Eating Disorders | Mom Minute

In today’s episode of Mom Minute, we invited Kati Morton, a licensed marriage and family therapist to talk about a very serious issue today… Eating Disorders.I am not a licensed therapist, nor would I ever offer advice in any professional manner on the subject. What I will share is what I do to help keep my kids aware of the dangers of eating disorders and if I ever suspect that anything is going on, the first thing I should do is seek professional help.

The media today surrounds us with images of men and women in an idealized state. Often the media will take an otherwise beautiful model, add tons of makeup/powders/gels/hairsprays, turn on unnatural lighting, add a fake breeze, pose them in uncomfortable poses wearing uncomfortable clothes {or lack thereof}… and that is what the general public takes as an acceptable standard for society. If that wasn’t enough, 99.9% of the photos are then photoshopped to remove wrinkles, moles, shadows, skin blemishes, or even add to or reduce natural curves.

Women and young teens are particularly susceptible to desiring the perfect image of their gender, and fooling themselves into believing that anything less is unacceptable. One way they believe they can control their body shape is to alter their eating habits or dieting.

{Men are not immune to eating disorders, but they only make up only 10-15% of the cases. This statistic is something that scares me as a mother of six, with five of them being girls.}

To hear Kati’s recommendations of how to talk about this as a friend, or as a parent to a child suffering from an eating disorder {along with the warning signs}, please be sure to watch the The Mom’s View Mom Minute episode below…

Do you have any experiences on this topic, or any advice for others who either are going through an eating disorder or know someone who is? Please free to leave your comments below…

Happy Parenting!