Dear Teachers, Coaches and Counselors,

     As a mom, thank you for the endless hours spent caring, supporting, mentoring and teaching young people.  Your job is truly one of selflessness. As a dietitian with an expertise in eating disorders, I would like to pass on a few suggestions to promote normal eating and healthy body image. Even if Health is not your subject, random dialogue about weight and food can be potentially harmful to those young people who are struggling with eating disorders.

1. Avoid categorizing foods into good and bad.  Sure, some food choices are better than others, however moderation in all foods is key for a healthy relationship with food.
   
2. Resist talking about weight loss diets. Remember that weight loss, maintenance and weight gain is simply about calories in versas calories out. There is no magical solution. Boring, but true.
   
3. Resist promoting gluten free, sugar free, and carb free lifestyles unless there is a medical reason for eliminating or reducing these food groups. Most people eventually end up overeating or binge eating food groups that they have eliminated.
   
4. Avoid talking about weight. Weight is a sensitive subject for growing and changing adolescents.
   

Food and weight conversations are ubiquitous. We cannot protect our young people from everything. However, as influential educators, you can make a positive impact on the health and body esteem of young people.

Thank you,

Pam Chin-Lai

“I’m following the Paleo diet.”  “Sugar is bad for you.” “Gluten makes me bloated.” “I only eat foods that have ingredients I can pronounce.” 

To most of us, conversations about food and diet goes in one ear and out the other. We might participate by asking a few questions or by adding our own beliefs about healthfulness, however at the end of the day, we are unlikely to make long lasting changes based on these conversation tidbits.  Most of us will talk about wanting to decrease belly fat and, 1 hour later, munch on a cookie or walk through Costco sampling the food. 

Unfortunately for those struggling with eating disorders, discussing or even overhearing diet advice is completely different.  When a person struggling with eating disorders hears “I only eat whole grain pasta,” they think “Wow, I’m not eating healthy enough.  I need to switch to whole grain pasta.”  This modification begins innocuously as requesting the family to buy whole grain pasta, but may quickly progress to refusing to eat pasta unless it is whole grains, and eventually eliminating pasta completely.   Remember, persons with eating disorders have temperaments that include perfectionism and obsessiveness. Their brains get stuck on ‘whole grains’ so if the only option is white pasta, they may be inflexible to the point of not eating.  Eating a serving of white pasta one time is too risky for the rigid ED brain. Their thinking may sound like this:  “Should I eat this?  Will I be bloated if I eat this? Will my stomach hurt? If I eat this, should I change my eating later? Will this cause my weight to change? What if my clothes feel tighter? What is the calorie, carbohydrate, fiber, fat, protein difference? I’m trying to eat healthy and this white pasta will ruin it.” 

Eating disorder treatment includes working on rigid thinking, filtering unhelpful information, normalizing eating and food exposures, however, every statement that the person with an eating disorder hears requires them to deliberately decide if the information is helpful for them.  It is not easy for them!

Of course, we don’t live in a bubble!  We all hear conversations that we don’t want to.  However, if you know someone with an eating disorder be mindful that idle chit chat about food and dieting may unintentionally cause stress.