Posts Tagged “Parenting”

If you’re a parent, keeping up with the latest slang your child uses can sometimes feel like learning another language. And when it comes to social media, that language can change quickly.

Some terms kids and teens use online may seem harmless (and may be completely unfamiliar to parents) but can sometimes signal exposure to content focused on weight, appearance, dieting, or exercise, including content that promotes disordered eating or negative body image. This doesn’t mean that using a particular word automatically means your child has an eating disorder. Rather, understanding the language can help parents know what their child may be encountering online and open the door to supportive conversations.

Episode description:

When a well-known person’s body is suddenly all anyone can talk about, the pull to pile on—or to compare yourself against them—can be strong.

Jillian’s general guidance is simple: we’re typically better off not commenting on other people’s bodies at all. But the real exception is genuine concern for someone in your life, and she models the I-framed language that can help keep a comment from tipping into judgment. She also gets practical for the adults listening, including how to have conversations with kids about what they’re seeing online, why what you say about your own body in front of them matters, and how to talk about comparison itself, which rarely leaves anyone feeling better.

**Content warning: This is one person’s story; everyone will have unique experiences in recovery and beyond. Some stories may mention eating disorder thoughts, behaviors, and symptoms. Please use your discretion when reading and speak with your support system as needed.

Alleigh Colleran is a Seattle-based writer and mother of one, currently pregnant with her second. This essay draws from her lived experience with eating disorder recovery, pregnancy, postpartum, and motherhood.

For most of my life, food has felt loaded. It has never been just food. Even when I tried to convince myself otherwise, there was always something more attached to it: control, shame, discipline, temptation, comfort, punishment. I spent nearly two decades moving in and out of the grips of bulimia and anorexia. Some years, the eating disorder whispered. Other years, it took over completely. But whether it was loud or quiet, it was always there, shaping the way I moved through the world.

When I was deeply consumed by it, my inner life narrowed into negotiation. What had I eaten? What had I earned? What would I allow myself next? What did I need to undo? Hunger felt suspicious. Fullness felt dangerous. And pleasure, simple, unguarded enjoyment, felt perhaps most scary of all.

For years, I thought that when I was ready to let it go, I simply would. I thought I was choosing it. I thought the control still belonged to me.

School’s out, and the house is full again. Maybe your teen is home all day for the first time since the fall, or your college student just moved back in with a semester’s worth of laundry. Either way, summer puts more of your child’s daily life where you can see it. Meals that happened in a school cafeteria or dining hall now happen in your kitchen. Downtime is at home now, not between classes.

Sometimes that closer view comes with a sense that something about your child’s eating habits, exercise, or mood has changed.

Behaviors that might have developed during the school year—and were easy to miss between classes, practices, and packed schedules—can come into focus with more time face-to-face. If your gut says something is off, that’s worth your attention. Eating disorders are serious and more common than most people realize. But they’re also treatable, especially when they’re caught early.

Episode description:

In this episode of Peace Meal, we welcome back Dr. Charlotte Markey to discuss the newly released second edition of her book, The Body Image Book for Girls, and what the latest body image research means for the young people in our lives.

Charlotte reflects on how much has changed since the first edition, including the pandemic’s lasting impact on young people’s mental health and a social media landscape that’s evolving faster than most adults can track—and what parents, caregivers, and clinicians can actually do to help amid it all. Central to that, says Charlotte, is being willing to examine your own relationship with food and bodies first. She and Jillian also explore what it looks like to help kids build a relationship with their bodies grounded in function and appreciation, and why it’s worth starting that conversation early.

**Content warning: This is one person’s story; everyone will have unique experiences in recovery and beyond. Some stories may mention eating disorder thoughts, behaviors, and symptoms. Please use your discretion when reading and speak with your support system as needed.

Nichole is a wife and mother of a beautiful daughter. A former Special Education teacher, she decided to stay home and raise her daughter 18 years ago, which she loved doing. She enjoys playing and teaching piano, creative writing, and cooking. She also loves being outdoors in the sunshine with her dog. Nichole is working to complete and publish a memoir about her life with an eating disorder, in hopes of helping others find the freedom that she continues to fight for. She currently resides in Montana, but someday hopes to live near the ocean, where she feels most at peace.

Recovery Conversations is a question-and-answer series that features voices and stories of eating disorder recovery. In this post, Nichole reflects on 30 years of recovery, the strength she has found in vulnerability, and why she believes it is never too late to heal.

Episode description:

In this episode of Peace Meal, dietitian Gretchen Wallace joins us to explore how we can protect the next generation’s relationship with food. Together, we unpack why body image struggles in adolescence shouldn’t be dismissed as a harmless phase—and why the fact that these struggles are common doesn’t mean they’re acceptable or something young people should simply have to endure.

Gretchen sheds light on the environmental influences that shape kids’ views of food and bodies, from developmentally inappropriate health class curricula to the highly curated world of social media. She challenges the idea that nutrition should feel like a math problem, offering a more compassionate, body-trusting framework instead.

With warmth and wisdom, Gretchen outlines a hopeful, practical roadmap for families—one that emphasizes supportive boundaries, curiosity, and compassion as the foundation for lasting food freedom.

Episode description:

Coming home for the holidays when an eating disorder is in the mix can be deeply complicated—for the person navigating it, and for the people who love them.

In this episode of Between Bites, Dr. Jillian Lampert reflects on her own experience returning home from college while struggling with an eating disorder, and offers clear, compassionate guidance for young adults facing similar homecomings. Whether the eating disorder is known, hidden, or somewhere in between, Jillian shares tangible strategies to help make this season feel more manageable. With deep care, she holds space for anyone who might be quietly struggling—and for those who want to help, or say something, but aren’t sure how.