Is Your Child At Risk Of Developing An Eating Disorder?
Posted by Goody on 04/24/08 in Health and Fitness
Therapists normally assure parents that nobody is to blame for a child’s eating disorder and that the causes of anorexia, bulimia and binge eating are not fully known. But scientists have been able to identify the exact risk factors for developing these conditions. It was found that there is a strong connection between children avoiding conflict and how they manage their behaviors and their eating disorders.
Eating disorder sufferers tend to have family members who struggle with depression, alcohol dependency, drug abuse, anxiety, perfectionism, obsessive thoughts and compulsive behaviors, or are real goal orientated people with a fixation on succeeding at all costs. It is important for these families where these issues are present to be aware that their children are at risk of developing an eating disorder than children from other families. These kids should avoid dieting at all and should not be nagged to lose weight, as dieting can trigger any genetic predisposition towards an eating disorder.
Children who diet often are far more likely than non-dieters to develop an eating disorder. When dieting is started it is easy for vulnerable children to become fixated on counting calories and weighting-in all the time. Anorexia and bulimia are followed by obsessive attention to calories, fat content and weight.
What can family and parents do to help keep their child healthy? The most important things are to encourage frank and honest communication with your child, and create a value system in your family that has your child value their mind, personality and spirit rather than body image.
Being healthy yourself is also extremely important as it sets the best example and a role model for your child. If they take their role models from fashion magazines or TV soap operas where all the people are just perfect, then these susceptible kids are in real trouble.
What other recommendation can be suitable for parents whose children could be at risk of developing eating disorders?
First it is make sure you understand and educate your child about normal healthy physical changes that happen during puberty. Some kids especially girls can take change and weight gain which is just normal biological change as a sign they are getting fat, so they start excessive dieting, that leads to a eating disorder.
Second is to help your children develop healthy eating habits: exposure to a good variety of food choices, encourage your child to be involvement in making menus for family, avoiding using food as punishment, reward or for comfort.
Third, always give to your child good feedback and focus your attention and praise on their strengths and achievements.
Forth, discourage dieting and focus on healthy eating. Help your child cope with the media’s barrage of mixed messages.
And of course always when it is appropriate get help from other people who have the correct knowledge about eating disorders and this is not necessary doctors or the medical fraternity. You only have to look at the readmission statistics over 70% to see that there is a huge problem in that area.
The signs to watch for are: obsessive behavior around food, lying about what they are eating or don’t have time to eat. They also if have difficulty concentrating, suffer heart palpitations, or feeling continually cold and shaky even when it is not really cold.
Dr Irina Webster is the Director of Women Health Issues Program which covers different areas of Women Health.
She then enrolled in the Medical University of Archangelsk situated in North Russia, graduating in 1993. Irina then started her internship at The Komi Republic Children’s Hospital 1993 to 1994 where she studied to become a Pediatrician.
Then she did a lot of courses to specialize in Women Health.
In year 2001 Irina migrated to Australia. There she has been working as a medical doctor in women health area for 3.5 years. At present she does Eating Disorder natural treatment research.
Dr Irina’s web-site: http://www.womenhealthsite.com
Read about how to deal with eating disorder sufferers on http://www.mom-please-help.com
Tags: anorexia, bulimia, eating disorder, eating disorder help, eating disorder kids, eating disorder teen
tag this
Post a Comment