Sometimes Eating Disorders Start at Home

While at schools giving talks as part of my role as a presenter with Butterfly Foundation, I’ve had so many young people share their stories with me. Stories that their parents, carers, and family members more broadly have said particularly harmful things to them about their bodies and the way they look.

One story that has just stayed with me (and honestly isn’t an uncommon story) is about a young person who was being constantly told by her parents that she needed to lose weight, that she was “too fat”. She told me that they would buy her clothes that were purposely too small, and use that as a way of telling her to lose weight. 

Now my opinion on her size means nothing, but this particular young person was living in a really average-sized body. There were no obvious health concerns as a result of her size, so this pressure to lose weight from her parents was likely a cultural thing. And we see this often, where parents push their own ideals of what a person should look like onto their child. Oftentimes, this pressure and beauty standards were things that they heard growing up, too.

It was really, really heartbreaking to have this 15 year old girl standing in front of me, telling me all of this and also sharing she’d been through an eating disorder in the past and had experienced impacts on her physical health because of the eating disorder. Not only that, but she was continuing to receive this kind of messaging from her parents despite her ongoing health issues, which potentially stemmed from their words and actions to begin with. 

I truly get a bit emotional thinking about this particular story, because chances are that for this one person that came up and spoke to me about it, there are another hundred out there experiencing a similar kind of thing and don't speak up about it. 

It just reminds me that we have such a long way to go. 

Now, I know parents are only human - we all make mistakes and most just want what’s best for their child. But often parents don’t realise the true gravity of their words and actions on their children. Especially when it comes to situations like this. 

Parents, you have a responsibility to be educated about body image and mental health issues more broadly. Because it’s comments like these that can actually escalate into something bigger. 

Comments like these can contribute to the development of eating disorders; causing our young people to become sick and unhealthy. 

This can lead to suicide and young people dying because their bodies are shutting down as a result of these harmful eating & exercise behaviours - which emerge because of comments that parents make. 

Yes, this is a serious problem we face as society more broadly, but the truth is that change starts at the individual level. It starts with you.