Helping Kids & Teens Develop a Healthy Body Image

Episode Transcript

Dr. Nicole Beurkens 

Hi, everyone, welcome to the show. I’m Dr. Nicole, and today we’re going to talk about the topic of body image for our kids, especially those in the tween and teen years. This is an issue that is increasingly on parents’ radars, especially as we hear more about the impact of social media on body image and the increasing body image issues for kids post pandemic. It can be a tricky thing for parents and other adults to know how to best support kids in developing a healthy body image and to understand the differing needs that girls and boys may have around this. I know I’ve been unsure at times how to address this with my own kids, and a lot of you have written in and shared the same challenges and asked us to cover this topic on the show. So to help us understand why healthy body image is so important for our kids and how to support them in this area, I’ve invited Dr. Charlotte Markey on the show today, let me tell you a bit about her.

She’s a world leading expert in body image research, having studied all things body image, eating behavior and weight management for her entire adult life. She’s passionate about understanding what makes us feel good about our bodies, and helping people develop a healthy body image. Charlotte loves to share her body image wisdom with others and is an experienced book author, blogger and professor at Rutgers University. She currently lives in Pennsylvania with her son, daughter, husband and dog, and for fun, she likes to run, travel and read, but often spends her free time nagging her kids to brush their teeth or remove the cups and dishes from their rooms. Charlotte, we can all relate. Welcome to the show. Thank you so much for being here!

Charlotte Markey 

Thank you so much for having me.

Dr. Nicole Beurkens 

So I want to start by having you talk a bit about how this area of research and development became interesting to you. Because I find with all my guests, there’s a reason why we end up focusing on the things that we focus on. So I’m curious for you to share with us what your journey around that has been.

Charlotte Markey 

I think most women, I feel like if you ask them about body image and what they know and what their concerns are, the topic seems to resonate. And I guess it did, especially for me, because I grew up as a ballet dancer, and there was a lot of focus on bodies and what we ate, and a lot of discussion from a very early age in my social surroundings about these issues, and really maladaptive discussion. And so I think this led to more self-consciousness for me as a girl, and then ultimately a woman, about these issues. And I really just tend to deal with some of my own issues by intellectualizing. And so I want to read up, I want to study up, I want to learn. And that’s what I did when I went to college, and then on to grad school. So I think that there’s just always more to study and talk about when it comes to body image. And the topic is evolving. I think there’s been some social change, and there’s reasons to reevaluate some of what we thought we knew a decade ago

Dr. Nicole Beurkens 

It’s really interesting that you raised that, because as I was prepping for the show and sort of reading some of your work and thinking about this, that’s what kept striking me. It was just how much this is even more in public conversation. I mean, obviously, these were big issues when we were growing up, I’m sure when our moms were growing up, parents, but I think there’s more talk about this now. I think the younger generation is more aware of this. There’s more public conversation around the challenges. And certainly, even from the perspective of research and clinical practice, some real shifts that we’ve seen over the last decade or two in terms of, boy, maybe we really have not been approaching this in the best way. Maybe there’s some better ways. Did you feel that way too?

Charlotte Markey 

I do. And that’s what, as an academic, I love about this area of work, is that I think it’s just really complex. It’s really challenging. There’s so much to think about. And it does really matter. Everyone, I think, has some self-consciousness about their appearance. When we talk about body image, we want people to feel comfortable in their own skin. So it’s not completely superficial or appearance based. And yet, how many people do you know who 100% feel comfortable in their own skin? I mean, I don’t really know if anyone does. And so I think it’s an issue for almost everybody, just to varying degrees. And I think that historically, some of what we’ve done to try to improve body image has been to address sort of the superficial issues. And that hasn’t actually worked. And when I say we, I mean, parents, practitioners, researchers. We’ve been thinking about it to a certain extent, incorrectly, for perhaps decades. And I think that in the last decade or so, I really have seen some shifts and people, I think, really getting at it in useful ways.

