Dieting as a teenager sets in motion unhealthy eating cycle

Growing up is hard to do and can become even more difficult if a teenager is feeling the pressure to lose weight.  Parents, beware.  Pushing or putting your teen on a diet can backfire big time in their relationship with food.  This is from new research suggesting that parents who focus on a teen’s diet creates an unhealthy cycle harming generations to come.  Adolescents who were encouraged to restrict food intake or go on a diet to lose weight were more likely to do the same with their own children in the future.

It is not uncommon for a parent to be concerned with a child who is overweight to obese. They may suggest “going on a diet” or “you need to lose weight” believing they are doing their parental duty of helping their child achieve a healthier body weight.  In fact, previous research has shown that as many as 40 percent of parents do this regularly to their sons and daughters.  However, this practice can lead to the adolescent becoming more overweight or obese that could result in binge eating or other eating disorder and a lower sense of body satisfaction.

This new study recruited more than 550 people who had been in a larger study while they were teens.  Their average age today was 31 and two-thirds were female. Over the course of 15 years they were followed and many of them are now parents themselves. 

What the study showed was that of those who were encouraged to diet or lose weight as a teenager by their parents were 20 percent more likely to still diet, 72 percent more likely to binge eat and 79 percent more likely to have unhealthy weight control behaviors than those who were not encouraged to diet as a teen.  The recruits who followed a diet as a teen were now more than 50 percent more likely to tell their own kids to diet and were also 40 percent more likely to tease one another about their weight compared to people who did not diet as a teen.

How to break this cycle

It can be a normal and natural thing to have concerns about a child’s body shape and size.  But instead of focusing on weight so much, the emphasis should be on eating healthy foods that help a child grow strong and promote good health.  Everyone in the family should be eating the same foods so that no one is singled out for their “problem” that only creates feelings of unworthiness and lowered self-esteem. 

It begins with parents being good role models.  They are in charge of meal and snack times and they need to create an atmosphere of healthy eating and a healthy lifestyle for the entire family.  Both parents should not discuss or focus on their own unhealthy relationship with food or their weight as this behavior will be noticed by their children who most likely will emulate it later on in life too.

Food needs to be seen as a positive, enjoyable part of daily living that can used to help build a healthy body for participating in life activities such as sports.  The more focus placed on food’s ability to nourish our bodies to the healthiest they can be, and less focus on being overly concerned with every calorie consumed, the more likely teenagers will grow into the body they were meant to have.