Posts Tagged ‘body image’
Anorexia: Warning Signs
One of the things every parent will tell you when his/her daughter is diagnosed with Anorexia or any other eating disorder is that they could not see it coming. I am sure they mean it. Parents do not want to believe their child is having a problem, including me. It is mainly because most of us think that it says something about us. Maybe it says we have failed and we are not good parents. The problem with this fear is that it clutters our thinking and makes us blind to the warning signs of anorexia.
Be brave! Keep reading and look carefully at every photo, even though they are scary.
Having a child with Anorexia or any other eating disorder requires strong, brave parents who manage to help their child despite what others might say about them. The problem with Anorexia is that everyone can see it. Most kids do not do a very good job hiding it.
A couple of years ago, I worked with an anorexic woman who was 40 years old and weighed about 25kg (55lbs). Trust me, that was scary! It is not something you can hide very well. When I was in hospital with her, in the mental ward, there were other girls there and not all of them were teens. They looked like skeletons! But it is much harder to notice anorexia when it is developing and people often say, “She’s just a bit skinny, that’s all. She’ll get over it”.
Anorexia: Model Parenting
We happened to watch a TV piece on top models’ body image, eating habits and self-inflicted damages.
Top model Jessica Gomes (24) said the pressure on models to be slim was enormous and that models are afraid to miss out on work opportunities in the highly competitive fashion industry, so they use some excessive methods to keep themselves trim. She said models run for days on a mix of lemon juice and maple syrup, which also “cleanses”. To keep their energy up and be able to work, they drink coffee and use Cocaine.
The article mentioned Ana Carolina Reston (see her in the pictures), a famous Brazilian model who died from Anorexia at the age of 21, weighing 40kg (88lbs). Her mother told the press Ana had eaten nothing but apples and tomatoes for 2 months before she died.
Although the article did a very good job showing models who decided to eat normally and still got excellent jobs, Ronit and I were left with a very painful question:
Where are those top models’ parents?
Thanks to the Tooth Fairy
My daughter Noff is 8 years old. Yes, this is late, but about 6 months ago, she started growing “Shark teeth” behind her lower front teeth. The orthodontist suggested pulling the baby teeth out and creating space for the “Shark teeth” to position themselves in the right place over time. So we scheduled a time to pull Noff’s baby teeth out and she was brave and managed the injections very well. When her lips went numb and she could not feel them, that scared her a bit, but other than that, everything was great.
TV Diet (2): Health Concerns
Many studies have been done on the influence of TV on viewers (in fact there have been 4,000 studies on the effect on children alone, which you should not read if you love watching TV). Excessive TV viewing raises concerns in five major areas: Health, Behavior, Outlook on life, Relationship and Education
Troubled Teens
In the past few weeks, I overheard talk about a teenager (let’s call him Jonathan), who used to be friendly and “normal”, besides being very talented, but who recently started to miss classes, show up late, fail various subjects and behave indifferently. One speculation was that he might have started using drugs, but he was clearly troubled.
Stories: Fact or Fiction?
As an author, people ask me about the origin of my stories. Almost every person who has read my stories has asked, “Are they real?” Maybe this is a good opportunity for me to write how I came up with them, because some of the stories are so real it was painful. All my characters are based on real people whose personalities I borrowed without their knowledge, but some parts of the stories are twists I created to convey a message.
Healthy Eating by Shock Treatment
Unless there is something wrong with them, all parents want their kids to be healthy and eat well. With so many supermarkets and so many items on the shelves that are mostly processed, full of food colors, additives and lots of sugar, keeping your kids healthy is not easy. Not easy, but more important than ever!
Dark Chocolate Girl
Last week, during one of my workshop for “Together for Humanity”, one of the kids came to us in the break. She stood at the entrance of the community room, hesitating a bit. She was a beautiful looking girl, tall and dark, and looked like she had come from Africa.
“Can I ask you something?” she asked in a shy voice.
So Your Kid is Overweight. Now What?
“Fat” kids suffer a lot from problems associated with being overweight. Many grown ups carry feelings of self-loathing and self-disappointment following the negative treatment they got during their younger years.
My kids don’t eat the food I make. What should I do?
Kids’ eating habits are very important for parents and it is very frustrating to prepare food and find out your kids do not like it.
If you look at this issue from an emotional point of view, it has to do with control. Your kids are exercising control over what and when they eat, while you try to keep that control. Once you look at it this way, though, the solution is simple.
