The previous three recommendations are things that you can control in your household. And they are a great place to start. But your daughter will go out in the world and encounter diet culture everywhere. Here are some common places she’ll see it and ways you can respond to protect her from negative consequences:

Social Media

Social media is filled with diet culture. While it’s often not possible to shield our daughters from diet culture on social media, we can minimize its harmful impacts by living a body-positive, anti-diet lifestyle at home. But to take it even further, make sure you talk openly about the issues with social media. 

In my experience, it’s best to try and take a balanced approach rather than criticize such an important aspect of her life. For example, you can say things like “I love that on TikTok you can learn so many dances, and I only wish we could see more body diversity in the dancers.” Then let her respond. She may point out that she follows several dancers who are in larger bodies. Or she may just huff and stomp away. But you can trust that just mentioning body diversity will remind her to actively seek body diversity on social media.

Criticizing social media rarely works well. It is a power move that can have negative consequences. Instead, try to open up conversations and put safety measures in place such as time limits on apps. But the best thing you can do is engage in ongoing discussions about the pros and cons of social media. 

Movies/TV/Radio

Movies, TV shows, and even random comments on the radio are often fatphobic. Once you start looking for weight stigma and diet culture, you’ll start to see it everywhere. My suggestion is to point out fatphobic comments as they happen. 

For example, if a TV show has a character that suggests someone “needs to eat fewer brownies” (because they’re fat), then I suggest you immediately say “Oh no, so fatphobic. Knock it off!” to the character on the screen. Your kids may look at you strangely, but that’s better than allowing weight stigma in your home without objection.

If a radio host mentions it’s time to get back to the gym and work off some extra pounds, you can say “that’s not how it works, buddy.” These light but direct comments help your daughter start to see the weight stigma that surrounds us and make sure that you are exposing it when it happens. The best response is when she asks for an explanation from you.

Magazine Covers/Billboards

While few teens get magazines delivered anymore, they will still see fatphobic magazine covers, particularly in the grocery store checkout line. There may also be billboard advertisements and bus stop ads for weight loss, fat-removal surgery, and more. These forms of constant exposure to weight stigma and diet culture are subtle but have a big impact.

I suggest you point them out as fatphobic and wrong. You rarely need to get into long discussions, but be ready to do so if you think your daughter wants to talk some more about a disturbing message or image she’s been exposed to. It’s best to keep the door open on these conversations so she feels safe coming to you with questions.

Remember that the thing you can control here is what you say and how you respond. Your daughter does not have to agree with you or discuss this deeply with you for your words to have an impact. Focus on your presentation more than her response to it.

Dealing with school:

Whether it’s from a teacher, peer, or coach, weight stigma runs rampant in most schools. Your daughter will most likely encounter diet culture at school, and you want to protect her from that. Here are some common places she’ll experience it and ways you can respond to avoid negative consequences.

Health Class

I frequently hear from parents who believe that a health class was a trigger for their daughter’s eating disorder. This is deeply distressing but not surprising given that we live in a society that has mistakenly aligned low weight, food restriction, and over-exercise with health. 

It’s best to assume that any health classes provided at your daughter’s school will include some version of diet culture. The most common things I hear about are education about “good” and “bad” foods, introducing calorie counters, step counters, and other tools, and misinformation about fat being the “cause” of disease. 

I suggest you prepare your daughter for this misinformation in advance and talk about it at home often. Don’t allow health class to go unchallenged, no matter how well-meaning the teacher is. 

Additionally, if you feel up for it, talk to your school administration about the dangers of teaching children to diet, a known cause of weight cycling and a major factor in the development of eating disorders.

Peers

Because our culture is full of dieting and weight stigma, it’s likely that your daughter’s peers will be dieting and fatphobic. This is not about them being individually wrong or bad. Fatphobia and dieting make sense in our culture. Because of this, we never want to blame the individual, and instead recognize the societal forces at play.

I recommend talking to your daughter often about diet culture and weight stigma and helping her problem-solve and brainstorm ways to respond when they show up among peers. Your daughter does not have to be a social justice warrior who confronts diet culture and weight stigma at school. But it will help if she has some responses in her mind at least to keep herself safe and centered when it happens around her.

Conversations with peers about weight stigma and diet culture are nuanced and challenging. Support your daughter in finding her own path rather than telling her what she “should” do. It’s much more effective to guide her in finding her own response.

Coaches/Teachers

We know that coaches and teachers are part of our society and therefore often suffer from weight stigma and diet culture. This is understandable and makes sense. However, when weight stigma and diet culture is actively taught to our daughters, it may be necessary to speak up.

