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These days, a lot of people have become aware of eating disorders among teens. This kind of awareness was brought about by the shocking fact that a lot of teenagers these days are struggling with it. It's a deadly struggle that can lead to serious emotional and health problems, even death. Eating disorders are emotional problems that lead to extremely serious physical problems. People with eating disorder obsess about their weight and believe that life will get better and will only make sense if they have absolute control over what they eat, how much they eat, and how much they weigh.
It's normal for teens to change their eating habits as they grow up. Sometimes they eat more or less than usual to cope with the changing needs or their bodies or as a response to stress. However, parents who are dealing with teens who have an eating disorder need to act fast. Here are a few tips on how to help a teenager with an eating disorder:
- Verbally express your love - Reaffirming your love and acceptance of your teen is an important part of helping them deal with their self-image issues. When recovering from eating disorders, knowing that their family loves them is immensely important.
- Learn more about it - Recovering from eating disorders is not just the struggle of the person who has it, but of the family as well. If you are going to pull through this and recover from it, it would be best to educate yourself and ask for advise from people who understand this illness.
- Get involved - Talk to your child. Make time to ask him/her about his/her day at school, how his/her friends are doing, and the things that he/she is interested in. Rather than pointedly asking about your concern on your teen's eating habits, ask open-ended question that would encourage conversation. Asking "You don't seem to be talking too much lately, what's going on in school?" instead of pointedly asking "why aren't you eating?" could lead to a conversation rather than an argument.
- Don't focus on the food and weight issue - It's easy to focus too much on the fact that your teen is having issues with food and weight. However, the truth is that teens with eating disorders probably obsess over food and weight because they want these to take up all of their thoughts and emotions. It's a convenient escape for what they perceive to be more difficult issues to face. They want to focus on this because they feel that other issues in their lives are impossible to control or deal with. Teens who are being bullied, for example, obsess over their weight and make it the central struggle of their life instead of dealing with the fact that they cannot stop the bullies from hurting them. Finding out the real issue/s your teen is avoiding would be a good start to battling the illness.
- Avoid commenting on other people's appearances - Teens who have low self-esteem are very sensitive to comments about appearances. There are enough messages coming from the media about what a person should look like to be acceptable, teens don't need to hear these unreasonable expectations reaffirmed by their parents.
- Seek help - Your teen will most probably resist this, but you should still seek help if you see the signs. Teens with eating disorders rarely admit that they need help. Waiting for them to at least seek counseling (or recover their senses) by themselves could have dire consequences.
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