By Mrs Jenny Gillespie, College Counsellor

Teenagers and Food

Experienced parents will be aware of how their teens' eating habits can fluctuate significantly over time. Teens often go through eating habit ‘stages’ and parents may worry, for a time, that their young person’s eating behaviours or nutritional intake is unhealthy in some way. Often these sorts of patterns are fleeting, do not last and do not require medical support; however, sometimes, eating patterns can become more entrenched and may be classified medically as an eating disorder. The following summary, from Child Mind Institute, describes this well.

Most teenagers worry about how they look. It can be hard to tell the difference between normal behavior and a possible eating disorder. Here are the signs that a teenager might be dealing with an eating disorder.

First, kids with eating disorders have very unrealistic views of their bodies. Even if everyone else says they look great or even too skinny, they think they’re too fat. They also care more than other kids about how they look and feel like their self-worth is very closely tied to their weight and appearance.

Teenagers, with eating disorders, also have extreme eating habits. They might eat way too little, which is the main symptom of anorexia nervosa. Kids with anorexia are often high achievers trying to be perfect, and their weight can get very low. It can be hard to spot because these kids are often successful and ‘popular’.

Other kids with eating disorders eat way too much. In Bulimia Nervosa, they eat a lot all at once, which is called binging. Then, some kids with Bulimia get rid of the food by throwing up, taking laxatives, or exercising a lot. This is called purging. They might be a normal weight or even overweight.

Many teenagers are good at hiding their eating disorders, but big changes in weight, eating habits, or exercise habits are often signs of trouble. If you think your child might have an eating disorder, get help from a doctor right away. Untreated eating disorders can be very dangerous, but treatment helps a lot. In particular, family-based treatment (FBT) has been shown to help kids get healthier quickly while staying at home with family.