Developing Healthy Attitudes about Body Shape and Weight London
Developing Healthy Attitudes about Body Shape and Weight
We all know that being overly weight-conscious can lead to conditions such as anorexia; how can you ensure that your child has a healthy attitude towards their body shape?
From an early age, children begin to form an opinion of what is an attractive or desirable shape. Some recent studies have shown that at the age of five, girls are beginning to find fatness in their friends, or themselves, unattractive. The media reinforces this by using very thin models. Barbie’s shape is so unrealistic that if she were a real woman, her legs could not support her enormous breasts and she would fall flat on her face! Yet children are exposed to these images and toys at an early age when they begin to form their own opinions.
It is essential that if your child is to have a healthy attitude to food and body shape, they pick up the right signals from you. If you have an issue with your size, they will soon latch on to that. If you are “always on a diet” they will assume that is the norm, and desirable.
This is not to say that being overweight is desirable - far from it - for all the negative health implications that has. But there is a lot you can do as a parent to ensure that your child eats well and has a healthy attitude towards their own body.
And in fact, self-esteem is at the root of many eating disorders. Anorexia is not just about food - it is about exerting control or a cry for attention - that runs away with someone, so that it becomes a life-threatening condition. If a child feels that her appearance is the only measure of her worth, then there are potential pitfalls. There is a lot you can do - build your child’s self-esteem in ways that does not focus on their size, shape, clothes or whatever. Praise them for their kindness to their friends, their helpfulness at home, the way they look after the hamster, or do their homework without being nagged. In other words, praise them for who they are, not how they look.
One of the biggest factors in how we eat is the demise of the family mealtime and the family dining table. Did you know that 50% of families do not have a dining table that can seat all the family? That “TV dinners” are the norm in many homes? As children learn by example, eating together can ensure they eat well if they see you and your partner doing just that! Even older children who like to hibernate in their bedrooms can benefit from being part of a family mealtime.
In fact, feeding older children healthily can be harder than giving a baby pureed broccoli! What can you do to make sure your teenager eats well? Breakfast is a must. We all know how they never have time for it - but it doesn’t take much time to plonk a bowl of wholegrain cereal and a glass of fruit juice into their rooms whilst they are taking two hours to do their hair (boys as well as girls!). You may feel you cannot control lunch...
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