Dr. Nicole Beurkens 

And I think there’s so many layers when we’re talking about our kids, because there’s the layers of all of our own stuff as parents that we break down, and I want to get into that, but let me back up and have you just frame this up a little bit in terms of when we use the term “body image”, and when you think about that, let’s just be clear with our listeners, what are we talking about there? Because I think you’re right, we think about the superficial stuff, like, “Does my kid feel okay about how they look? Do they feel okay about their weight?” I think body image and weight get conflated a lot. So I’d love to have you just get us all on the same page with that term “body image”. What are we really talking about? And then also, why is this so important for our kids’ development?

Charlotte Markey 

Body image is how we think and feel about our bodies, but again, not just in the superficial sense, because it really is, are we comfortable in our own skin? And body image is so strongly related to our health behaviors, our mental health in general, and it really affects our interpersonal relationships. So when we are not comfortable in our own skin, depending on the degree, people will go to extravagant lengths to become more comfortable, and often maladaptive lengths. And so this is part of why we see body image as just such a strong correlation, of not just eating disorders, but also anxiety, depression, even substance use, and mental health across the board.

Dr. Nicole Beurkens 

I think a lot of people don’t really consider the depths of that. They think about the more superficial things or when we’re talking about kids, them wanting to have certain kinds of clothes or have their hair a certain way. But it goes much deeper to that. And certainly we do see some kids even at younger and younger ages, who feel profoundly uncomfortable in their own skin in every way. And you’re right, it has such an impact then on every part of their behavior: their eating behaviors, their social behaviors, how they relate to us as their parents, their school, learning behavior, like it just really seeps out into everything. And so what you’re saying is that this is critical for us to think about, it’s a big part of our kids developmental journey.

Charlotte Markey 

It’s just a big part of mental health in general. And it also is strongly related to physical health. So I think that when we ignore body image and ignore this sort of, “I’m comfortable with who I am”, or at least comfortable enough, then we’re ignoring, basically, mental health. And it’s tricky, because again, I think it’s something that most people experience, some body dissatisfaction. And we’re not necessarily aiming for perfection, we’re not aiming for everyone to feel like “I’m just perfect all the time. I don’t have a care in the world”, that would be very unrealistic.

Dr. Nicole Beurkens 

We’d be worried about a different type of mental health disorder if that was going on.

Charlotte Markey 

That’s right, but I think some of it has to do with perspective taking and helping young people to appreciate that it’s a little bit normative to feel a little bit uncomfortable, especially in certain circumstances that are developmentally common. And then also, this is not the most important thing about you. So when it comes to the physical piece of it, this is not worth taking up a ton of mental space across your lifespan. During puberty, we expect some of that, I think, as there are so many physical changes that take place. But ultimately, we want young people to appreciate that people don’t want to be their friend because of their clothes and their hair. It’s not a long-term recipe for good relationships. And good relationships are really important, that’s sort of the foundation of a lot of our lives. And so we want kids to appreciate that, yeah maybe now you’re in high school and whatever jeans you’re wearing matters, but in the long term, that’s just one very small piece of who you are. It’s not a particularly interesting piece of who you are. And you can buy nice jeans, but you can also laugh about the fact that sometimes you don’t, or whatever. An important part of this is just sort of perspective ticking, I think, and keeping things not bigger or more important than they really are.

Dr. Nicole Beurkens 

But I think what you’re raising here is the importance of us being in dialogue with kids about this, that in talking about these things, we help them do that perspective taking. When we leave them in a vacuum on their own, or just in the realm of social media, or whatever, their perspective is being shaped by all those other forces, and we really need to play a role in supporting and having dialogue and empathizing, but also maybe doing some perspective shifting and those kinds of things, right?

