How Can Parents Help Prevent Their Children From Developing An Eating Disorder?

Eating disorders are an enormous burden to children who develop them. It's not within the power of any parent to have absolute control over whether their child will develop an eating disorder, but there are steps moms and dads can take to make eating disorders less likely.

Get prompt treatment for ear infections

There's a surprising link between ear infections and eating disorders. Sometimes the immune system over reacts to the strep bacteria that cause ear infections and develops antibodies that attack the neurons in the brain that control orderly eating. Children who have repeated ear infections are up to 73 percent more likely to develop eating disorders. The effect is greater in boys than in girls.

Don't encourage dieting

Dr Neville Golden, who is a medical doctor and a professor of pediatrics at Stanford University Medical School, says that 40 percent of the cases of pediatric anorexia he sees are "diets that got out of control". The tragedy of those diets is that they almost never work. Teens who go on a diet in the ninth grade are three times as likely to be obese by twelfth grade as those who do not. But a minority of teens develop a condition called orthorexia. They rigorously reject unhealthy foods and skip meals where they might have to eat "bad" foods. The problem can get even worse when teens are praised for losing weight. So what is a parent to do?

Don't talk about food — model healthy eating

Heart to heart talks with teens about their dieting choices have a way of backfiring. Don't talk about food. Demonstrate the kind of healthy eating and exercise you want your adolescent child to emulate. Where's the time and place to do that? At family dinners where the entire family sits down to eat together.

Families that eat at a table together with the television and phones off, according to research, have children who:

• Eat more fruits and vegetables
• Are more likely to consume appropriate portion sizes
• See meals as an opportunity for social engagement rather than merely for consuming food

Conversely, children who eat their meals in front of the television or computer or while on the phone and who do not interact with their parents and siblings, research also shows:

• Are less likely to eat fruits and vegetables
• Are more likely to load up on "junk" food
• Are more likely to develop "eat and run" behaviors that are not conducive to good digestion.

Never tease teenagers about their weight

Make sure your children eat breakfast

Whether or not "breakfast is the most important meal of the day," children and teens who eat breakfast are less likely to become overweight or obese and less likely to develop eating disorders. Skipping breakfast should be a warning signal that something is wrong. Children and teens who are unhappy with their body image often start their disordered eating habits by skipping breakfast.

Know when to be on the lookout for disordered eating

Disordered eating tends to become a cyclical activity, but there are different kinds of disordered eating at different times of the day and night and on different days of the week. Children and teens who have developed an eating disorder usually weigh themselves in the morning. Excessive exercise also tends to be an early-morning activity. Children who purge with self-induced vomiting tend to this in the late evening. Binge-eating is more likely to occur in the middle of the week when emotional stress is highest. It is less likely on Saturday but is extremely likely on Sunday nights.

Know when your child is most likely to experience emotional upset that drives disordered eating

Different emotional problems tend to surface on different days of the week. Low self-esteem tends to surface in the middle of the school week, typically Tuesday through Thursday, and to diminish on the weekend. Tuesdays, Wednesdays, and Thursdays tend to be the days that bullying and teasing are most likely to trigger disordered eating behaviors. Receptivity to praise is highest at the end of the week (Friday) and the beginning of the weekend (Saturday). 

Mute the media

Children and teens who take in lots of television and Internet videos are constantly exposed to images of certain body types associated with power, likeability, and sexual experience. It's a good idea to encourage screen-free time.