Thank you from the bottom of my heart for continually trying. I am a parent of a daughter recovery from anorexia and on top of the hell this disease brings upon all aspects of your child and family, you have the mountain of diet culture to then drag yourself through further. Any help from teachers, providers, coaches, other parents is su…
Thank you from the bottom of my heart for continually trying. I am a parent of a daughter recovery from anorexia and on top of the hell this disease brings upon all aspects of your child and family, you have the mountain of diet culture to then drag yourself through further. Any help from teachers, providers, coaches, other parents is such a godsend. The only thing I ever mentioned to any of our teachers was when I felt it necessary to let my sons teacher know why we continue to put a wide variety of food in his lunch (after being instructed to pack only “healthy” food) was because he could have a genetic predisposition to ED and we treat him as such.
His teacher replied, I may or may not know about a bajillion people who would have a problem with this, but I don't.
A classmate did her research on disordered eating awareness among teachers, because her ten-year-old developed an eating disorder, and she was so perplexed that nobody seemed to notice anything was amiss (herself, her daughter's teachers, coaches, and so on). We didn't receive any training on it in school, nor did any of her participants (all more experienced teachers; I don't think any of them recalled PD on disordered eating either). Our health & phys ed training was quite limited, but even if it was more extensive, that's no guarantee it would actually be helpful content, for all the socio-cultural reasons we talk about here. We had a wonderful HPE prof who encouraged critical engagement with curriculum, resources, and research, but only six weeks with her. It's tough.
My twin sister had an ED as a 5th grader, I don’t remember any teacher talking to her. My teacher talked to ME and expressed concern because she looked unwell. My sister credits me with somewhat startling her out of her most restrictive behavior about 8 weeks into her patterns because I said I was going to tell our mom everything I had seen. I was preoccupied with my first crush, but he commented to me in a caring way that he was concerned her doing an independent study project on Anorexia for our gifted program had given her an ED. He was not wrong! I won’t pretend she didn’t have more problems after my intervention moment with her but we did talk to my parents and slowly but surely she improved over the next couple years. (Side note- the first boy I ever really liked was opposing counsel as Attorney general in a federal case with my dad a couple years ago and he kept raving about what a great attorney he was for months and I kept saying yeah I always liked him too! When we were 11! 😛)
Thank you from the bottom of my heart for continually trying. I am a parent of a daughter recovery from anorexia and on top of the hell this disease brings upon all aspects of your child and family, you have the mountain of diet culture to then drag yourself through further. Any help from teachers, providers, coaches, other parents is such a godsend. The only thing I ever mentioned to any of our teachers was when I felt it necessary to let my sons teacher know why we continue to put a wide variety of food in his lunch (after being instructed to pack only “healthy” food) was because he could have a genetic predisposition to ED and we treat him as such.
His teacher replied, I may or may not know about a bajillion people who would have a problem with this, but I don't.
That's so good to hear!
A classmate did her research on disordered eating awareness among teachers, because her ten-year-old developed an eating disorder, and she was so perplexed that nobody seemed to notice anything was amiss (herself, her daughter's teachers, coaches, and so on). We didn't receive any training on it in school, nor did any of her participants (all more experienced teachers; I don't think any of them recalled PD on disordered eating either). Our health & phys ed training was quite limited, but even if it was more extensive, that's no guarantee it would actually be helpful content, for all the socio-cultural reasons we talk about here. We had a wonderful HPE prof who encouraged critical engagement with curriculum, resources, and research, but only six weeks with her. It's tough.
My twin sister had an ED as a 5th grader, I don’t remember any teacher talking to her. My teacher talked to ME and expressed concern because she looked unwell. My sister credits me with somewhat startling her out of her most restrictive behavior about 8 weeks into her patterns because I said I was going to tell our mom everything I had seen. I was preoccupied with my first crush, but he commented to me in a caring way that he was concerned her doing an independent study project on Anorexia for our gifted program had given her an ED. He was not wrong! I won’t pretend she didn’t have more problems after my intervention moment with her but we did talk to my parents and slowly but surely she improved over the next couple years. (Side note- the first boy I ever really liked was opposing counsel as Attorney general in a federal case with my dad a couple years ago and he kept raving about what a great attorney he was for months and I kept saying yeah I always liked him too! When we were 11! 😛)