Charlotte Markey 

Absolutely. And so much of the messaging our kids see is online, it is from social media, it is from peers. A large portion of it is market driven. So it’s not even really about values, it’s people wanting to just sell things, and our kids are always able to discern that, they’re always able to say, “Oh, I keep seeing ads for whatever product because they’re going to make money if I feel like I need that. So it’s kind of marketing 101 to make people feel insecure about some element of themselves, to feel like they need to fix that. And then to think, oh, this product will do that, whether it be clothing or cosmetics or a variety of other items. And so the messaging is very much oriented towards, “You’re not okay how you are, you need to do things to become more socially acceptable”, essentially. And that costs money. And as parents, I think we really need to be clear and counter a lot of that and give our kids the strong sense that, no, you are okay the way you are. Sure, of course, some of these products we all invest in, that’s just how most of us feel. You should be able to take or leave some of it.

Dr. Nicole Beurkens 

I think as adults, we struggle with that in the realm of social media and what’s in our feed and what advertising comes our way, right? I mean, you’re right, these are whole industries based on making us all feel badly about ourselves in one or more ways such that we’ll purchase something. And I think that gets to some of the trickiness of this when we’re parents, and seeing some of these things with our kids and wanting to support and address it with them. Also having some of our own struggles around that, and that gets tricky. And so I’d love to hear you talk a bit about that connection, how parent modeling plays a role, how our own understanding and addressing of these things for ourselves, both directly and indirectly influences our kids in this way.

Charlotte Markey 

I often say that there’s no better reason to try to sort of address your own issues than to benefit your kids. And I think certainly, when it comes to body image and our related behaviors, whether it be eating or activity, or any other sort of self care behavior, a lot of adults have some work they could do. And in many cases, that’s because what we do know now in terms of the research is that how most of us were raised, and specifically directed, as far as a lot of these issues go, is basically the opposite of what we should be doing. So many of us grew up in households where it’s like, “You must eat this in order to have dessert, you must clear your plate,” a high emphasis placed on girls’, especially, appearance, and the importance of appearance, and the importance of looking a certain way. And there’s really been some evolution in my understanding, and I think also our parenting, and that a lot of moms now, especially, feel it’s pretty important to tell their daughters, “You can be anything”, to make them feel empowered because of their intellect and abilities, not because of their appearance. So there’s been a lot of evolution. And yet there’s still more work to do. And it’s still really hard, because as much as we don’t want to become our own parents, we’re constantly fighting that, I think. And even as someone who spends my entire professional life thinking about these issues, I have heard the words leave my mouth, like “Are you really eating that?” Or “Are you leaving the house wearing that?” saying the sorts of things we heard that it’s just not really constructive parenting surrounding these issues. Because it’s really hard, right? We want to have control over our kids’ health and who they’re becoming, and it can be really hard to just kind of let them do their own thing sometimes or to just be supportive. These are tricky issues.

Dr. Nicole Beurkens 

Well, I’m glad you brought that up, because I think for those of us in the field doing clinical work, it’s easy for people to say, “Oh, well, this is easy for you. You do it…”, it’s like, no, we still screw this up all the time, too. It’s just we’re maybe more aware of it because we know what is the better thing to do. But I think just to normalize that for people, we’re not always going to get this or anything else, right. I think one of the things you touched on there that I think is something that more adults are aware of now is shifting from talking about food and dietary intake and eating, shifting from a focus of that related to diet and weight to more of a health focus: What helps us feel good, what supports our health. And that, I think, is such an important shift because for years, you were talking about your own experience, the focus was on “Eat this/don’t eat this, because you don’t want to get fat, you don’t want to have a weight issue”, or even watching parents, moms in particular, go through years and years of dieting and those kinds of things. And so, that does get ingrained. But I think I hear more parents now talking about that in terms of being concerned about health or those things, because we know that it is not effective and not helpful to link our talking about food to weight, correct? Just to be clear about that for people, that’s not something we want to be doing with our kids.