As always, your first line of defense is a good offense. Arm your daughter with the knowledge and strength to recognize diet culture and weight stigma and counteract it, at least in her own mind. Maintaining a body-positive, anti-diet household will go a long way to protecting her from the worst offenders. 

Approach conversations about teachers and coaches with an open mind and heart. You don’t want to condone fatphobic behavior, but be careful not to overreact when your daughter tells you about it. Because overreacting can lead your daughter to get defensive on behalf of a coach or teacher who she may respect and like. Let your daughter lead the conversation and do more listening than talking.

However, if you feel a coach or teacher is teaching dangerous concepts to students, you may want to speak with them directly or talk to the administration. For example, if a coach is doing weigh-ins and openly shaming girls who have gained weight, that’s something that should be addressed. Likewise, if a teacher begins a calorie-restriction project in class, you should speak up.

Living in a society that is cruel and dominating towards female bodies is hard. And it’s difficult to raise a body-confident girl in this culture. But it is possible. You can raise a daughter who is free from body hate, disordered eating, diet culture and eating disorders if you protect her from weight stigma. Good luck out there!

Ginny Jones is the founder of More-Love.org, and a Parent Coach who helps parents who have kids with eating disorders.

See Our Parent’s Guide To Diet Culture And Eating Disorders

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You’re wearing that?!

man and woman pulling a rope

How to avoid power struggles over clothes

Getting dressed should not be a battleground, and most of the time you don’t need to get into power struggles about clothes. Power struggles over clothes can result in the following side effects for our kids:

  • Low self-worth
  • Poor sense of self
  • Rebellion
  • Underdeveloped autonomy
  • Damaged parent-child relationship
  • Mental health issues, including eating disorders
  • Perpetuating unhealthy social norms

The first and most obvious reason for this is that your child’s body is their sacred property. It is theirs to own and care for. If we try to dictate what they wear, we can get into dangerous territory in which we cross personal boundaries, reinforce toxic beauty standards, and promote negative messages that impact self-worth. Since these are risk factors for eating disorders, we should avoid controlling or criticizing clothing choices whenever possible.

Getting dressed is personal. And it’s a chance for your child to safely explore and develop their identity and autonomy. Children who have a strong sense of self wear clothes that they enjoy, that are comfortable for them, and that allow them to express their individuality and/or membership in a group. These children grow into strong individuals who are not prey to the whims of beauty standards, the thin ideal, or other unhealthy societal messages.

Most of the time you don’t need to get into power struggles over clothes. You rarely need to tell your child what to wear. Instead, prioritize their comfort and preferences. Let them find and express their own individual style.

You don’t need to control clothing (most of the time)

It’s true that in some situations parents can make suggestions about kids’ clothes. But these are extremely rare. And clothes shouldn’t be a place to have power struggles, but rather a discussion, compromise, and agreement. Keep your boundaries and remember that their body is theirs, not yours.

Sure, younger kids may need more guidance about clothing in certain situations. But in the vast majority of situations, parents can and should let kids make their own choices about what to wear with minimal guidance.

Most of the time getting dressed is an issue you can leave up to your child. And the less you say about their choices, the less likely they are to rebel or struggle with perfectionism or identity issues.

Why not comment on what your kid wears?

If you’re thinking about making a comment about what your child is wearing, take a breath and think about why you’re doing it. What is your goal? Many times parental control over clothing comes from a desire to protect our child from social shaming. We believe that if we dress them the right way they will be liked by their peers and other adults.

That’s a worthy and understandable goal.

But the problem is that the most important person your child wants to be liked by is YOU. And when you try to control what they wear, they, unfortunately, begin to believe that what they wear is more important to you than who they are.

Another reason parents comment on kids’ clothing is because they are afraid that they (the parent) will be judged by friends, family, and society. In this case, your feelings are valid, but you need to manage your behavior and avoid crossing an important boundary between parent and child. You should not ask your child to solve a problem that is yours to handle. If you worry about being judged, figure out how to process and deal with your worry without imposing it on your child.

What we do matters more than what we say

You never have to say it or even think it consciously. But if you pay a lot of attention to what your child wears they will interpret your interest and attention to clothing as something that makes a big difference to how you feel about them.

Kids don’t hear what we say. They hear what we repeatedly do. So even if you say you love your child unconditionally, if you are commenting on their clothes often then you are showing them that appearance is very important to you.

They will either seek your approval by focusing on their appearance or they will rebel as soon as they can to prove to you that they get to do what they want to do with their bodies. Either way, they are building an identity based on what they perceive to be your perception of them rather than learning to look inside and learn about who they are.

Clothes are not the most important thing

The most important thing for parents to do is validate that their child is worthy and lovable exactly as they are. And we want them to build their own sense of self rather than a reflection or rejection of what they think we want them to be.

