How to Raise Daughters Without Eating Disorders

I wasn’t always as smart as I am now. For instance, photoshopping my wife in our engagement photo was probably not the best thing for our budding relationship.

I told myself it was so she’d feel confident sending them out to everyone we knew, but in reality it was for me. I wanted my friends to see how hot my fiancé was and be impressed with my fishing ability.

As it turned out, confidence was not to be a byproduct of my blunder. In fact it was not to be found in our house for a long while.

Nine years and four kids later, I’m just starting to learn how to help my wife have confidence in herself. (Hint: it doesn’t involve buying her beauty products.)

Over the weekend we saw Cinderella.

Although we enjoyed it, the experience was somewhat tainted by the recent controversy. While I don’t agree that the princess’s passivity sets the clock back (not every single female character has to be equally strong and independent) the other cry from the critics got my attention. (The emphasis on that waistline.) As a teenager I might have told all the wacko feminists they need to get over the fact that they’re fat and ugly and let us appreciate true beauty.

But for nearly a decade I’ve worked every day to help repair the self-esteem of the most important person in my life, and I’ve come to realize something. Images and attitudes that wash over us every day in the form of movies, TV, and pop culture DO change our perceptions. They affect how we view ourselves and others. This is especially true of women, who are so often portrayed as objects primarily to be gawked at.

My quarrel is not with Lilly James or the size of her waist.

Her body is her own, and it’s not my place to comment on it. My quarrel is not even with the producers of Cinderella. (They did make a half-hearted attempt to go deeper. The prince at one point says something like, “She’s pretty but there’s something else about her.” And near the end the narrator says, [paraphrasing] “The hardest thing you will ever do is let people see you how you truly are.” These noble sentiments lose their efficacy when you learn the filmmakers gave their lead actress a dress she couldn’t fit into without going on a liquid diet.) But as I said, I don’t blame them. Their job is to make money and give the public what they’re accustomed to: our increasingly warped idea of beauty.

Do I sound fanatic?

Check out these statistics.

• The body type portrayed in advertising as the ideal is possessed naturally by only 5% of American females.

• 47% of girls in 5th-12th grade reported wanting to lose weight because of magazine pictures.

• 42% of 1st-3rd grade girls want to be thinner.

• 81% of 10 year olds are afraid of being fat.

• Over one-half of teenage girls and nearly one-third of teenage boys use unhealthy weight control behaviors such as skipping meals, fasting, smoking cigarettes, vomiting, and taking laxatives.

• The mortality rate associated with anorexia nervosa is 12 times higher than the death rate associated with all causes of death for females 15-24 years old.

So do we just start putting aside money for the day when our daughters need a therapist?

No! It’s not to late for our children. But there are things we can and should be doing to combat the destructive messages. Your greatest tool will be this non-profit organization:

My wife discovered this website on her own, and since then has used it as a kind of antidote for the poison eating away at her self-esteem. Invariably, when she neglects reading her BR articles, the media steps in and fills the gap, resulting in depression and bad self-image.

Beauty Redefined has compiled 10 years worth of body image research in 5 manageable steps.

This is the real deal, people. Read their material. Hear them speak if you can. They aren’t trying to convert you to feminism, they want to help you avoid subtle dangers and give you tools to overcome your issues and raise healthy, confident kids.

Also, check out Intuitive Eating if you or someone you love are already caught in the dieting trap.

(It is a trap, 95% of all dieters will gain their lost weight back within 5 yrs. 35% of “normal dieters” progress to pathological dieting. Of those, 20-25% progress to partial or full-syndrome eating disorders).

So why rant about this on my author blog?

It’s remarkable how much my stories and characters have changed as I’ve progressed in my journey. In my very first story, THE EXITOR (never published) I wanted to do something “new.” So I created a thin “pretty” who was extra nice because she used to be fat. Later I changed it and kept her overweight, highlighting the prejudice she suffered. In An Uncommon Blue, the main character becomes infatuated with a girl solely because he finds her attractive. In a later rewrite, I tried to make up for it by having him help another (“less attractive”) girl feel better about herself. And finally, the main theme of the novel I just finished is DON’T TREAT PEOPLE AS OBJECTS, which also touches on the dangers of pornography. (Which incidentally if you have an addiction to, you should go here. If you want to support the anti-porn movement check out #FightTheNewDrug.)

It was never a conscious decision to try to reform society through my writing. It simply became increasingly important to me as I supported my wife through her trials.

However, in my effort to show the seriousness of the self-image problem, I’m afraid I may have painted my wife as a helpless basketcase who falls apart without her sensitive, brilliant husband to hold her together. Nothing could be farther from the truth. Jaida is amazing and despite her struggles, continues to be an example of strength and unconditional love. She is my superior in every way but one. (I love her more than she loves her.) But with a little hard work and a lot of help from Heavenly Father, I’m confident we can change that.

For more on what Heavenly Father thinks of all this see 1 Samuel 16:7.

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