Charlotte Markey 

Absolutely. So much of our weight is really genetically based. And so this idea that we can control our weight or that our bodies are just infinitely malleable. It’s really a cultural myth. And again, it’s a cultural myth that’s born, in part, out of marketing, right? You know, the diet industry is a multibillion-dollar industry. And they sell a product that doesn’t work. They rely on the fact that it doesn’t work because it keeps people coming back for more, right?

Dr. Nicole Beurkens 

There’s always another book, pill, exercise regimen, something to buy.

Charlotte Markey 

There’s always something to buy. And we’re much better off divorcing all discussion of eating from diet culture. Eating is fuel, it’s comfort, it’s family. It’s many things. Yes, it contributes to our health, but that’s just one thing. And I think also, sometimes people overtalk about some of this. That’s strange to say, because I’m sure like you as a psychologist, I usually say talk to your kids about everything, talk too much. They’re not always listening. But I think especially at different developmental phases, this idea that we need to sort of micromanage and discuss nutrients is just unfounded. It’s not really…

Dr. Nicole Beurkens 

Well, it can really backfire. Especially like you said, that phase of development, tweens a little bit, but certainly, in the teen phase, they’re in that natural phase of “If you, as my mom or dad, says the sky is blue, I’m going to kind of say it’s orange, regardless of what it is”, that’s just that normal phase. And so I think you’re right. When we over focus on some of these things related to eating, or to what they’re wearing, or any of these things, they’re naturally going to have an inclination to just push back on that because that’s a developmental phase. And so I think you’re right, we’re better off just sort of treading lightly, raising things when we need to, and otherwise just backing off on some of this.

Charlotte Markey 

Right. And clearly as parents, we have a responsibility in certain circumstances, right? If we think our kid is abusing drugs or something, we’re going to back off and let it work itself out. But food is not a drug, and one poor outfit choice isn’t usually going to lead to a dire outcome. And so sometimes, it’s better to resist the urge to say too much, and to let kids sort of figure some of this out on their own, to be a soft place to land, to let them feel supported, again, to be the voice in their head, telling them that they’re wonderful and accepted and don’t need to change themselves. And then I think what often happens is when you say less, and you are the supportive parent about some of this, kids don’t feel the need in the same way to assert themselves by whether it’s leaving the house in some sort of skimpy outfit or insisting on getting fast food because they can drive now or whatever it may be. It’s just not a rebellious act anymore.

Dr. Nicole Beurkens 

Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. I want to get into this issue of different needs that girls and boys have around this. You’ve written two books, a separate book for girls and for boys. I want to hear more about that and why you felt that was so important, and what we as parents need to understand about maybe the different ways to approach this, because I think historically, this issue we’re talking about with body image has been pinned on girls, right? This is something we need to focus on with girls. But we know that boys also have needs in this area. So I’m really interested to hear more about that.

Charlotte Markey 

Yeah, so the body image book for girls came out in 2020, and as I was working on that book and discussing it with my editor, we had always planned to have a book for boys as well. And there’s a lot of overlap in the content in both books. The reason we decided on two books was in part because I discussed puberty in both books, and the processes are different, and the concerns are different. And when it comes to body image, there are some overlapping, but also some distinct concerns. So the boys book just came out a few months ago. And a lot of it is the same, but not all of it. And what comes up a lot more for boys is concerns about muscularity and size, and so we just don’t see girls as worried about bulking up, being bigger, getting more muscular. And we see that as a real primary concern for boys.  And in fact, part of why the field didn’t really address body dissatisfaction among boys for so many years is because we really weren’t asking them the right questions, so there was literally no body image research before the 1980s. And then this sort of grew up alongside the eating disorder research, and we were asking girls about desired weight loss, mostly. And if you ask boys those questions, a lot of them say “I don’t want to lose weight.” And I think for far too long, researchers and clinicians thought, “Well, okay, we don’t have a problem here for boys, we don’t have to worry about this one thing.” But when you ask slightly different questions, you get really different answers and you realize there’s a lot of insecurity when it comes to body image, and that whole issue of being comfortable in their skin is very much there for both girls and boys.

