"You look so good. Did you lose weight?" This usual comment on one's physique perpetuate the importance of being thin. A study at Harvard University and Radcliffe found out that "body dissatisfaction and the desire to lose weight are the norm for 70 percent of young women." Our culture seems to describe thinness as beauty and most of the time such kind of thinking begins at home. This along with other attitudes on food and dieting trigger eating disorders.
Parents are the child's role model. If parents have unhealthy eating habits it is hard for them to teach responsible choices on food and dieting. Trisha Gura, Ph. D., in her book Lying in Weight narrated how her childhood experiences affected her concept on food and dieting:
"I remember one Christmas when I was 10 years old. My extended clan, half-Czech, half-Slovak, had grown so large over the years that this one holiday we spent more than six hours joyfully opening presents. My mother, wringing her hands on her apron, stole into the kitchen every fifteen minutes to baste her roast, long since done. Time passes. Too much time. At last, when my family finally sat down to dinner, my mother watched, horrified, as she imagined everyone passing judgement on the stringy beef brisket. In reality, the family was oblivious. I alone noticed my mother's face, pinched and growing whiter. In my typical preteen mode of trying to make everything right, I took the platter, forced a radiant smile, and raised the serving fork to take a giant piece. Offended my mother lost her composure. She jerked the platter from my hands, marched into the kitchen, and dumped the meat into the trash. The room went silent. This was the moment when I learned to equate food with perfection."
Parents approaches on food and dieting affects children. Children come to relate more to their parents in series of experiences with mealtime. Food is one of the medium for parent and child's communication. It is an integral part of the child's psychological development. In her book The Hungry Self, Kim Chernin says that "food is so charged, so significant, so informed with primal meaning that we might well expect the communications that take place through food to carry more weight than those that arise when a child totters about knocking into furniture or pushes a truck across the floor." "Food can be withheld or given too freely, or given for purposes other than nutrition, Trisha Gura, Ph. D. explains in her book Lying in Weight.
Neglectful and unmindful parent's approaches on food and dieting can lead to eating disorders of a person in later years. For example: a parent may sooth her child by giving her candy. As she grows up she learns to reward herself with that indulgence. On her teens, she may battle with addiction to sweets. If unguarded she may have a more difficult time regulating her addiction to sweets which will largely affect her weight and diet.
Parents are the child's role model. If parents have unhealthy eating habits it is hard for them to teach responsible choices on food and dieting. Trisha Gura, Ph. D., in her book Lying in Weight narrated how her childhood experiences affected her concept on food and dieting:
"I remember one Christmas when I was 10 years old. My extended clan, half-Czech, half-Slovak, had grown so large over the years that this one holiday we spent more than six hours joyfully opening presents. My mother, wringing her hands on her apron, stole into the kitchen every fifteen minutes to baste her roast, long since done. Time passes. Too much time. At last, when my family finally sat down to dinner, my mother watched, horrified, as she imagined everyone passing judgement on the stringy beef brisket. In reality, the family was oblivious. I alone noticed my mother's face, pinched and growing whiter. In my typical preteen mode of trying to make everything right, I took the platter, forced a radiant smile, and raised the serving fork to take a giant piece. Offended my mother lost her composure. She jerked the platter from my hands, marched into the kitchen, and dumped the meat into the trash. The room went silent. This was the moment when I learned to equate food with perfection."
Parents approaches on food and dieting affects children. Children come to relate more to their parents in series of experiences with mealtime. Food is one of the medium for parent and child's communication. It is an integral part of the child's psychological development. In her book The Hungry Self, Kim Chernin says that "food is so charged, so significant, so informed with primal meaning that we might well expect the communications that take place through food to carry more weight than those that arise when a child totters about knocking into furniture or pushes a truck across the floor." "Food can be withheld or given too freely, or given for purposes other than nutrition, Trisha Gura, Ph. D. explains in her book Lying in Weight.
Neglectful and unmindful parent's approaches on food and dieting can lead to eating disorders of a person in later years. For example: a parent may sooth her child by giving her candy. As she grows up she learns to reward herself with that indulgence. On her teens, she may battle with addiction to sweets. If unguarded she may have a more difficult time regulating her addiction to sweets which will largely affect her weight and diet.
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