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How To Parent A Child Who Has An Eating Disorder

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How To Parent A Child Who Has An Eating Disorder

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How did your parents navigate negative body talk? What worked? What didn’t work? . My guess is that they did their best, but still screwed it up. Even body positive warriors can panic when their kids make a negative body comment. All the knowledge in the world still doesn’t prepare you for a tween who calls herself fat (in a negative way). Parenting through negative body talk is really hard. If you have done it, please tell me how you have addressed your kid’s negative body talk. . There’s an article about this today on more-love.org (link in profile)❤️ . To be clear: this is not about people who identify as fat in a neutral or positive way. This post addresses the common phenomenon of people in all body sizes who complain about fat as if it’s a bad thing (it’s not). Don’t be afraid to repeat yourself when talking about diet culture and body respect with your child. They may act annoyed that you bring it up so often, but that doesn’t mean they aren’t listening! . Our words build the structure of how our kids feel about themselves and the world, and we can make a big difference in how they feel about their bodies and themselves by talking about diet culture and reminding our children that they are so much more than bodies. Our children deserve to live a life free from constant body checking, food obsessions, dieting, restricting, and eating disorders. . No matter how old they are, our kids deserve to know that they are worthy regardless of their body size, shape, color, and ability.💕 . Thanks @beauty_redefined for spreading the concept that the body is not an ornament, which I think about all the time! 🌈💕 The celery juice fad is driving me up the wall. It’s not just direct weight loss BS that abounds on Instagram - the platform is packed with false and misleading claims about food that lead us and our kids to mistrust our bodies. Instagram is wonderful, but it’s also teeming with Healthism BS. We can’t stop the false and misleading claims from taking up space in our kids’ lives, so we have to constantly talk to our kids about media literacy. We live in a dangerous time for their bodies. . MEDIA LITERACY 101: ✨Ask questions ✨Spot magical thinking ✨Look for point of view ✨Understand the goal ✨Be suspicious of testimonials ✨Be a rebel . Full article about celery juice and other IG fads and how to teach kids media literacy on More-Love.org💕 If your ‘evidence-based’ treatment isn’t Health at Every Size and Fat Positive, it’s not good enough. Treating people who have eating disorders through the lens of diet culture and fatphobia does not help us find full recovery. We truly recover body trust and Intuitive Eating when we overcome our fear of fat. 💕 94% of our wonderful girls feel shame about their bodies. Shame means that they feel there is something wrong with them. That they are wrong. . Where does the body end and the self begin? It’s almost impossible to separate them, especially in young brains. . So that means that 94% of our girls feel ashamed of themselves. Of who they are. . That’s no way to live life. . I felt constant shame. Did you? Do you want this for our girls? . I don’t. Let’s change it 💕 I saw the harm my perfectionism caused my child before I saw the harm it was causing myself. It took 10 years of practicing compassionate parenting before I learned self-compassion and gave up my 30-year eating disorder in exchange for a full life. . Life is not about doing everything right or being perfect. Life is about trying things, making tons of mistakes, and admitting mistakes as often as possible. When we do this as parents, as partners, and for ourselves, we don’t achieve perfection, but we are able to give and receive more love.💕 It’s counter-culture to be a woman who does not feel badly about her body. But even those of us who have brutal self body images still wish our girls felt better about their bodies. I’ve heard that massive and rebellious cultural change can happen when women band together for the sake of our daughters’ future. This is what I hope for. Our daughters deserve to feel OK about their bodies. They deserve to live a life without shame about their bodies, and that’s something that moms can directly influence. We can make a difference! 💕 “Diet culture is a system that demonizes and hates fat. Diet culture tells us that even though 95% of diets fail, we should still maintain an endless pursuit of weight loss. Diet culture tells us that we’ll only be healthy if we’re thin, even though we know that thin doesn’t equal health. . Diet culture overrides our logic and scientific intelligence, and it makes perfect sense since diet companies make more than $66 billion per year by creating body insecurities where none existed before. They do this because an insecure person is an exploitable person. You’re just not going to spend money to fix your body if you don’t think your body was broken to begin with. They spend billions of dollars on advertising to create a problem that doesn’t exist so that they can sell products to solve it.” - @danasuchow . You can read Dana’s awesome article about diet culture on More-Love.org (link in profile☝🏻☝🏻) Do you trust your body? Do you trust your child’s body? . Do you trust that a body, when unencumbered by the mind’s shoulds and should nots, will find its way to health? . Do you trust that children who are taught to listen to and respect their bodies will be healthier than those who are taught to watch what they eat, scrutinize nutrition information, and doubt that their body has anything valid to say? . I trust the body. It’s scary as heck, especially since society says the body is a lying, gluttonous couch potato. . I choose to trust our bodies, and our children’s bodies, and I long to free them from the tyranny of diet culture and eating disorders💕 Happy New Year! Here are some resolutions for parents. These go against society’s current behaviors, so I call them “Resolutions for Rebels!” . 1. Accept your child’s body at any size. Unless a child is medically underweight, their weight is not a problem. Address your child’s psychological and emotional needs. Help them learn Intuitive Eating. Help them manage anxiety and depression. But don’t focus on their weight. . 2. Stop trying to lose weight. Intentional weight loss is unhealthy. It leads to weight cycling, which puts tremendous stress on the body. It leads to eating disorders 25% of the time. It also shows your child that you think body weight can and should be controlled with dieting. Don’t try to control your body’s weight. . 