Staying Connected: A Guide for Parents on Raising an Adolescent Daughter

Body Image

Many adolescent girls—particularly White girls—equate feeling good about themselves with having a perfect body, primarily a slim one. The pubescent body, however, betrays them. In response, some girls go on crash diets and exercise compulsively. Occasionally, crash dieting can get out of hand, in extreme cases leading to anorexia nervosa (severe dieting even when emaciated) and bulimia (bingeing and purging). Both types of disordered eating typically start in adolescence, but develop into full-blown anorexia or bulimia in only a very small percent of cases.

What is less well-known is that twice as many (14%) adolescent girls today are overweight as in 1994, a situation probably brought on by a near-addiction to fast food coupled with America’s increasingly sedentary lifestyle. Girls who have been overweight from infancy also tend to carry their excess weight into adolescence, while some become obese by eating compulsively. Furthermore, few people are aware that restaurant portions are ballooning, a concern now that we are eating more meals outside the home.

No single cause of anorexia, bulimia, or obesity has been identified. But we do know that girls with low self-esteem are more likely to develop an eating disorder than their happier, better-adjusted peers.

However, whether they are too thin, too heavy, or somewhere in between, most adolescents don’t eat right. Girls are more likely than boys to eat their fruit and vegetables, but are less likely to drink milk. (Boys drink more milk, but use it to wash down fried foods and junk foods.) Adolescence is a crucial period for bone development, and girls need four to five glasses of milk a day, or the equivalent amount of calcium in other foods.

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