A daughter often reflects a mother’s unhealthy obsession with weight
November 11th, 2005From Time magazine, May 29, 2005:
Jenny Moran, 41, a sales executive in Ocean County, N.J., admits to being obsessed with her weight. But she was shocked when her 3 1/2-year-old daughter suddenly began weighing herself several times a day. “I never thought she was paying attention,” Moran says ruefully.
Moran has reason to be concerned. Study after study has found that mothers who are fixated on their body image are more likely to have daughters with eating disorders than less self-conscious moms. Sure, you can blame the media for imposing a parade of surgically enhanced pop icons on your impressionable child, but the real danger to her self-image comes from closer to home: you!
The article states that 45% of American women are on a diet on any given day, and that a 1992 study found that 46% of girls 9 to 11 say they are “sometimes” or “very often” on a diet.
“We model our mothers,” says psychology professor Lora Jacobi, who teaches a class on eating disorders at all-women Hollins University in Virginia. Of the students attracted to her class–typically those struggling with eating issues–virtually all report that their mothers were excessively worried about their size.
Tags: eating disorders, media, parenting, body image
