November 12, 2025, 5:09 p.m.
Sarah Garwood, MD, a WashU Medicine adolescent medicine physician at St. Louis Children's Hospital, gives helpful tips to parents about preventing eating disorders in teens and young children.
- Development of an eating disorder is due to multiple factors, including genetics and cultural influences.
- Parents can help prevent eating disorders by promoting a healthy body image.
- Help teach your child there’s not just one certain desired body type or body size.
- Be critical of media that promotes thinness as ideal.
- Avoid characterizing food as “good” or “bad.”
- Talk about which foods to eat any time and which foods to eat only sometimes.
- Label sweets as “special treats.”
- Banning certain foods may cause kids to sneak or binge eat them when they’re not being observed.
- Eating frequent family meals together decreases incidents of purging, binge eating, and frequent dieting.
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