5:00am January 10, 2014

“Among girls whose parents never commented on their weight, 4.2% reported use of any extreme weight control behaviors, while 23.2% of girls whose parents frequently commented on their weight reported use of any of these behaviors. Mothers’ more frequent talk about their own weight, shape, or size was associated with lower self-worth and higher depressive symptomology among girls.”

Mother-reported parental weight talk and adolescent girls’ emotional health, weight control attempts, and disordered eating behaviors

This is open access. If you click on the link you can read the whole paper (click to read the PDF at the bottom of the page)

My mom used to actually say things to me like “we need to lose weight” when I was a totally normal weight for my age and height, even a little skinny (except for my boobs, past a certain age). I was maybe 16 or 17 before I was ever even a little bit overweight, although I lost that all at age 18 when I went off the psych drugs I’d been on. I remember being like ten years old and saying that my New Years resolution was to lose five pounds because I’d heard other people saying it. (At that age at least half what I said was because I heard other people saying it, but yeah.) I was quite skinny already.

7,672 notes