Help To Prevent Body Image Concerns And Eating Disorders In Children

Sadly body image concerns, eating disorders and low self esteem are increasingly occurring in children. Eating disorders include a range of physical, psychological and behavioral features that often have an impact on social functioning and can invade most areas of a child’s life. Instead of living happy, playful and healthy lives children are concerning themselves with anxiety and distress about their shape and size. It is estimated that an astounding 40% of nine year olds have already dieted and we are beginning to see four and five year olds expressing the need to diet. It is such an awful shame because these children are loosing their childhood and a crucial stage of their life when they are growing and developing into individuals.

Although eating and weight disorders are common in children there is a scarcity of practical guidance on treatment methods for eating disorders for young people. Through extensive research I found some books available for parents and adults with regards to recognizing and helping a child who has an eating disorder. Unfortunately I didn’t find much guidance available for children themselves. There is certainly a lack of material available for children to prevent the body image concerns inflicted upon them by the media, magazines, celebrity gossip and constant diet tips in the papers and in society.

Don’t get me wrong I think it is very beneficial to offer books for parents to be able to recognize the symptoms of eating disorders as many children don’t recognize, acknowledge or accept that they have themselves have a problem. Recognition of eating disorders as a real and treatable disease is critically important. The consequences of eating disorders can be severe. For example, one in ten cases of anorexia nervosa leads to death from starvation, cardiac arrest, kidney failure, other medical complications, or even suicide. Without treatment, up to twenty percent (20%) of people with serious eating disorders die. However, early identification and treatment leads to more favorable outcomes. With treatment, the mortality rate falls to two to three percent (2-3%). For this reason we need to make sure that we let children know that there is help available and make them recognize their problems.

More important than this though- is the need for effective preventional tools. If we want children to grow up to love and accept their bodies, they must be raised to love and accept themselves. We need to teach children it's what's on the inside of a person that counts, not what's on the outside. These pre-conceived images of beauty, the desire to be as thin as certain celebrity icons and the need to be on the next hyped diet phase that society boosts; all need to be contradicted and reinforced with corrective messages. To be an effective preventional tool for children it would need to be in the language that children can understand. It must also be creative and appealing in order to be engaging and influential. The perfect medium would be a book. The reason being a child can sit and read it independently and at a convenient time for them. Literature and books often serve as a catalyst for conversations between children with friends and children with adults. This is a perfect conversation means for approaching the subjects like healthy eating and body image.

There is certainly a niche in the market for books for children that tackle the issues of eating disorders and body issues in children. An enjoyable fun fantasy book, with characters a child could relate to, with vivid images and creative illustrations would be perfect. The media sadly sends out confusing and misleading messages which has resulted in risk factors for eating disorders and low self esteem for children being dissatisfied with their body. There just isn’t enough reading material for children to read to prevent these misleading messages. Children are constantly exposed to the message that we should all be thin and not with the message that they need to accept people for who they are and not what they look like. They are not given the message that they should be proud of who they are, they are not being given the drive to appreciate themselves and their abilities, instead they are being given the message that they must be thin to be happy and successful. They are being given the message that to be accepted, to be popular and to be respected they must be thin.

I hope that with the books and literature that is being created today, there will be an influx of children’s books that counteract the many magazines, celebrity gossip and constant diet tips that children have been reading to start their eating disorders. I hope with these, children will learn to be proud of whom they are and respect others for who they are inside and not judge them for how they look. I hope children everywhere will be able to love and accept who they are. I hope they will be less likely to strive to attain society's definition of the "ideal" body image and they will love and accept their own bodies, no matter what size they are. I hope books will be filled with corrective messages that go straight to the heart of child body image issues. I hope the new books will help children live happy and healthy lives that wont lead to the staggering amount of eating disorders that exist in children now.

Thank you for reading my article and I hope you too share the desire for authors to write inspiring books for children to prevent eating disorders and show children how to live happy lives and develop into kind and respectful people.