Dr. Nicole Beurkens 

Yeah, I mean, I have seen that, both as a parent of three boys and a daughter, but also professionally working with kids for so many years. I think it’s more normalized for girls to talk about those issues or raise those issues or even for us to raise it with them. I think there still is a lot of stigma around these things for boys and men, that these aren’t issues that you should be having. If you’re feeling insecure about this, certainly don’t say anything about it. And so we don’t raise it with them, but I think it’s very true, they have as many concerns and challenges around that. It’s just not as normalized to talk about it. And I’m thinking about, particularly, I’m curious about your take on this, one of the things that I’ve noticed, and I think this is relevant for all of you raising kids in these sort of tween and teen years, the difference in the developmental trajectory in those years is part of what makes all of this so challenging at that age. You’ve got girls and boys who start that puberty process much earlier and are developing and maybe full grown even before they really hit middle school, and then you’ve got our sort of — we refer to them as late bloomers. This whole range of timelines along which physical development and change occurs, I’ve noticed, really plays into the way that kids perceive themselves, the way that they feel about their body, the comparisons they make. And I think that can be something that we don’t address enough with them, around understanding that they’re in this state where yes, you and your classmates, you’re all over the board, and eventually it does even out. But boy, in those years, it’s a tough thing.

Charlotte Markey 

I mean, it really is about a decade where development can be occurring. And I think, very often, for boys, especially, the process just seems kind of slower and longer, it starts later. Boys can still get taller in college. It’s pretty unlikely for girls. In fact, a lot of girls are done growing in terms of height before they even start high school. But yeah, the process can be protracted, it’s asynchronous, things don’t all go in the same order for everyone. And so much of the concerns that young people develop when it comes to body image are based on social comparison, right? That’s sort of how we try to assess how we are doing, we look around to our peers. And if we are a late bloomer, or we are an early developer for that matter, our peer group may be not a reassuring group to confer with, in terms of trying to make sense of how we’re doing, and if we are “normal”, even much less doing well. And so I do think it’s important for parents to offer information that’s evidence based, and to try to really normalize some discussion about puberty and change, and this is just what happens now and you can’t really control it. If you have questions, let me know, or here’s a resource; this is why the books can be really valuable, because kids and parents don’t always want to talk about every detail. In a perfect world, we would, and you and I are comfortable doing that because this is what we do professionally. But that doesn’t necessarily mean our kids are super comfortable, always. I’ve certainly had my kids say to me, “Mom, you are like the last person I want to talk with”, whatever it may be about. I’m like, “Okay, well, just so you know, I’m here for you. But don’t over rely on TikTok as your source of information, please.

Dr. Nicole Beurkens 

Great. Hey, let’s talk about that for a minute. I think that’s the big elephant in the room that a lot of adults wonder about at this point. We read things in the popular media about the negative impacts that social media has on this. I think I certainly clinically have been seeing it more and more, where I’ll work with a kid for a while, and eventually it comes out that some of the stuff that they’re seeing or the amount of time they’re spending on certain types of accounts or whatever — I’m curious about your take on that, and then, what do you feel like parents need to be aware of and maybe even doing from a strategy standpoint to help kids with that? Because this is really the first generation of kids who were dealing with this around. This wasn’t a factor when we were kids. And so it’s hard as a parent to know. We don’t have our own experience of it to look back to. So I’d love to hear your take on that.

