What causes disorder eating?

Dieting and weight cycling is one of the biggest causes of disorder eating (abnormal eating behaviours or habits) and eating disorders (bulimia and anorexia). So, if possible, encourage healthy eating and permanent changes in eating habits rather than going on a fad or crash diet.

Teenagers often don't like to take advice from their parents. So if you think your teenager needs advice (or if they ask for guidance), it would be a good idea to take her to see a registered dietician or join a group weight-loss programme like Weigh Less or Weight Watchers which is based on sound dietary principles. Ideally teenagers should want to change their eating habits out of their own choice (not their parents') and should consult with a dietician on their own. This will hopefully make them want to do it for themselves and therefore they will be more compliant.

Teenagers need to understand that their bodies are changing and that they are developing from child to adult. An adult body will need to work (fight, flight, hunt for food, etc. if you look at it from nature's point of view) and most importantly for women, the body is preparing itself for childbirth and breastfeeding.

We are all born with different shapes - men are generally apple-shaped and store their fat reserves around their stomachs and women are generally pear-shaped and store their fat reserves around their thighs and hips. When people lose weight, their basic shape will not change: those who are apple-shaped will become smaller apples and those who are pears will become smaller pears.

Many teenagers' dissatisfaction with their bodies and weight stems from what they see on television and in magazines. Models are models because they are built with skinny, lean, shapeless figures and those who aren't naturally of this shape spend fortunes on surgery and have to permanently starve themselves to try to look like that. They pay a heavy price as the many years of dieting often result in major weight gain and other health risks later in life when they give up modeling. Remember that if your teenagers are good swimmers or good netball players or good sprinters, they are mainly good at those sports because they are built to do it. Swimmers, netball players, rugby players, sprinters, squash players, etc. all have bigger, more powerful frames and that is why they are good at these sports and therefore will never be good models.

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