My next piece at The Huffington Post is up: Teaching Fearlessness to My Daughter
A few weeks ago, I took my sixteen-year-old daughter to what some might think was an inappropriate event. I know her father did, as he repeatedly reminded her the day before we went, and actually on the phone a few hours before, that she was beautiful and healthy and in no way in need of what this event had to offer.
Clearly, he didn’t understand why I was taking her.
Thin, a documentary by Lauren Greenfield, is a stark, honest and riveting look at eating disorders. The effect they have on the human brain, twisting body image into something toxic, is so pervasive that you almost can’t believe it. But then you do believe it, because it’s true.
I was lucky enough to go to see the documentary a few weeks ago with Alex. We had many a lively conversation in the next few days. I’m so thankful we were invited to the screening. The book is quite lovely, too.
Wow. That was a powerful column. I support your decision to take Alex.
I’m SO conscious of this, having two girls. I had major body-image issues as a teen—ballet and all—and while I was never full-blown, I had SO many strange little eating habits. Being skinny was my life’s ambition back then.
I’m so careful not to make those little, “I feel so fat” comments around my girls. I also try not to let them hear me compliment other women on “how skinny” they look. You just never can tell what’s going to crawl inside their head and take root.
Great topic, Leah. Thanks.
thankyou, from your daughter. she just may or may not know it yet.
in elementary school, there was a new girl and i remember rumors that people said she threw up in a jar that she kept under her bed. we all thought that was “weird” and “gross.”
when i was with my ex boyfriend, his mother gave me a book to read called stick figure. the end of the book is frankly stupid and unfathomable, but the rest is amazing. it is funny as much as it is sad. i find things like this fascinating beacuse at the end of it, i understood. it all does make perfect sense. that’s what’s so horrifying.
my sister who is 12 was placed on medication for adhd years ago. she takes after my dad, naturally skinny. but not this skinny. my parents wanted to believe whatever the doctors told them was right, and they didn’t want to feel like bad parents. they were blind to it. i would come home and see that my sister couldn’t wear a bathing suit without something over it because it was baggy and falling off her. we flew to california for my cousins wedding and every time we sat down to a meal she claimed she “wasn’t feeling well” and ate next to nothing the entire trip. she’d have part of a tiny cup of soup at a restaurant and then say “i don’t want to fill up” and refuse to eat any more.
my parents finally took her off the meds when the doctor told them she was in the 90th percentile for height and below the 10th for weight. essentially, she said, she was near starving.
her eating habits are better now, but i still worry about her. i worry that the meds gave her an excuse and taught her how she “should” eat to not be “fat.” i worry that she sees my mother who is overweight, as is her entire side of the family more or less, and fears she will turn out like that tomorrow if she finishes a meal tonight.
it’s so important. not just so your daughter understands more about you but so you can have opinions about these things together. these days, this “talk” is about as important as the birds and the bees.
i meant to make the book stick figure a link.
I just TiVo’d this on HBO last night. We have a 4 year-old daughter and I hope I can get my husband to watch it with me. He has some bizarre ideas about food and exercise that I am afraid might translate to image concerns for her down the line. He was never encouraged to exercise and was forced to fill and finish his plates, but I am worried about his reaction to that.
excellent article!
It came out terrific. I think it will be meaningful to many readers.
I have struggled with anorexia in some way, shape, or form, for the past 8.5 years. I have learned to eat regularly and have gained 40 or so pounds as a result. This makes my anorexia angry and hateful and results in me feeling like absolute crap about my body and lack of self-discipline daily. I now feel fat and hate the curves I now possess. I struggle now to get back to anorexia’s ways, learn to starve myself again, and regain skinny. I wish I’d never gotten sucked into the anorexic mindset, but I have and will likely always be of that mindset. Save your girls from it if at all possible. It is a horrible life to live.
Please know that one way that anorexia preys on girls is via control – their lives are out of control or their partners or parents allow them little control (over eating or whatever else). Autonomy fights against anorexia.