Of course, we live in a society that has expectations, structure, and rules. And in some cases, there are rules about what kids need to wear.

But most of the time we don’t need to have rules about clothing. Most of the time this is an area where we can step back and let our kids build their autonomy. Doing this builds confidence, self-worth, and self-esteem. All of these are protective against eating disorders and other mental health conditions.

When we let kids dress themselves, they grow up stronger and more resilient against peer pressure. And that’s a very good thing.

Think back …

Many times when we think back on our own lives, we can remember how frustrating it was to have parents tell us what to do. Maybe your mom liked to dress you in her style – not yours. Maybe your dad bought you dresses that were itchy and scratchy but you had to wear them anyway. In most of those cases, you probably felt at least somewhat controlled and dominated. That’s because what goes on your body should be up to you.

When a parent gets into power struggles over clothes they need to evaluate their values and consider the lessons being taught. We all want to raise kids who have a strong sense of self. And that comes from experimenting and listening to themselves – not others. Personal style is personal, so we want to give our kids space to develop it themselves.

Maybe you loved having your parents tell you what to do. Maybe you love fashion magazines and following beauty standards. You get to do whatever you want with your body. But think carefully about your own child. Do they like it when you tell them how to dress their bodies? If not, then that matters. Their opinions and preferences matter as much as yours do.

Just because we liked something as kids doesn’t mean that’s how we should parent the kids we have. And just because we like to wear a certain style or have a vision of how we want our child to look doesn’t mean our kids should be compliant to our wishes.

Our kids may be young humans, but they are still humans with their own identities, preferences, thoughts, and feelings. And when we try to take away their most basic rights of how to dress we could impact our relationship with them … and their relationship with themselves. Repeated power struggles over clothes are not worth the risks.

How a clothing power struggle begins

Power struggles begin when parents try to control what their kids wear, either overtly (wear this/not that) or covertly (are you really wearing that?). This can damage a child’s sense of autonomy and self-worth. Here are some examples of how power struggles begin when it comes to clothes:

Overt Comments

  • That’s not flattering
  • Wear this instead
  • You look awful in that
  • I laid out your outfit for today
  • Don’t wear that
  • Go change your clothes
  • You can’t wear that
  • That’s hideous
  • That’s inappropriate

Covert Comments

  • Are you sure you want to wear that?
  • Maybe you want to put on some makeup?
  • I’m not sure that’s the right choice
  • Do your friends dress like that?
  • Can I make a suggestion?
  • [wince]
  • [wide eyes]
  • [gasp]
  • [eye roll]

Note that you don’t need to say a word for your child to know what you’re thinking. Our kids are intimately tuned in to what we think about them, so pay attention to your facial expressions as much as your words.

What to do instead

Next time your child comes out of their room wearing something you disapprove of, avoid the power struggle. Instead ask yourself:

  • Is what I’m about to say about them or me? (think deeply about this – it’s usually about you)
  • Is what I’m about to say kind and respectful? (would I say it to a coworker?)
  • Is what I’m about to say supportive of my child’s individuality and autonomy?
  • Am I imposing rigid and outdated social norms on my child, and if so, why?
  • Am I trying to control my kid’s clothes because I’m uncomfortable with their size, shape or gender?
  • Does what I’m about to say show my child that they are lovable just as they are?

Asking these questions is essential to raising a strong, confident child who knows who they are, what they like, and trusts their parents love them for those things. It’s never too late to give kids the freedom of dressing according to their unique preferences. And it’s a huge and worthwhile gift that we all have the power to give.

But what about values?

Perhaps you believe that you should control what your child wears because your values are important to you. For example, maybe you value modesty and your daughter prefers short shorts and tight tops. Maybe you value order and your son prefers baggy pants and ragged t-shirts. Or maybe you value femininity and your child is non-binary and prefers gender-neutral clothing.

To handle this I suggest that you hold one value above all else: dignity. To possess dignity is to have absolute, intrinsic and unconditional value regardless of appearance or actions. This means that each and every person, regardless of age, gender, sexuality, size, weight, race, income, intelligence, appearance, etc., deserves to be treated with respect and as an autonomous thinking person.

When dignity lies at the heart of your family values you recognize that while you can have rules, expectations, and structure, each person still gets to behave autonomously in key areas such as dressing themselves. This can be seen as the dignity of self-expression.

You can also separate your personal values from your family values. While you personally may have values that guide your behavior or how you dress, your family should have just 3-4 shared values that guide your household. For example, dignity should be more important than modesty, order, and gender roles.

But what about the dress code?

If your child attends a school that enforces a dress code, I suggest that you talk to your child about the dress code and tell them what you expect in clear and simple terms. Then let them handle it. In other words, if they get in trouble for violating the dress code, that will be a natural consequence that is theirs to handle.

