Susan is 22. She is a beautiful, svelte, intelligent and poised young professional. A highly successful young woman who appears to be the picture of health, Susan suffers deep anguish from a debilitating eating disorder that results in a pathological fear of food and of becoming fat. She describes in tormented detail how she experiences parts of her body expanding with every swallow.

A woman at war with her body, her perceptions, beliefs and attitudes about herself are distorted… her beliefs and attitudes about food and weight management are misconceived and misguided. Such attitudes and beliefs, born of misunderstanding, can be responsible for igniting and fueling a clinical eating disorder in a genetically susceptible human being. Our belief system about food is at the very root of the quality of our relationship with food.

Unhealthy attitudes about food, eating and weight control have become rampant. Though clinical eating disorders are relatively speaking, rare, unhealthy attitudes about food, eating and weight management,and the misconceptions that lead to and trigger them, re not. We all are subject to the barrage of misleading and extreme messages dictated by the media and diet industry. In our attempts to do the "right thing," for ourselves and our children, the attitudes and resulting behaviors we have developed around food, eating and weight management are becoming increasingly phobic, excessive, obsessive and unwholesome. So many victims of anorexia, in describing the onset of their disease, say, "I simply started eating healthier… and healthier." Orthorexia is a newly coined term describing an obsession with healthy eating. This definition describes a contradiction in terms as there is nothing obsessive or extreme about truly healthy eating.

The road to Hell is paved with good intentions
In an effort to instill what they consider to be healthy eating habits, parents routinely forbid kids to eat desserts and ban junk foods from their homes. Snack Wells have replaced Oreos in many shopping carts and lunch bags; people are filling their cupboards with lite and fat free. Five- and six-year-old school children, viewing food as the "enemy," are found inspecting nutritional labels on snack items before they eat them.

In a recent study, young girls were quoted as saying that they would prefer to have cancer, lose both their parents, or live through a nuclear holocaust than to be fat. By age 10 to16, 80 percent of girls have dieted, putting children at greater risk to become obese adults and eating disordered. (35 percent of normal dieters become pathological dieters. 25 percent become eating disordered.)

Even in the midst of a dieting nation, 11 million American children are obese or close to it. On American college campuses today, 40 to 50 percent of young women have become disordered eaters. Ironically, as people become increasingly earnest about becoming more fit and living longer, even as they attempt to make a precise science of eating by counting calories, and fat grams, gained and burned… they are becoming less healthy. Despite our best intentions and such draconian measures, we are increasingly a nation at risk.

It is easier to change a mind than to change a habit
By recognizing faulty belief systems and the attitudes that they evoke before they are translated into problem behaviors, we can prevent eating disorders and dysfunctions that are damaging to both mind and body. Eating disorders are the most lethal of all the mental health disorders, maiming and killing approximately 13 percent of their victims, 87 percent of whom are under the age of 20. It is far easier to change a mind than to change an ingrained behaviors, rituals or habits, particularly when they take the form of life threatening clinical eating disorders.

Attitudes and beliefs are conveyed through speaking and example. In developing healthy attitudes about food and eating, and in teaching healthy attitudes to your children, it is critical to:

What is healthy eating?
The word healthy depicts an eating lifestyle that is moderate, balanced and flexible. Healthy eating is the capacity to eat everything, in at least three meals with snacks throughout the day, consisting of a variety of foods including all the food groups. There are no bad foods. What is bad is excess, extremism, compulsivity, and lack of options in how we use food. Human beings get hungry six times a day. Healthy eating satiates that hunger, refuels the body and brain, and sustains optimal growth and learning.

What does it mean to be fit?
There has been a growing trend towards a disconnect between how the body looks (form) and what the body does (function.) Having become a nation focused on physical appearance, we have lost sight of the reality that large or overweight people who exercise regularly and eat well may be as fit and strong physically as lithe and sinewy athletes.

When Susan was a child, she trained for national competitions in figure skating. Skating became her life at a formative time in her development. School days began at 5 am at the rink, and by age 11, her coaches were pressuring her to home school to accommodate a round- the-clock skating lifestyle. "Fit to the nth degree," is how she describes herself during the formative years age 6 to 14. Yet how "fit" is a body that is unable to menstruate regularly, I asked her. How fit is a body that looks good on the outside, but that does not work on the inside?

Parents need to understand that it is healthy, and in fact necessary, for adolescent females to gain 20 percent of their weight in fat. It is essential so that the body can prepare itself to bear children, thereby carrying on the species. Young girls need to understand this as well, despite the contradictory messages sent by society that they need to grow smaller and thinner even as they grow older.

Talking and walking the talk
When it comes to raising children, it is important for parents to make healthy eating part of a daily family routine. Kids need to come to expect that they will eat three healthy prepared meals each day, as a matter of course. Children learn how to eat and how to think about food by modeling after their family. Parents are their child's best teachers, be those kids age 7 or 37. Our grandchildren, too, look to us as role models. When your children observe you, what do they see?

It is important for parents not only to prepare meals, but to sit down and eat them together with your family. Only 50 percent of American families eat dinners together anymore. Mealtime is a perfect time to observe how your child eats, as well as listen and hear what your child is thinking about.

With the overweight child, it is important to understand what part of his or her relationship with food might need changing. The task at hand is not to restrict that child's intake, but to change the quality of foods that are taken in, to help your child learn not how to eat differently, not less. The task too, is to consider how to introduce moderate daily activity into the life of a sedentary youngster.

Healthy attitudes are learned through a healthy parent/child relationship
Finding meaning in life beyond one's own physical appearance is key to developing a healthy relationship with one's own body and self. Don't be afraid to remain emotionally involved with your teenager, despite the misconception that in order to attain autonomy and independence, parents must leave their teens alone. You can expect that the nature of the parent/child connection will change throughout the years and life stages, but the quality and constancy of that connection is for keeps.

Remember that an eating disorder is the misuse of food to resolve emotional problems. By teaching kids to recognize, face and resolve problems effectively, you are essentially guaranteeing that your child will never have any use for the likes of an eating disorder. Healthy eating entails ongoing decision-making, and in some respects, problem-solving. In addition, kids need to become accepting of individual differences, in themselves and others.

True mental and physical health and well-being resides in our attitudes, priorities and values. Its roots lie in what we know and how we communicate to those we love. Parenting is a perfect means through which to pass along the fruits of your healthy attitudes, values and belief systems. It is the surest way to grow your child into a healthfully eating and thinking adult.