Charlotte Markey 

Absolutely. I think that parents are, in some ways, terrified of social media because of what we hear, and because our kids just spend way too much time on social media, and that includes my kids. And it’s a really tricky area in terms of parenting. I think what’s valuable to know, though, is that in research, some of which I’ve conducted in my lab at Rutgers University, we do see that it matters what kids are doing on social media. And so it’s not just about the fact that it’s a time suck, which it is, or that it’s a distraction from potentially other useful things, like doing their homework, but it really does matter if they are communicating with their friends. Are they engaging in popular culture in some ways that are meaningful to them, as an expression of creativity? Are they getting information that’s actually accurate? All of this is to say that there’s some value, often, in what they’re doing, that kids are really well informed about a variety of topics because of their access to information that certainly we didn’t have. I mean, if you compare it to the set of encyclopedias I had in my house growing up, there’s just no comparison. That was outdated before it was printed. And I wasn’t conferring with it regularly. And so I think we have to be really careful in thinking that it’s all evil. And that’s not the case. And also, we’re not going to get rid of it. I think it’s here. So it becomes, how do we sort of tame the beast? And in some of my research, I do find that it’s really when young people are engaging in sort of beauty related, appearance related social media, whether that be a beauty tutorial, or even some of the fitness stuff, it’s really kind of maladaptive.

Dr. Nicole Beurkens 

So we want to be aware of what they’re spending their time on, not just how much time they’re spending?

Charlotte Markey 

Exactly. Because we don’t see links in some of my work with social media use and body image, if it’s just like, “Oh, I’m messaging my friends”, or “I kind of like to watch some things”, that doesn’t seem to be particularly harmful. And I think one of the best things parents can do, as they let their kids have access to social media, is to really do some early monitoring and conversation. So your kid, you allow them to download Instagram on their phone or tablet, maybe let them have a few days or a week of playing with it, and then sit down and ask them to explain to you who they’re following and why, or just try to approach it with curiosity, and try to offer a little bit of a feedback and guidance like, “Well, why that person?” We want to try to steer them away from too much of celebrity culture and influencer culture, and sort of the marketing culture. And if they’re connecting more with friends, family, maybe other sort of more academic interests, even, there seems to be much more value there. And, and so we just want to kind of have a sense of what they’re doing. There’s also some really great recent research suggesting that kids actually sometimes are kind of relieved or glad when parents exert some controls, whether it be certain parts of the day, expect your phone to be off or away. Or even small things like at dinner, no one’s on their phone or during homework time or bedtime, or whatever it may be. It’s really interesting to see kids admit that they don’t have the self-control, sometimes, that they want to. And I mean, think about it, as adults, I don’t always have the self-control I want to. If my mind wanders or I need a break from something else I’m doing, and all of a sudden, I’m back on social media too. It’s really captivating and it’s really easy, then all of a sudden, 20 minutes go by. So I think that not saying “Oh, we’re eliminating it in an unrealistic way or a way that may disadvantage kids in terms of connecting with their peers, but helping to create some boundaries.

Dr. Nicole Beurkens 

It really comes back to awareness and ongoing conversation about it. I want to circle back, you mentioned earlier when we were talking about how tricky this can be for parents because we have our own issues. I think we touched on a couple of things that sort of fall in the category of don’ts. Things that we know are unhelpful. Like talking with our kids about going on a diet or eating for weight loss or something like that, harping on every little decision they’re making about what they’re wearing and how they’re doing something and what they’re eating. I’m curious if there are some other things that you have seen in your research or in your work that parents — and I want to acknowledge, this can be with the best of intentions, that well intentioned parents say or do in this arena that actually are not real helpful to helping our kids develop a positive body image. Are there some others that you noticed?

Charlotte Markey 

I think how we model and talk about both masculinity and femininity is really important, because even though we like to think that we have moved, as adults, beyond sort of gender role stereotypes, in many ways, oftentimes, we fall back into old, old habits or we will say something to our son, like, “Well walk it off/Don’t be a sissy/man up”, or whatever. This is all reinforcing sort of a strength-based masculinity, which manifests in terms of boys then often feeling like it’s important to be big and muscular. And it’s not just about the psychological but also the physical manifestation of masculinity. And for girls, that can kind of be the opposite, in terms of almost inadvertently socializing them to take up less space, to be small and petite and weaker. And I think that women and moms are pretty self-aware across the board about these issues, and we’ve seen just so much more social change for women in the last generation. But sometimes we still will say something, whether it is just commenting on someone else’s size, other women. We have to be careful. I think, too, we have to be really careful about just appearance culture, in general. There’s always going to be something else we can all do to change our appearance, right? And yet, most of those things that we can buy or whatever, won’t change that much actually, there are real limits.

