Helping Your Children Develop a Healthy Body Image

 [Guest Post by Pam Carlton, MD]

“You can never be too rich or too thin.”  This was written on a refrigerator magnet in the kitchen of my childhood home.  We all know that obesity is a real problem in the United States.  We hear about it daily on TV, on the radio and in the newspaper.  However, what we need is not a battle against obesity.  We do not need a diet that cuts out fats and carbs in a frantic push towards thinness.  What we need is to learn moderation and how to have a healthy, realistic relationship with our bodies and food.  The truth is, there are medical risks at either extreme of the weight spectrum, but there’s a lot of room in the middle. 

As a physician who treats teens and young adults with eating disorders, I constantly see the consequences of our society’s obsession with the “thin ideal” and the fear of fat.  I care for children, some as young as twelve years-old, who have weakened hearts and brittle bones because they are not eating, over exercising and/or vomiting in an attempt to "not get fat." There is no one reason why a child develops an eating disorder but one of the factors can be living in a society that demonizes fat and emphasizes unrealistic body images.  With a balanced diet and appropriate physical activity, people can be healthy at a great variety of weights.  We need to shift our focus from weight and body size to physical health and body satisfaction. 

Our children learn by emulating what they see and hear.  If we send them healthy messages at home, hopefully, we can counter some of the dangerous messages they are bombarded with in the media.  There are three simple things that we can focus on.