My mom didn't "diet," it was a "lifestyle change." I think it's a combination of genetics and environment -- without one or the other I may or may not still have gotten the eating disorder, but you really have no way of knowing otherwise

one of my first memories involves my dad tucking me in at night because my mom was at a "diet meeting". i had no idea what that meant until i started looking at her habits, and she did jenny craig, weight watchers, atkins, everything. i did develop an eating disorder and right now i'm in recovery, but the doctors would always pinpoint that as a contributing factor to my disorder. i don't doubt that it may have had some effect on six year old me, but i don't think it's the only overlying reason, either.

This research is a real warning signal for the next generation. Anorexia latches on to whatever ammunition it can find to make its message stronger – size zero models are one example, but at least these are contained to the pages of magazines.
I would suggest, however, that parental influence is a contributory factor - rather than a sole cause – as eating disorders seem to arise from a more complex mixture of emotions and experiences, as 17 years of chronic anorexia bulimia taught me.
Either way, it's important that we raise awareness of the dangers of this disease - and the potential for recovery - because it's devastating to think that it could become a family illness -

I have a very different situation. My mom had a great body image and never dieted, but she was also smaller than me naturally because I wound up with my dad's frame. My dad was ALWAYS on some type of diet. He was never really skinny, but his weight fluctuated up and down based on how he was eating at the time. He even had to be hospitalized at one point because he passed out from not eating enough on one of his crazy diets. I got the message early on from him rahter than from my mom that weight is really important and I ended up developing anorexia by the end of my freshman year in high school.

My mom always complained (still does) about her looks, diets and exercises... never affected me. I love the way I look. I never diet and I only do leisure activities as exercise (daily walks, swimming... i'll never touch a gym.) So... hmm I don't know. I knew I didnt want to be like that so I learned to love myself, take care of myself, and not over due anything- whether it be harmful or healthy.

My mom has never dieted and hates the idea of dieting. She would never substitute the butter or cream in any recipe. She doesn't eat the way health experts say people should. She almost always skips breakfast, maybe has soup for lunch (she's a nurse and rarely has time at work to take a lunch), but always has a big meal for dinner. We had a big dinner every single day growing up. And by big I mean, pasta + meat + vegetables + bread + homemade dessert. She doesn't like "working out" but her lifestyle is active and she goes for a walk every day just to relax. She looks fit and absolutely amazing for her age (56). I hope whenever I have a kid I can provide them with a sit down dinner every single day. It's so important to maintaining health and healthy relationships with each other.

My mom was always dieting when I was growing up. She did Weight Watchers, Jenny Craig, etc. She has always had awful eating habits - she wouldn't eat any meals unless my dad was home, but would snack on cheez-its and m&m's while watching soaps all day. My dad was a truck driver so some nights he wouldn't be home. My mom would only cook a meal when my dad was home, so when he was gone, we just wouldn't eat at all. I'd have a bowl of cereal for dinner.

My dad didn't help, he would buy her memberships to diet clubs for x-mas and exercise equipment and would count how many bites of food she ate or how many m&ms and cheez-its she had. He would tell her when he thought she had enough to eat and would take the food off of her.

This all really messed with my head, especially since I was combatting a different type of eating disorder, one based on a fear of choking, which my parents made fun of me for and would scream angrily at me while trying to force me to eat. Had they ever sought treatment for my disorder, they would have learned it's an anxiety based issue and the worst thing to do is to cause me to become anxious.

I still don't do well eating an actual sit-down meal and my husband often tries to tell me I need to try to eat a little more. It's funny, he counts my bites and tries to get me to eat more, and yet it makes me angry because it reminds me so much of how my dad counted my mom's bites. I know he's just trying to help me from falling into periods where I only eat "comfort" foods, i.e. foods that don't cause anxiety, but still it sometimes offends me.

My mom always dieted (Jenny Craig, Weight Watchers) and it never affected me or my eating habits. In fact, if anything, it made our nightly dinners healthier because she had to get her "points" and "nutrition"

That leads me to believe that mothers who diet and do it in a healthy way could actually be a positive influence on their children.