Dress codes disproportionately target females, higher-weight individuals, people of color, and trans kids. In many cases, your child’s rejection of being “dress coded” may be a sign of a healthy self. I’m not saying they should break rules regularly, but dress code rules are rules they can safely test without lifelong consequences.

Unless they are at risk of expulsion for violating the dress code, this is probably something you can leave up to the school to handle. It’s their rule, let them enforce it.

Most of the time your child will either decide it’s not worth getting in trouble or find creative ways to skirt the dress code. Either way, this is a healthy and appropriate way for them to learn social boundaries without you policing them.

But what if it’s a signal?

Sometimes when a child suddenly changes their style it could be a signal that something is wrong. Clothing can be communication. So I suggest you tread carefully here and focus on feelings, not clothes.

Pay attention to how your child is behaving and other things that are going on for them. If you believe they are facing a challenge, then how they dress is just a symptom of the challenge. Address the cause, not the symptom.

Maybe they are lonely, overloaded, stressed, grieving, depressed, anxious, or experiencing poor body image and eating disorders. If you focus on the symptom (clothes), you often create larger issues. If you focus on the cause, you may be able to help your child feel better.

Ginny Jones is the founder of More-Love.org, and a Parent Coach who helps parents who have kids with eating disorders.

See Our Parent’s Guide To Body Image And Eating Disorders

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Feeling sad in recovery from an eating disorder

If your child in in recovery for an eating disorder, it’s very possible that they feel sad. And maybe this is making you sad, too. Most parents feel overwhelmed handling the eating disorder behavior, and don’t know what to do when sadness shows up.

As parents, we want to protect our children from uncomfortable feelings, especially sadness and despair. Most of us came into parenting during the time of a glut of Happiness books, speeches, and articles. Scientists explored exactly how we can increase our happiness with daily tasks, based on the assumption that being happier is always better.

Most of us, when asked, will say that what we want most of all is for our kids to be happy.

We may embrace sayings like “good vibes only” and strive every day to turn lemons into lemonade. When our children feel sad, we jump through hoops to try and remedy it as soon as possible – to return to happy.

The tyranny of happy

It sounds really nice to pursue happiness, but the fact is that many of us who pursue a happier life find ourselves actually feeling emptier and sadder. Why?

Because it turns out that sadness is a part of natural emotional hygiene. To expect ourselves – and our children – to live in a state of perpetual happiness is to deny the natural fluctuation of emotions.

Feeling sadness and any negative emotion is not only normal, it’s actually healthier than trying to force ourselves to remain in a constant state of bliss.

When we have a child who has an eating disorder, it’s hard not to think that we need to help our child find a higher state of happiness in life. We may think that recovery from their eating disorder will mean a return to happiness.

Certainly, if our child is depressed, we should seek treatment for that condition. But the opposite of depression is not eternal happiness. The opposite of depression is the ability to feel a full range of emotions, including sadness.

Recovery from an eating disorder does not mean happiness all the time or never feeling sad. It means we recognize and metabolize the full range of emotions including, but not limited to happiness. This means we need to feel free to experience anger, sadness, loneliness, jealousy, and the thousands of other emotions that make us human.

Parents who are afraid of the full range of human emotions are likely to get uncomfortable with this. They may accidentally try to interfere with natural emotional ranges by pursuing happiness rather than allowing sadness and other negative emotions.

But parents need to accept all mood states, not just the positive ones.

Acknowledge feelings

The first step in learning emotional hygiene – the natural metabolism of emotions throughout each and every day – is to acknowledge that our emotions run a wide range. We have to acknowledge that we are not meant to remain in a steady emotional state.

In fact, that is a clear sign of depression: the lack of emotional fluctuation. Take some time in your family to acknowledge that feelings come and go every single day. We all have a broad range of positive, negative and neutral feelings, and that is absolutely healthy.

Name feelings

Building emotional literacy, or the ability to put a name on your emotions, helps to build emotional resilience and reduce shame around negative emotional states. When we talk about our feelings, we allow them to exist without worrying that they will last forever. Talking about emotions is a daily practice that we can all work on in our families.

Some of us find it helpful to print out lists of emotions to help us name them. It’s too easy to call every negative feeling afraid, angry or sad. And that’s certainly a good place to start, but there are so many nuances to those feelings. We can add words like despair, fear, horror, and shame to help us better define our feelings. This will allow them out into the light where they can breathe and move on.

Don’t forget that sometimes we need to combine feelings to get an accurate picture. For example, before a big event, a child may say they feel scared. But upon deeper reflection, they are a combination of nervous and excited. You can even put these words together to form new feelings, like “nercited.”

