What should I if my child is experimenting with diets?

What should I if my child is experimenting with diets?

John Spencer Ellis (Author, TV Show Host, Trainer and CEO, National Exercise & Sports Trainers Association) gives expert video advice on: How can exercise benefit the elderly?; How can I help prevent childhood obesity?; Should my child take medication to help fight their obesity? and more...

If your teenage son or daughter is trying to fit in with his or her peers because they feel that perhaps their physical body is not acceptable to his or her peers, and they're doing things like crash dieting, using laxatives and diuretics, and exercising excessively, first I would have them seek appropriate counselling to find out what's really at the root of it all. After that, they should see a clinical nutritionist or a registered dietician, and a fitness professional. Those three groups of individuals should work together to make sure that they're not contradicting each other, and to make sure that there's a cohesive approach to the exercise, the nutrition and the mental aspect. Then, the parents have to get involved as well. Oftentimes the parents have good intentions. However, the things they're saying about their own body are then transferred to the teen, inappropriately and indirectly, and sometimes unconsciously. The teen adopts those thought processes and feelings, imposes it upon his or herself, and then acts upon it. That's really oftentimes the root of the issues; it's not so much their peers themselves.