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If you have an overweight child, how secure are they with their body image?  Between social media, television, film, and advertising, young girls and boys are even more exposed to conflicting messages about their bodies.  Today’s teen spends a large part of their day perfecting and correcting their body image, trying to achieve an unrealistic outcome.  This never-ending struggle for perfection can leave your teen dissatisfied with how they look and feels about themselves emotionally and physically.

Early patterns inform your adult behavior, and to the extent that you can acknowledge and recognize them, you can integrate them so that they don’t control and compel you.  How your child views their body image can become a powerful pattern that may impact their self-esteem and feelings of self-worth… forever.  Teasing and peer-group criticism has tremendous power over your teen, causing insecurity and, in extreme cases, dysmorphia – a condition that creates dissatisfaction with body image.  To correct an imperfect body perception, your teen can resort to destructive behavior such as overusing water pills and laxatives, vomiting, bulimia, anorexia, extreme exercising, and insecure social experiences.  These problems, if not treated, can follow your child into adulthood.

Parents have the power. 

Parents have much more influence over their children than peer groups do.  By partnering with your child and sharing your feelings and values about food and friendship, you can support their fears and doubts while modeling healthy eating patterns.  Using my empathic process to communicate and actively listen without defense, you will invest your child in their style of self-managing their weight and emotions.

Further, if you create a healthy home filled with good, fresh, and low-calorie foods, including fruit and vegetable options, instead of candy, cake, and ice cream, your child will feel that you are supporting them, that you are with them, and that they can count on you.  Be what you want to see.  Children learn through social modeling.  Be authentic and follow a healthy routine, including exercise and good food.  This will go a long way to a healthy weight outcome for your child.

Signs to watch for

Know your child.  Look for changes in eating, weight, bathroom time, medications, sleep, and social changes.  If things get out of hand, seek professional help.  Parents are entitled to parent, so supervise your child and know their peer group and what influence the group has on them.

Unhealthy messages in the media

Feedback is often missing in a celebrity-driven, thin culture.  Sons and daughters caught in the web of body dysmorphia see themselves unrealistically.  Pressure from media, especially on the young, including elementary school children, is incredibly destructive, and it has long-term effects, not just from the pressure to be perfect but from the fear of not being perfect.  Self-criticism in children without coping skills can be so painful that it can cause death.  Whether it’s social media, magazine and television advertisements, or models on a runway, your child can be receiving unhealthy messages that may cause her to develop unhealthy strategies – trying to create and maintain a consumer-driven physique.

Time to get real

We can get real.  I call this my “keep it real” campaign since 80 percent of all 10-year-old American girls have already been on a diet and have lost touch with a normal body image.  Knowledge is power, and educating your child about adolescent body changes and pointing out the unrealistic body types created by air-brushed celebrities can help your child embrace their normal body image.  Maintaining a healthy body has its advantages and can help your teen feel good, both mentally and physically.  Then they can focus on their relationship with themselves, self-esteem, and authentic peer group.