Welcome feelings

Even if we are able to name our feelings and have a broad emotional vocabulary, we still have to work hard to welcome the negative feelings into our lives.

Almost all of us were taught to reject, deny and ignore negative emotions. A good reason for this is that negative feelings make parents very uncomfortable.

As little children, our parents, in wanting what was best for us, probably tried to get us to stop crying. A better approach would have been to welcome our tears and reassure us that they were perfectly natural and healthy. These lessons learned every day for many years, taught us to hide negative mood states.

We can learn to welcome the full gamut of our family’s feelings. Every member of our family is going to undergo mood states throughout the day. And a good portion of those feelings are going to be in the negative category.

Rather than not allowing negative feelings or trying to pretend that everything is just fine, practice instead welcoming these feelings.

Talk about the fact that life is challenging.

Sometimes it sucks.

But it will suck much, much more if feelings are repressed. In fact, repressed feelings are integral to almost all addictive and maladaptive behaviors, including eating disorders. Sadness is a common psychological symptom of eating disorders. Emotions run high in eating disorder recovery, so most people will be sad at times. But this doesn’t mean recovery is a failure. It means that recovery opens up a person to the full range of human emotion. And this is a sign of mental health.

Ginny Jones is the founder of More-Love.org, and a Parent Coach who helps parents who have kids with eating disorders.

See Our Parent’s Guide To Mental Health And Eating Disorders

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What to say to big kids (from adults who’ve been there)

What to say to big kids (from adults who've been there)

Are you wondering what to say to kids in larger bodies—and how to say it with care, respect, and lasting impact? Whether you’re a parent, teacher, doctor, coach, grandparent, aunt, uncle, or any other trusted adult, your words matter more than you may realize.

Fortunately, we have some powerful guidance. A recent social media thread gathered hundreds of responses from adults who grew up as self-identified “fat kids,” sharing what they wished the important adults in their lives had said to them. Their insights offer a valuable roadmap for how to support kids with compassion instead of shame.

A word about the word “fat”

The word fat can be used as a negative or a neutral descriptor. In its neutral form, saying fat is the same as saying thin, tall, or brown-eyed. Other words for fat bodies, such as overweight and obese, are currently considered to be stigmatizing. Many fat justice leaders have reclaimed the word fat as the preferred neutral descriptor for their bodies. As such, I typically use the word fat when referring to body weight as a physical feature.

However, due to our culture’s terrible history of weight-shaming, we should not call an individual fat unless we 1) are doing so kindly 2) have zero thoughts that they should lose weight; and 3) clearly have their permission to do so. And nobody should ever use fat as an insult. It’s always best to let people who live in marginalized bodies to define themselves rather than assuming a label on their behalf. And never tell a person in a larger body that they are not fat or should be proud to be fat. It’s their body and their choice to define themselves on their own terms.

What not to say to bigger kids

I’m going to just start with what not to say to bigger kids. The fact is that kids in larger bodies are subject to constant scrutiny and discrimination. This is a sad fact of our culture. A lot of well-meaning adults say things to larger kids that they think will be helpful but are in fact incredibly harmful. Here is a quick guide:

Don’t say:

  • You’re not fat; you’re beautiful: if a child is fat, they know they’re fat. Don’t deny them the truth of their body. When we jump in with a comment like this, we risk adding shame to the word “fat.”
  • You just need to [eat less/move more/eat healthy/]: the implication here is that weight is a choice. Would you tell a child who is short that they just need to stretch their body? No. So don’t tell a child who is larger that they just need to shrink their body.
  • You shouldn’t wear that: there are a lot of opinions about what bigger people should and shouldn’t wear. But if you would let a thin child wear something, then restricting a larger child from wearing the same thing is discrimination.
  • Don’t eat that: there are a lot of variations and ways that adults try to restrict how much and what larger kids eat. But research shows that bigger kids eat about the same as thin kids. The difference is mostly genetics and environment, not food.
  • You’ll grow out of it: this comment can have lifetime effects because many children then begin to worry about how they can make sure they get thinner. They assume that thin is better, and therefore begin the lifelong pain of hating their bodies.

Here’s what we know for sure: when adults tell kids there is a problem with their weight, those children are more likely to grow up to be heavier than kids who were not told their weight was a problem. This research stays steady regardless of genetics and environment. Thus, all those adults who think that kids need to “watch their weight” are in fact setting them up to gain weight.

Why? Most likely because cortisol (stress) is linked to weight. And kids who are raised believing there is a problem with their bodies feel more stress. Also, restriction of any kind leads to compensation. So if you restrict sugar or any food for kids, they are very likely to binge eat those foods when given a chance. This isn’t deviant or “bad,” it’s simple biology.

