Eating Disorders And Parenting Behavior Analysis

There are countless on-going debates about the subject nature versus nurture; do genes cause our behaviour; or is it shaped by environmental factors. When considering eating disorders like anorexia and bulimia, the balance between nature and nurture is what can cause these problems. An eating disorder associates a person’s eating behaviors; attitudes towards weight, food, and the way an individual views their body shape; and many other psychological aspects. (Benblatt, 2015) It is usually an illness cause by issues in a person’s life, like complications with relationships, family, friends, or school. It often arise during a person’s miserable part of life, and with all the changes happening, the person may desire to gain control of his or her …show more content…
Parents are the strongest influence over a child; they are the ones a child first encounters in their life, how a child see themselves often greatly depends on the kinds of values, traditions, and support their parents gave them while growing up, therefore, parenting styles will definitely have an impact on the child’s future. Parent’s attitudes and concern regarding body image significantly influence how the child views himself or herself. If a parent struggles with eating, a child is most likely to struggle too; and if a parent has a poor or negative relationship with food or his/her body; the chances are the child will develop the same way. In society’s well-intended fight against the problem with obesity, it leads to many parents to send the wrong messages to their child that weight, not health, is more important. The environment and interactions in the child’s growing environment will slowly causes the child’s attitude, beliefs and actions to change around food. Also, the way a child is being fed growing up is also an important factor, this includes using food for rewards, punishments, comfort, odd feeding schedules, or other non-nutritive purposes. They may also seek to receive positive reinforcement from parents and friends who notice they are thinner than before; therefore, this type of reinforcement further pushes them to diet, possibly in unhealthy ways. (Hu, …show more content…
Media often linked thinness or slimness with success and popularity, encouraging the concept of being “thin”. Media also crafts the perfect body image, pressuring individuals, specifically women to achieve the perfect weight to meet society’s standards. People with a negative body image suppose that if they do not look like models in magazines, televisions, etc makes their personality, intelligence, social skills, or capabilities, are also not right; they believe that if they try to fix their bodies, all the problems that they are facing in life will disappear, this can result the cause of eating disorders. (Tierney, 2015) It is difficult to not surround ourselves in media nowadays, which makes it challenging to separate media’s influence in the development of eating disorders; low self-esteem is a critical factor, when women are being asked about what they fear the most in life, most will cite gaining weight; when asked about what they least like about themselves, most will describe a part or maybe even certain parts of their body. Also, men are usually more likely to mention physical attributes, therefore, women often feel judge by the way they look rather than personality. Clearly, women are conscious about their body because the media only exposed the message of being thin to