You’re concerned. You love your child, and want them to be happy, healthy and accepted by their peers. But, is it a good idea to talk to your teenager about their weight, and how do you go about it with sensitivity?
To Talk or Not to Talk
Talking about weight is a touchy subject to begin with, especially coming from a parent to a teen. Most teens are already very self-conscious about their weight without having parents mention it. Most of the teens I work with are acutely aware that their bodies don’t conform to society’s standard of beauty. I find that parents who are constantly talking about weight–their own, their child’s or other people’s–only further alienate their kids around the subject. So, ask yourself if your teen truly needs you to talk to them about weight.
Actually, I find it better to talk about behaviors around food versus the weight itself. If you have seen your teen binge eat and it concerns you, that might be a better place to start your discussion. Other behaviors might be: eating a whole box of donuts at night, sneaking food, stealing money to buy food, exercising 3 hours a day or more when not connected to a team sport, or not exercising at all. When we focus on behaviors that could be affecting your teen’s life we are focusing on the true problem. Ultimately, we want our kids to feel good in their bodies, be healthy and balanced, and develop good habits for the future. The weight itself doesn’t matter.
Check Your Own Attitudes
The first place to look to decide if you should talk about your teenager’s weight is in your own attitudes. Why does their weight bother you? Are you perhaps subconsciously holding some biases or fears around your child’s weight not conforming to society’s standards? Sometimes it is parents’ own discomfort with weight that makes it much worse for kids to accept themselves. You can go a long way to change the way your teen feels about themselves just by doing your best to educate yourself about weight stigma, the anti-diet revolution, and health at every size.
In this diet obsessed society we live in, teens need a safety net to come home to. A home free of diet talk, body discrimination and judgment. Ask yourself the following questions to see if you may need to do some work in making your home the safety net your teen needs:
- Do you talk about your own diets or needing to lose weight?
- Do your teens witness you bashing your own body?
- Do you or your spouse talk about other people’s bodies in a judgmental way? (“That celebrity has a big butt.” Or “That friend of ours really could stand to lose some weight.” Or “People with that body shape shouldn’t wear that dress.”)
- Do you have a scale in your home?
- Do you or your spouse not eat certain food groups as a way to control your weight?
- Do you skip meals, read diet books, or espouse the virtues of healthy eating or not eating sugar?
If you answer yes to any of the questions above, I recommend having a family meeting about ways that you can improve. This will go a long way in helping your teen with their body acceptance. Remember, your teens are still learning from you by what you do and how you act. If you are modeling dieting and body dissatisfaction, guess what? Your teens are picking that up (and likely have been since they were little).
What Can Parents Do?
Be A Good Role Model
There are many layers to being a good role model for your teen around food and weight.
If you’ve been dieting, find a way to not show it to your kids. Or, better still, get off the diets yourself. Put a stop to body and diet talk in your household. Create the safety net your teens need.
Provide healthy balanced meals. Make sure your fridge is stocked with fruits, veggies, whole grains and protein. But don’t push these on your kids. When they are available, it shows your kids that this is what we eat.
Eat balanced dinners with your teens. Carve out at least a few days a week to have dinner as a family (whatever your family looks like). Spending time together over a meal communicates that relationships matter and that dinners together are important.
Educate Yourself About Health At Every Size and Intuitive Eating
You can be healthy and living in a larger body size. Health and weight are not one and the same. The BMI scale is bunk, not based on science. If a teen feels good in his body, exercises for enjoyment, eats all food groups, doesn’t binge eat, and has a healthy relationship with food then he is healthy. If he is over his BMI and healthy, he is still healthy. Spend some time learning about HAES and IE, by doing some research of your own. There are many amazing resources to help you implement these principles in your home.
One way that you can help teens have a healthy relationship with food is to allow all foods in your house. Yes, that meals Ho Ho’s and Froot Loops! When foods are off limits at your house, teens only go somewhere else for the fun stuff. When we have all kinds of foods in our home, we begin to stop demonizing food. Which means that we can learn to eat it in moderation. Limiting certain foods and making it a moral transgression to eat them only sets teens up for failure. We all want and need “play” food in our lives, otherwise we feel deprived and end up overdoing it. It’s only human nature. When you run out of “play” food at home, get more. Teens should know there is always an ample supply of “play” food at home, so that they don’t feel deprived.
Become Your Teen’s Ally
Remember that coercing or trying to influence your teen to lose weight will only backfire. They will likely feel rebellious and eat behind your back. Instead, set up a loving and open relationship where they feel they can come to you with anything–even weight issues. If your teen perceives you as being judgmental about weight, they won’t trust that they can come to you with their concerns about eating.
If you have been dieting a long time yourself, or if you see that you have food and weight biases, talk to your teen about what you are learning. It’s OK to not have all the answers. Teens respect when adults are humble about their own struggles and open about what they are doing to change them. They are in a period of their lives when they are becoming aware that their caregivers are just humans. They see your humanness, your mistakes and your struggles anyway, you may as well be talking about it!