Here’s a simple guide: if you’re about to say something to a fat kid that you wouldn’t say to a thin kid, don’t do it. And give larger kids extra love and affection to counteract the discrimination they’re facing elsewhere in the world.

The science behind all my statements about weight is available in our Research Library.

What we should say to big kids

Larger kids, like all kids, deserve love, affection, acceptance, and respect. The rules don’t change based on a person’s body size. What we should say to big kids is mostly the same as what we should say to all kids. But parents who have larger kids should probably say these things even more because larger bodies are treated so badly in our culture. You’re going to need to counteract societal messages to keep your kids safe from eating disorders and other serious health concerns caused by weight stigma. The important thing is to honor and respect your child for who they are, regardless of their body size.

Here are the basics:

  • You are loved
  • I accept you as you are
  • You are beautiful
  • You are worthy & valuable
  • You don’t deserve to be mistreated
  • There is nothing wrong with you

If you find it difficult to imagine saying any of these things to a child who is larger, then I want you to think about why. It would be easy to say these things to a smaller child, right? But we should never discriminate against someone for the size of their body. Even though we have been told body weight is within our control, it’s not. So when adults can easily say these things to smaller children but not larger children, stigma and discrimination are at play.

And children in larger bodies need to hear these things even more than children in smaller bodies. This is because our society is cruel to larger people. It’s not right, but it’s true. So your love and acceptance are needed even more in a child who lives in a marginalized body. Remember that the child’s body is not a choice, but it is an integral part of who they are. You should neither ignore their weight nor perceive their weight as a problem.

The answers below were provided in answer to the question “if you were a fat kid, what’s one thing you needed to hear from a trusted and loved adult?” The post was originally created on Instagram by @fatfuturescollective and reposted by @thebodyisnotanapology. I’ve kept the comments anonymous, lightly edited, and categorized them below.

You are loved

This was BY FAR the most common comment. And it’s heartbreaking that so many people felt unloved because of their bodies. How can you make your child feel loved today?

  • I love you just as you are.
  • I’d have wanted to be told I was loved, I was worthy of love and respect, that I didn’t have to try to make everyone like me.
  • You don’t need to shrink yourself to be loved
  • You’re actually already just great, so, what feels good and beautiful to YOU? What makes your heart sing? Let’s do more of THAT.
  • That I was just fine as I was, lovable and valued at any weight.
  • You are so loved!!!
  • That I’m perfect and loved just the way I am.
  • You’re lovely and loved.
  • No one needs to apologize for the space they occupy. We are all worthy, holy, loved beings.
  • You are loved, you are good just as you are.
  • I love you for who you are.
  • You are precious and worthy.
  • There is nothing wrong with your shape and size.
  • Losing weight could not possibly make me love you more.
  • I’m proud of you for who you are.
  • You are safe, you are loved, and good enough exactly as you are.
  • You are loveable.

I accept you as you are

Accepting a child is so close to loving a child that most people can’t tell the difference. Larger children know they face discrimination in the world. Can you be a person who accepts them exactly as they are?

  • Your body belongs here with us and for you, just as it is.
  • Your body is amazingly strong and beautiful as it is.
  • You are welcome to exist as you are, and you are loved.
  • There is nothing wrong with you.
  • You don’t need to change and you deserve all the happiness, joy and love you can find in this life.
  • You do not need to lose weight to be loved.
  • You’re perfect just how you are and you don’t need to change anything about yourself!
  • You are not too much and not too little. You are just enough, and worthy of love.
  • That I was lovable, beautiful, and acceptable just as I was.
  • You are perfect just the way you are! It would have saved me so much turmoil if someone would have just told me that.
  • That my weight wasn’t a character flaw, and I wasn’t ‘bad.’
  • I wish someone had told me not to be ashamed of myself and to love myself no matter what size I was.

You are beautiful

All children want to feel beautiful in their others’ eyes. And larger children get very little validation that they are beautiful. Examine your own biases and make sure that you’re complimenting bigger kids as often as you are complimenting thinner kids.

  • I would have loved to been complimented on my clothes like other girl children.
  • I used to really love hearing “your outfit looks great today”. As I got older and gained weight into my teens, I never heard it anymore about anything I did and realized it must be because I was getting fat.
  • That I’m beautiful. I wasn’t ever told this. So now I have this weird thing where I know I’m beautiful but am never sure if others see my beauty.
  • Your body is perfect just the way it is.
  • You are lovely as you are, not “you’d be such much prettier if you lost weight”
  • That fat changes nothing. You’re beautiful. You’re cherished.
  • You’re beautiful, you have a bright future, you are so talented, you are so loved, etc.
  • That outfit looks amazing!
  • You don’t need to hide that part of your body.
  • You are beautiful and powerful.
  • All bodies are beautiful worthy of love and celebration.
  • You are beautiful, resilient, empathetic, resourceful, and above all, you are ENOUGH.
  • That dress looks beautiful on you.

