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A Parent's Dilemma
By Abigail Natenshon, MA
Though not the cause of your child's eating disorder, you as a parent are largely responsible for shaping your child's beliefs and attitudes about eating, body image and the self.
A parent’s healthy eating lifestyle and commitment to responsible and responsive parenting can virtually immunize a child from becoming a victim of disordered eating and eating disorders.
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87% of the 11 million eating disorders victims in the U.S. are under age 20. |
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80% of eating disorders are curable when detected early and treated effectively. |
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Most parents do not understand or appreciate their capacity to prevent and heal eating disorders. |
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Health professionals too frequently exclude parents from their child’s treatment at a time when children need their parents’ support the most. |
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Eating disorder diagnosis, as well as recovery, is more likely to take place around the kitchen table and/or in the family bathroom than in the doctor's or therapist’s office.
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Psychotherapist Abigail H. Natenshon has specialized in the treatment of eating disorders with individuals, families, and groups for the past 34 years. She is the author of When Your Child Has An Eating Disorder, A Step-by-Step Workbook For Parents And Other Caregivers, Jossey-Bass, 1999. Based on hundreds of successful outcomes, this book shepherds concerned parents step-by-step through the processes of eating disorder recognition, confronting the child, finding the most effective treatment for patient and family, and evaluating and insuring a timely recovery. A guide to eating disorder prevention, this book is useful to parents, health professionals and school personnel alike in countering the pervasive epidemic of unhealthy eating and body image concerns, and destructive media and peer influences. Her work can be reviewed further at www.empoweredparents.com, www.empoweredkidZ.com,
www.treatingeatingdisorders.com.
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