Stacie asked the question: What suggestions do you have for parents raising daughters today, when everything is airbrushed and it is advertised that being perfect is possible.. you see it... it has to be real! And it is believable, right? Part of what I’m wondering is how to teach loving yourself in just the way you are created, when teenagers today are exposed to so much?

Stacie, thank you, great question! Oh man, where to begin?! Let’s start by talking with your kids.  Make sure that they understand that much of what the media is portraying is unrealistic and often extremely edited.  Parents also need to set an example for their children. If teenage Suzie is constantly watching her mom obsess about her own body image (how many calories she’s eating, spending obscene amounts of money shopping for clothes, spending hours putting on make-up and doing her hair, etc.), Suzie is probably going to end up with many of the same habits and concerns about her own image as her mom. For the record, I’m a big advocate of taking care of your body… having good hygiene, looking nice, exercising, all that jazz. With that being said, I do think that we, as a society, tend to take it a bit too far.

Parents should do what they can to instill healthy habits in their teenagers. Keep healthy foods around the house, prepare healthy meals, plan activities to exercise together as a family, things along these lines. In fact, according to one study, helping your teen to develop healthy eating habits can be beneficial in more than one way. The book titled I’m, like, SO fat!: Helping your Teen Make Healthy Choices about Eating and Exercise in a weight obsessed world talks about a study with which they discovered the following: “In our society, dieting is so common as to seem normal. But that doesn’t mean it’s harmless, particularly in children and teens. For some teens, the feelings of hunger and deprivation that often accompany dieting often lead to binge eating and, somewhat ironically, to weight gain” (Neumark-Sztainer, 2005). Clearly, this isn’t going to help any teen feel better about herself.

Honestly, it’s inevitable that our teens will sometimes feel self-conscious.  Heck, even before all of the editing and retouching that we are able to do now, teens felt awkward and insecure about the way they looked. As parents I think that it is important to teach healthy habits, teach proper hygiene, and talk to your teens about the unrealistic supermodels that they are seeing. In my opinion, one of the very best things that you can teach your teen is that the way that they look DOES NOT define who they are as a person. Yes, I do think that it is important to teach them to look presentable and nice. They just need to know that they are valued for something other than the way they look. Make sure that your teens know that they are loved and cared about even on the days that they might be feeling self-conscious about their weight, or about the zit that just showed up on their chin. Just let them know that they are loved and eventually, they will hopefully learn to love themselves.

References:

Neumark-Sztainer, D. (2005). I'm, like, so fat!: Helping your teen make healthy choices about eating and exercise in a weight-obsessed world. (p. 10). New York: Guilford Press. Retrieved from http://books.google.com/books?hl=en&lr=&id=HqB71qmG5tYC&oi=fnd&pg=PP2&dq=Parenting teens with eating disorders&ots=2IuzmgBFCi&sig=8557hrKDZl5Ao7XE6s8rIKpwe3A