You are worthy & valuable

Every child deserves to feel worthy and valuable in this world. This is a basic human right. What can you do to make sure the child feels worthy of your affection?

  • I would be saving so much money on therapy if they told me my value and worth are not measured by my size!
  • Your body is and always will be valid and powerful and uniquely beautifully yours.
  • Your value in life isn’t determined by how skinny you are. People obsessing over your body has nothing to do with you and everything to do with them.
  • You’re enough as you are. Anybody that doubts that or tells you differently is wrong.
  • You are incredible, beautiful, and worthy RIGHT NOW.
  • That who I am and what I do in life is not defined by my body.
  • You are worthy exactly as you are. Your dreams, hopes, desires, and passions are treasures are what I care about, not what your body looks like.
  • We are all worthy of joy and love.
  • You are not innately bad or wrong for having the body you have; you are enough; you have value; you are brilliant and strong.
  • The shape of your body does not change your absolute worthiness of love and care.

You don’t deserve to be mistreated

Many bigger kids are mistreated both at home and outside in the world. It’s important for adults to stand up for children who are being mistreated. Don’t dismiss fat-shaming and teasing as “normal.” It’s simple discrimination, and if you wouldn’t accept it based on race, ability, or gender, then you should not accept it based on weight.

  • You don’t owe anyone thinness or good health or beauty, you have the right to be respected however you show up in the world.
  • I needed someone to tell me that it wasn’t my fault that no one wanted to be my friend or that I was being bullied and teased.
  • What people say about you is a reflection of themselves.
  • I needed to hear adults shut down fatphobic comments and jokes as they happened rather than look embarrassed or laughing nervously at them.
  • I wish someone would have explained to me that the problem was not me, but the insecurity of my peers. That their cruelty was a reflection of them, not me.
  • I will help make school/gym class/dance class a safe place for you and everyone else.
  • You’re more than the names they call you. I love you and will take care of you.
  • That being fat is absolutely NOT the worst thing you can be. Being narcissistic, selfish, mean, abusive, making other people feel less worthy for ANY reason are all worse than being fat.
  • There is nothing wrong with your size – we are all different & there is beauty in all bodies. When bullies make fun of your size, remember that you are okay, you are loved.
  • I wish someone had told me that I didn’t deserve to be mistreated and then done something about it.
  • If people treat you badly because of your body, that is a real problem and you deserve support but it is not your fault. You and your body deserve respect and kindness inherently.
  • “Who are your bullies?” And “Here’s how I can help.”
  • Nobody has the right to humiliate you or make fun of you. This is not ok.

There is nothing wrong with you

So many fat kids are told there is something wrong with them. That they are the cause of their body weight. But we know that weight is mostly genetic and environmental. We have almost no control over our weight. Help your child know that their body is good.

  • All bodies are good bodies. You’re not lazy. You deserve to eat.
  • There is nothing wrong with you and there is everything wrong with diet culture.
  • You don’t need to work so hard to change yourself. Just be.
  • Let’s buy you clothes that fit you. Let’s not buy clothes for you to shrink into or clothes that tent and hide your whole body.
  • It’s OK that your belly sticks out.
  • Your body is strong, beautiful, and worthy of all the love. Honor it and it carries you through your joyful life.
  • The body you have right now is the right body.
  • That my body was a good body no matter how it looks. It keeps me alive
  • You have fat on your body, that’s normal, there’s nothing wrong with it and you don’t need to change.
  • Your body is perfect and you don’t need to change it.

You don’t need to change yourself

Bigger kids feel as if they need to change themselves in order to be loved. Make sure you counteract this harmful belief.

  • You don’t need to change for anyone. Just be you.
  • You don’t need to be thin to be happy and healthy.
  • Your body doesn’t need to be fixed- there’s nothing wrong with it
  • Losing weight will NOT magically change your life and make everything better.
  • Move your body because it feels good and you enjoy it. Don’t worry about numbers or loss. Just enjoy the dance.
  • That you can be “overweight” and healthy (weight does not mean health or lack thereof). That all bodies are different and all shapes and sizes are beautiful!
  • You don’t have to diet to be a good person. Bodies change and weight does not define your worth. You are enough and you always will be enough.
  • You don’t need to diet just because someone else thinks you’re fat or because everyone else is doing it.
  • Skinny and strong are two different things, and your size isn’t evidence of health.
  • I wish my mom had told me that my body didn’t define what I could and couldn’t do.
  • Some people are born into smaller bodies. They most likely didn’t do anything differently from you.
  • You are not the problem, it is society’s expectations that are the problem. Your body is valuable and good, every day, at every size.
  • People and society will make up stories about you because they can only see one aspect of who you are. Resist the temptation to believe them. The richness of your life and your value don’t lie in these stories. Manifest and cultivate your whole self in context – your inner life as well as your wonderful, able, powerful body.
  • You don’t have to lose weight to be worthy, and you don’t have to lose weight for people to love you.

