At one point or the other, some parents will find their children in an unhealthy relationship with food. Because as awful as it sounds for someone as young as 12 to be worried about having the right waistline or being a size 2, it’s a harsh reality that parents need to prepare for. And it’s not just girls who have body image issues anymore. Boys are just as vulnerable to low self-esteem because of not liking the way they look.
The Body Ideal
To a parent, their kids are perhaps the most beautiful creatures on the planet. Unfortunately, they might not think as highly of themselves as you do. This is because every teenager has a body ideal—a picture in their minds of what they would like to look at. This picture can be formed by standards of beauty they have been brought around, pop culture icons they fancy or simply, pictures in magazines and such. So the further away they are from their body ideal, the more dissatisfied they seem.
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Barbie, a common body ‘ideal’ translated onto a real person
Some girls might want to be as skinny as the model on the cover of a magazine. Other girls might want to be as curvy as that girl on TV to feel more ‘womanly’. Again, this depends entirely on their own perception of beauty and perfection. In the same manner, some boys might want to be more muscular as their favorite actor or have the athletic body of the soccer player they idolize. When puberty kicks in, they might not like the changes they go through which might intensify their dislike of their looks.
So basically, a body ideal is a concoction of the media they are exposed which tells them what is beautiful and what is not. And the existing beauty standards of the place they’ve grown up with. This is as subjective as you can imagine and varies across different age groups too. So your 12 year old is going to have a very different body ideal to your 17 year old.
How do Body Image Issues Manifest?
Not liking the way they look is a huge jab on their self-esteem. Because a lot of times, they feel like their physical appearance does not align with their self-concept. Two things can happen in this case.
- They will remain dissatisfied with the way they look. They might
- Become more reclusive because they’ll feel embarrassed about their appearance in social situations
- Develop anxiety and get panic attacks
- Get depressed because they feel alone or unhappy
- Get involved with substance abuse to escape unwanted feelings
- They might try to change the way they look. This might manifest itself as Eating Disorders which include
- Anorexia
- Bulimia
- Binge Eating
An extreme dislike of one’s appearance might also sometimes translate into Body Dysmorphic Disorder. Here is more information on Eating Disorders by Gourmandia:
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Is this All Just Vanity?
It’s an awful, awful thing that it is the physical appearance that determines a child’s good health and happiness rather than their talents or performance at school or good morals. It would be easy to think that the kid struggling with their appearance is simply vain. But for being brought up in a culture borne in narcissism, your child is simply super aware of what is pretty and what is not. They face body shamming every day in one form or the other—be it as a jab from a friend about a scar on their face, or from the message they get from the media where the celebrities are always plastic perfect.
So, it is very important to understand that if your child fusses over their hair or their makeup or an imperfection, it is not because they are vain. They are anxious about how they will be perceived.
What Can Parents Do?
The first thing you need to do is address the situation. Ignoring an unhealthy habit such as eating too little or fussing over a part of their body will develop into something even worse where Eating Disorders will kick in.
Secondly, encourage their talents. Help them prioritize things that matter—that they play a sport, look for a hobby, find something they are good at—rather than obsess over their looks.
Third, if they want to change the way that they look—for example, if they want to shed a few pounds or dye their hair—make sure they do so in a healthy way. Drastic changes in eating habits or moods are your warning signals.
Follow their activities through a parenting app and see if there is a pattern. You’ll get the idea when you read the conversations they have with their friends, or view the websites they have been visiting.
Finally, if you feel that your child is too far gone and has developed an Eating Disorder, seek help right away. They are going to need the right kind of treatment and counselling to get on the right track once more.
Most importantly, understand that while being concerned about body image might seem like a silly thing to you, it is important to them.
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