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Health Topics
Teens and Eating Disorders
How to Help
Whether you’re dealing with mild symptoms or a full-blown eating disorder,
you as a parent can make a great difference in your teen’s life simply
by providing information, care and protection.
Therapist Steven Levenkron recommends the following do's and don’ts for
parents of eating-disorder sufferers.
Do...
• Offer the teen fewer choices and less responsibility.
• Maintain clear, kind and decisive communication.
• Take a supportively confident posture; maintain parental authority.
• Talk with your teen about personal issues other than food.
• Expect participation with the family at mealtime, but don’t demand that your teen eat.
• Express honest, healthy verbal and physical affection.
Don't...
• Demand weight gain or berate a teen who has an eating disorder.
• React to the teen with harshness, rigidity or anger.
• Put the teen “in charge” of the family’s well-being
by making statements such as “Your illness is damaging the whole family”
or “Why did this happen to me?”
• Allow your teen’s eating problem to dominate the family’s
eating schedule or use of the kitchen.
• Allow the teen to cook or shop for the family, as this puts her in
a nurturing role and allows her to deny her own need for food by feeding others.
• Be directly involved with the teen’s weight once she is in therapy and under a physician’s care. If a change in appearance indicates weight loss, notify the physician.
—From Focus on the Family's Youth Culture department.
Copyright © 2000, 2002 Focus On the Family.
All rights reserved. International Copyright Secured.
Last updated July 2004
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