It's National Eating Disorders Awareness Week, and it's more important than ever

Boston Globe

25-02-2025

Get Winter Soup Club
A six-week series featuring soup recipes and cozy vibes, plus side dishes and toppings, to get us all through the winter.
Enter Email
Sign Up
Meanwhile, social media is a double-edged sword. Yes, it offers more avenues for comparison and judgment — and unrealistic, doctored images on AI — but also more representations and narratives around diverse body shapes. Kids today are more exposed to language around body image than ever before, for better or for worse.
Advertisement
'That's a small positive: There's more awareness. I think the younger generation are more aware of diet culture, fat-shaming, and body positivity. They get it in ways that our generation, and our parents' generation, did not,' says Emily Gordon, a clinical psychologist in Natick who specializes in adolescent eating disorders.
Feb. 24-March 2 is National Eating Disorders Awareness Week. I talked to Alperovitz and Gordon about what to know, and how to help, if you suspect your child struggles with body image and eating.
On how eating disorders originate
: McLean is participating in a large-scale study examining genetic predisposition to eating disorders. For now, the current understanding is that they're multifactorial: 'There's a biological component. There's a psychological component. And, clearly, there's a social cultural component as well,' Alperovitz says. 'There's more research to be done around the biology and really determining vulnerabilities through DNA.'
Advertisement
We do know that younger people are especially susceptible because their bodies are changing so rapidly; life in general often feels overwhelming, and restricting eating can be a way to assert control.
'We can't take control of all the things that are going on in the world, but weight and food lends itself really nicely to being able to count calories or monitor in quantitative ways. It gives folks a sense of taking some control over a world that may feel largely beyond them,' he says.
Gordon sees patients whose eating disorders began because they were simply trying to boost confidence; eating healthfully was a self-esteem strategy that turned into a fixation.
'What happens is, people will turn to food and their body as a way of feeling good about themselves. We want people to have other ways of feeling good about themselves: People end up in trouble with an eating disorder when they've tried to be healthy, or they've tried to feel good, and then it's sort of gone awry. We really want to give people ways to regulate their systems, to express their feelings, and to not feel like they have to change themselves in order to be OK,' she says.
On misconceptions around eating disorders:
Eating disorders affect all sizes and genders. 'There's often a myth that eating disorders affect young, white, rich girls, not boys, and girls who are thin. That misses a lot,' Alperovitz says. 'Eating disorders affect people of all shapes, sizes, genders, sexual orientations, races. It really crosses the gamut. … They deserve support just as much as anyone.'
On red flags:
Be aware of how your kids approach their relationship to food. Do they restrict certain foods? Are they starting to avoid social situations for fear of judgment around body shape or size? Are they losing weight or avoiding certain places, like restaurants, to adhere to an eating plan?
Advertisement
'Exercise and eating healthy aren't bad things. But if they become compulsive and exist at the expense of other things that are meaningful, such as seeing friends and family, or being able to go to a certain place, then we're really crossing a line,' Alperovitz says.
Gordon looks for all-or-nothing thinking around food, and 'rigidity and lack of flexibility,' she says. 'It's so tricky, because in our culture, [eating healthfully] is idealized. Of course, we want people to be healthy. But when people start to do it in a rigid way, when people start cutting food out, when they start avoiding meals or snacks or having to exercise at the expense of other things in their lives,' there's a problem, she says.
On encouraging neutral conversations around size:
Gordon urges families to be aware of how they talk about bodies at home. It can be second nature to comment on someone's weight loss (especially with all the new drugs out there) or to remark that someone looks great if they've gotten thinner; the virtue of smallness is so ingrained in our culture.
It's also important to talk to kids about what they see on social media. For instance, a friend's daughter recently shared an Instagram account for her high school where people post Prom dress photos so nobody will overlap an outfit. Even the most benign comments focused on how people looked. Give your kids a safe place to share what it feels like to look at those photos and comments, even if you can't solve the problem.
Advertisement
'Ask: 'How does that make you feel when you see that? What do you think it's like for other kids?' We can engage with curiosity, and we can also have empathy. ... We can be there as a support and like a place for our kids to say, 'This is really hard,'' Gordon says.
On how to address a potential eating disorder:
Alperovitz stresses that there's often a secretive component to eating disorders; kids might not disclose an issue directly and won't respond well to confrontation.
Parents can set a subtly productive tone by having 'an inclusive approach to food, and seeing all foods as part of a spectrum,' he says. Be aware of using judgment-driven labels such as 'junk food.'
'They may not have as much nutritional value, but they're food, and they shouldn't be pathologized as evil,' he says. Kids can internalize that. If so, their eating could become dangerously restrictive.
'There are eating disorders that evolve out of a pure effort to be healthy, which is a really good thing, but then evolve to a point where it's so restrictive that they're in trouble nutritionally,' he says.
If you do notice a change in eating habits, he recommends approaching the issue directly, not at mealtime, from a place of curiosity.
'The more we walk on eggshells, the more we treat [an eating disorder] as a pathological thing that can't be talked about, and we almost reinforce secrecy around it. I would be kind, curious, and direct: 'Are you struggling? Are you missing things because of this?''
Hopefully, you can preempt an issue before it becomes severe, and your child will return to nourishing eating habits on their own. Providers encourage parents to look for small improvements: adding back in a restricted food; eating a bit more.
Advertisement
'But, again, eating disorders can often be secretive and shame-based, and it may be hard to talk with parents about. It may be easier to talk to a therapist or a primary care doctor around their relationship with food and their bodies,' Alperovitz says.
On finding help
. Therapy can be hard to find. In Massachusetts, the Multi-Service Eating Disorders Association (
Looking for a podcast? Gordon likes 'Maintenance Phase,' 'Burnt Toast,' 'Food Psych,' 'ED Matters,' and 'The Eating Disorder Recovery Podcast.'
And, if you're having a tough time finding a therapist who specializes in eating disorders, your child's primary care doctor is a good place to start. They can assess growth and evaluate overall health from a purely objective standpoint.
Kara Baskin can be reached at