I think the opposite can be true too. My family never used food as a reward/punishment. like if we were in trouble, we were never denied dinner. or we were never forced to finish our plates. dessert was never used as an incentive to finish our meals. I think it played a key role in my healthy relationship with food and keeping emotions out of it.

my cousin, whose family did use food that way now has deep seeded issues with food and good and bad connotations.

My mom was always either on a diet or off of one, which was really confusing for me as a kid. Luckily, Dad did all the cooking/shopping/food planning at our house and he's always been a bit of a health nut. We grew up eating oats for breakfast, whole wheat bread, lots of fruits and veggies, pasta, chili, etc. Our mom always either ate with us, but also ate tons of junk, or she was doing some shake program or something like that and didn't really eat. She's always been overweight, but my siblings and I mostly followed our dad in our eating habits and know a lot more about proper nutrition than our mom.

I think parents' attitudes are way more important than their diet. My mother is a type 1 diabetic and has always been on a strict diet. It made our family meals better and we enjoyed eating healthy snacks. She never restricted us from normal kid foods and other things she couldn't have, though. I think we all have a pretty normal relationship with food.

My mom never dieted or had issues with body image. In the country she grew up in, there was never any pressure on women of her generation to be thin. But she does have serious emotional issues with food. Her family growing up was very sexist, and meals were about feeding the men of the household. My mom and her sisters got what was left over, and the good stuff was usually just enough for the men. Some of my mom's sisters responded to this by learning to demand and to grab what they could get. (My youngest aunt did this; she's now overweight, as is her daughter.) My mom on the other hand, felt neglected and picked up passive-aggressive methods of getting attention. If no one fed her, she wouldn't eat. I guess she hoped that by being pitiful, someone would care about her and want to feed her. I don't know how well that worked out. In college she starved down to 80 lbs. Not on purpose, necessarily, but because her mom never packed her lunch and she didn't have any money (in those days and in that country, young women lived at home and the family considered it enough of a burden to pay for their college.) I don't think my mom ever got over her childhood. She still skips meals or doesn't eat for a day if she's feeling sad or has a headache. She thinks it'll make everyone pity her and therefore take care of her. I don't think she realizes it's not necessary anymore, and that it's actually rather emotionally manipulative and sick. I try very hard to be different from her.

My parents obsessed about their weight and I ended up having an eating disorder. My ED might have had more to do with the control they tried to exert on me though. My sister's eating is messed up too. I see both a "nature" and "nurture" connection in myself.

My mom never dieted, and was always very positive about body image, but I ended up with anorexia. Not to say it doesn't have any effect, but eating disorders stem from all sorts of things, and I personally feel that a learned behavior is probably pretty low on the list.

tlsgirl--when parenting is bad, it can have a huge impact on the mental health of the child, including the likelihood of developing mental disorders like anorexia, etc. Please don't discount that just because you developed it for other reasons. It is low on the list *for you.*

wow, reading this and all the comments has me a bit worried. I have two younger sisters and I made a lifestyle change, started eating healthier, but in my family that is all dieting to them. And I will admit it, I did it for looks and not health. And I saw my little sisters picking up things. I would laugh about it, but now I'm not sure it's funny.

One of my sisters lovessss food, she can eat a whole cow if you let her, she is not big either. I am worried that as she gets older and her body starts growing and who knows puberty might make her chubby, I am worried how my eating habits will effect her. I would rather her be chubby than anorexic.

The second one is skinny beyond belief and naturally eats like a rabbit, loves veggies and small, small, portions. She is already obsessed with not being fat, wanting to "burn calories" a thing she picked up from me when I work out, and both love to check their weight and talk about how much they lost/gained.

I think this is an idea that deserves further exploration, but really, I'm not sure this particular study found any substantively significant differences. The study says that 6% of girls whose mothers didn't diet had eating disorders, and "that number jumped to 1 in 10" when mothers did diet. That's only a 4% increase, or 20 more girls. Which, in a study of only 512 girls, does not support the theory. At least according to my statistics professor.

My mom has been dieting for as long as I remember. She is the biggest one in her family due to some medical complications but she has never been able to accept it. She went from Jenny Craig and Nutrisystem when I was growing up to doing Weight Watchers now. She wasn't always very healthy with her dieting, but these days she is actually losing weight and exercising, I'm very proud of her.