3. Finally, don’t allow fat shaming or diet talk in your home. Diets are neither healthy or safe. Fat shaming causes tremendous harm - even to people who are not considered ‘fat.’ Redirect and interrupt all diet and fat shaming talk. Turn your home into a fat-positive, non-diet haven. . If this sounds totally crazy to you, please read “Health at Every Size” and check out the resources available on More-Love.org (link in profile)☝🏻☝🏻 These are the top 10 resolutions. But you don’t need to make a single one of them. If you do make resolutions, make sure they don’t have anything to do with weight loss. Because intentional weight loss is actually less healthy than staying the same weight. It goes against everything we think we know, but weight loss, and the almost inevitable regain is incredibly stressful and actually is less healthy. For those of us who have/had eating disorders, this is a dangerous time of year full of ridiculous morality around food, exercise and weight. Don’t buy it. Eat as intuitively as you possibly can. Move when it feels good to you. Appreciate and accept your body at whatever weight it wants to be.💕 Here are three gifts to give a child who has an eating disorder: Acceptance: When parents assure us that they accept us for who we are and without reservation - regardless of what we do - we can start to learn that perfection is not a requirement for love. Sovereignty: When parents help us see our own sovereignty, they give us the freedom to develop our own opinions, set our own path in life, and build our own identity separate from the family. Attention: When parents give us their attention and time, they can help us feel less alone and as if we are important and worthy of attention. This connection can pave the path to recovery. We have a full article on More-Love.org - link in profile 🌈💕 Is this too much to ask? Probably right now, yes. But we can dream. If our culture gave us these gifts, we would have fewer eating disorders, and eating disorder recovery would be a whole lot easier. And that would be a gift for all of us💕 Eating disorders, like all maladaptive coping mechanisms, take root and flourish when we feel disconnected, alone, and powerless. Recovery takes place when we feel connected, believe we belong, and believe we are worthy. I love the book “In the realm of hungry ghosts,” by Gabor Mate, and this video from @sustainable__human is a great overview of the concept of hungry ghosts. Parents, if you have a child who has an eating disorder or any hungry ghost, what they need to be fed more than anything else is belonging and connection, assertiveness and sovereignty.💕 Food shaming should not be a cultural tradition, but it is. This awful way of connecting with each other causes so much pain for so many of us. If you live in a food shaming family, see if you can influence change this year. Or not. If it’s just too exhausting, it’s OK to step back and even avoid family events that feel icky to you. As @virgietovar says in this article, that’s a taboo, but it shouldn’t be! Parents, if you are taking your child to a food shaming family gathering during the holiday, take precautions and try to educate your family about the dangers of diet culture and fatphobia. Pay attention to your child, and if you sense they are upset, put your child first and remove them from toxic events.💕 Article available on Quartz @qz Eating disorders expose unmet needs for greater acceptance, appreciation and attunement. It is not an exposure of a lack of love, because many times eating disorders afflict loving families. Indeed, it is not a lack of inherent love, but practicing love may help the eating disorder recede. And this is a wonderful gift because we all benefit from learning to give and receive more love in our lives. The gift of an eating disorder is that we all benefit from the work required to help it go away.💕 Read more about the gift of an eating disorder (sounds crazy, but hear me out) on More-Love.org (link in profile ☝🏻👍🏻) In no way does any family want to get the gift of an eating disorder. Nor does any family deserve to get the gift of an eating disorder. But that is quite beside the point. The point is that an eating disorder is in the family. The question is not “what did we do to deserve this?” but “what do we do now?” The eating disorder is here. It’s alive, and it can teach us so much about ourselves, our families, and our world, if we only listen. You can read more about the gift of an eating disorder (I know it sounds weird, but hear me out!) on More-Love.org (link in profile☝🏻👍🏻) 🌈💕 Imagine a day when “Should I diet/fast/lose weight” is not one of the most common Google searches!!! . Because the simple answer is almost always “no, you should not diet/fast/lose weight! You should enjoy your body and feed it and move it and accept it and thank it for everything it does for you!”🤗 Can we please stop referring to people as anorexic, bulimic and binger? . When we have a pen, we can put the pen down. We can walk away from the pen without guilt. We don’t feel ashamed for picking the pen back up, but we also don’t feel guilt when we put the pen back down and walk away again. The pen is a temporary tool, not a permanent part of who we are! . ✖️I am not anorexic. I have anorexia. . ✖️I am not bulimic. I have bulimia. . ✖️I am not a binge eater. I have binge eating disorder. . ✖️I am not an addict. I have an addiction. . It makes no sense to label people as something they have. These labels put us in a position of identifying as our disorder, which can make it much harder to recover. Let’s stop doing this!💕 The shame we add on top of physical discomfort is painful and cruel. Let’s all be kind to ourselves when our tummies are full. It’s not a sign that we did something wrong. It just means our tummies are full. That’s it! Lie down and use a heating pad to help soothe the physical discomfort. As for the shame, talk back to it, and remind yourself that our bodies can handle the food we eat. It’s going to be OK! . Often we don’t even have to label the act of eating to the point of fullness as a binge episode. That can just make us feel worse and my not be helpful, especially while we are physically uncomfortable. Give love and attention and trust that the food will pass (it will). If you’re recovering from an eating disorder, you may be physically uncomfortable many times as you relearn you body’s signals and feed yourself. It’s OK! . Parents, let’s help our kids get through tummy pain with kindness and care. They don’t need to learn a lesson, and they don’t need to feel any shame about their discomfort. Let go of any fear about what this ‘means.’ Sit with them and hold their hand. Tell them how much you love them and tell them it’s going to be OK.💕

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