Be yourself

Every person should be encouraged to be their authentic self. This includes dressing the way you want to, doing the activities you enjoy, and living your life regardless of body weight.

  • You do not need to be a certain size to do all the things!
  • Sure, you can wear the cute leotard to gymnastics class. No need to cover up in baggy shorts and a t-shirt.
  • You can let your belly relax.
  • Wear what makes YOU feel good!
  • Your body doesn’t define you.
  • It’s okay to take up space with your body.
  • Some people are just made to be bigger, bolder, brighter!
  • You don’t have to compensate to fit in.
  • Don’t let being fat keep you from trying things. Be physical, be in your body, it’s OK.
  • You can take up as much space as you want – your thoughts and your heart are valuable and precious; your body doesn’t invalidate those things.
  • Bodies are constantly changing. Trust your body and listen to its needs. Everything else will fall in place as it should.
  • You don’t have to sit on the sidelines. Let’s go have some fun!
  • I needed to be asked “what do YOU want?” instead of having everyone else tell me what they wanted: how my body should look, how I should eat, how to move, and that I should accept all of it. Knowing that I could have questioned all of the shame heaped on me in my youth openly earlier on would have allowed me to share some of that pain rather than bearing it alone.

Listen to your body

Bodies are wise, and they should be in charge of how we feed them. If a body is hungry, it should be fed. So many larger kids are put on diets, and it’s incredibly harmful. Look carefully for subconscious beliefs about how much you think your child should eat, and remember that food is nourishment. It is essential to life. And we know that the No. 1 outcome of food restriction is weight gain.

  • You don’t need to diet!!!!! Your body is perfect the way it is and dieting will harm it more than being fat ever will!
  • Have seconds if you’re still hungry.
  • Eat. I wish I was told it was okay to eat. Instead of receiving dirty looks as I went for more or had dessert.
  • Listen to your body. If you’re hungry, eat.
  • Don’t skip meals! If you’re hungry, eat.
  • You can have as much as you want.
  • Often the reason we overeat is that we under-ate earlier or are being restricted.
  • It’s okay to enjoy your food!
  • I will never put you on a diet or pressure you about your weight or food choices.
  • Restrictive dieting is not a righteous way to treat your body as a temple. Neither is punishing exercise. You don’t have to earn food.
  • I’m happy to feed you and glad to see you eat.

Fat is fine

Just because our culture pathologizes fat doesn’t mean that being fat is a problem. A body is never a problem unless other people make it so. Normalize fatness, and seek ways to let your child know that there is nothing wrong with their body.

  • Your body is magic. You have no idea yet how much it can do and feel and hold. I’m still learning its depths and wonders and the places it holds pain
  • It’s okay to be fat. You never have to “grow out of it.”
  • There’s nothing wrong with you.
  • You have nothing to fix or change when it comes to your body.
  • Your body is a miracle, fearfully and wonderfully made, just as it is right now and always.
  • You will be loved and it won’t be despite your weight.
  • Fat adults are still loved, healthy and happy people
  • People are all born differently, some are thin some are fat some are short some are tall, and being fat is nothing to be ashamed of.
  • Thinness does not equal happiness. Learning to love your body will be one of the most freeing experiences you will ever accomplish.
  • I wish I’d seen the fat adults in my life loving their bodies and modeling that.
  • You can be fat and desired, fat and beautiful, fat and strong, fat and healthy. Food is to nourish and sustain you and it’s delicious. Movement is to be enjoyed.
  • It would have really helped me to know that fat people find love and intimacy and aren’t automatically social rejects. I was so ashamed because I thought I couldn’t be attractive and therefore couldn’t be loved.

If you love a larger kid, then please keep this list of what to say nearby. Remember that larger kids are just as worthy of our love and acceptance as thin kids. And they are highly sensitive to weight stigma, which has serious health impacts. A larger child knows when their parents, coaches, teachers, and doctors think they are “too fat.” And it’s devastating. Adults’ perception of fat is far worse for a child than the fat itself. Let’s do better!

Ginny Jones is the founder of More-Love.org, and a Parent Coach who helps parents who have kids with eating disorders.