I'm adopted and naturally am thin and taller than she is. I grew up hearing, "You're lucky you're not going to end up looking like this!" Probably did something to contribute, but I will never put blame on her.

I was bulimic for almost 8 years. I still battle it every single day, and my workouts are a a challenge to keep at 45 minutes. I still feel guilty when I eat "bad" food or don't workout. My mom never knew about my disorder, I think it would tear her apart.

Now that I'm older I understand her more. I feel terrible that she's felt this way her whole life but I'm happy she has never had any sort of disorder. I wonder if disorders are more environmental than genetic, I'll never know.

I had the unfortunate experience of not only my mother being on diets, but her forcing me to join her. By age 10 I was on diets regularly. I started drinking slimfast shakes before puberty! It totally messed with my head, and actually forced me to "sneak" food when she wasn't around. By highschool I was buying my own weight loss pills, and starving myself with 700-800 calories a day.
She not only gave me the impression that she was unhappy with my body, but told me as much. She would say - if you lose 5 pounds I'll buy you a new sweater, or - you know boys will like you better if you lose 5 or 10 pounds. It promoted an awful body image for me. I don't think i ever had an eating disorder, technically, but even now I still can't look at my body and think it looks beautiful. She never once said I looked pretty, or that I was beautiful - and that was hard for a kid.

She had a vision of how her girls were supposed to look an act. My sister was in therapy for an eating disorder when she was younger, and she didn't get half the pressure that I did from my mom.

I am not angry with my mother, I just know now what I have to do to promote a healthy lifestyle with my future kids, and how not to treat them when it comes to food or body image.

Oh, I forgot to mention - my mother has never been bigger than a size 6 or 8.. and now she is like a 2 or 4... so clearly she has always had to deal with body image issues too...

When I was 14 years old, 5' 4", and 125 pounds, my mom decided I was morbidly obese, and decided she was going to put me on a diet. Her idea of "putting me on a diet" was to forbid me to eat anything sweet (including fruit), and then to order ten boxes of Girl Scout cookies, so she could eat them in front of me and tell me I could have some too if I weren't so fat. When it came time to shop for clothes, she picked out the least flattering things she possibly could for me, and when I once made the mistake of telling her a pair of pants made me look fat, she replied "Well, you ARE." If a relative mentioned that I looked like I'd lost weight, her response would be either "no, actually, she gained [x] pounds this week" or "yeah, but not enough." I spent my entire eighth grade year having a glass of water for lunch in the hopes that I'd lose enough weight to get her off my back.

Later in life, I ended up with a common-law husband who did much the same thing.

What did that do for my body image? I'm 35, 5'4", 160 pounds, and a size 10. I run three days a week. I bike five to twenty miles every single day. I'm not lazy and I know very few normal people consider a size 10 "fat."

Which I have to keep telling myself all day, every day.

Which is very, very hard to do when you have people walking around all over the place who don't hesitate to call a woman with a little bit of a belly "huge" and "disgusting" and "unhealthy" and "ugly" and "lazy" and "fat." Including way too many of the commenters here.

Which is why I don't come here very often. I get enough fat-hate from my own past. I don't need to come here and see it from you.

Anon #21.. I totally understand and empathize with you. It's not fair to force your body issues onto your child - I've been there and it's awful. I'm still not happy with my own body, and I don't know if I ever will be. I try to pick out positive things, and really compliment myself when I look good.
Size 10 is NOT fat. It's actually smaller than average, and you should be proud that you work hard and maintain a healthy physique and heart.
So sorry for what you went thru.

Of course! It would be naive for anyone to think their mother's eating habits and attitudes about food didn't affect them.

Personally, my mother was always on a fad diet, but I was allowed to eat all kinds of junk food. I of course wish my parents had instilled healthier habits.

Great post! A lot of mothers don't realize that their smallest actions can have an enormous impact on their daughters and their self esteem. It happens even before puberty too, just think about all of the things a toddler sees you do and tries to emulate - funny faces you make, the way you eat your food or even those curse words you let slip.

Telling your daughter she is beautiful, both inside and out, is just one piece of helping her to develop a positive body image. Moms can also help promote positive body images to their children by learning to love themselves, by teaching children that healthy people come in all shapes and sizes, and by placing value on talents, interests, and intellect instead of only on physical appearance.