Dr. Nicole Beurkens 

Yeah, so to be aware of what we’re modeling, even in terms of our own behaviors around appearance, size, all of that. I think a big one is the comments that kids hear us making. I think often we don’t realize that, right? It’s an offhanded thing, it’s automatic, or we don’t think they’re paying attention or whatever. But they hear and observe how we are talking about and engaging just with our own bodies and appearances. And that can have a big impact.

Charlotte Markey 

Yeah, and many of us grew up with parents who were dieting, or who were saying, “Oh, I feel so fat/I can’t wear this”, or whatever. And it can really require self-restraint to not fall into those same patterns, because it’s not that we don’t have those thoughts. But I think it’s really important to challenge those thoughts, to try to think them less, but also definitely not to articulate them, because we don’t want that for our kids. We don’t want our kids to be agonizing over an outfit choice or feeling like they’re just a little bit too big for some particular trend. We just want them to be spending their time and emotional energy on other things. And as someone who was a dancer, I sometimes do feel a little bit resentful. I feel like I lost so much mental space growing up, because people were forcing me to think about my appearance and my weight, my body. I just really hope my kids don’t feel that way, I hope the next generation of kids, across the board, feel like people care about their sense of humor, care about their academic performance, people care about their athletics, and their interests and just a host of other things, and that who they are as people should affect how comfortable they are in their skin, not just the sort of outward physical shell.

Dr. Nicole Beurkens 

I want to touch on one more thing before we wrap up, because I’m going to have you share with people about the books, because these books are going to be tremendously helpful for our listeners. But one thing I think that parents struggle with is sort of, where is the line between “Okay, my kids are teenagers, they’re struggling with these things. I’ve seen some of this. This is just part of this space of development”, and “Okay, we’ve now crossed over into something that actually seems very problematic and very unhealthy, and it’s actually a problem we need to do something about.” I find that a lot of parents really struggle, and a lot of times, clinically what we see, at least in our practices, by the time parents are finally bringing their kids in, we are so far down the line now into really intense dysfunction and even life or death kinds of issues. But I think it’s hard for a parent to know: Where’s that line? I’m wondering if you have some insight to share with people around, maybe how they can tell, “Okay, this is a normal part of development, we’re going to get through this”, versus “Oh, I think I need to really get some support or help for my child around this”?

Charlotte Markey 

I would say it’s always better safe than sorry, in terms of getting support sooner rather than later. Exactly what you’ve said your experiences are, are similar for me, and that too often, parents wait too long. And there’s a couple of reasons for that. Because we have a lot of cultural myths about adolescence being sort of unnecessarily chaotic and traumatic and then also I think as parents, when we go and get help for our kid, it feels like an admission that we’ve done something wrong, like we couldn’t handle this on our own. And that feels bad, and I’ve been there, and I understand that. And if you can get the support in sooner rather than later, it can just be so much more effective. And we want to think about it in terms of helping to set our kids up for the rest of their lives. So one, we want them to learn to ask for help, get help, kind of as soon as you think you might need it. I feel like that’s such a valuable life lesson. Then also we want our kids to know that professional guidance can be valuable when it comes to your body image, your self-esteem. It doesn’t have to be, “Oh, I have a real clinical problem and I feel suicidal now.” Everyone deserves help and support, and it doesn’t have to be really serious. As a parent, I think when we start to see sort of daily behaviors being impacted, in the realm of body image a lot of times, it’s kids engaging in a lot of physical activity or cutting out whole food groups. And there are literally TikTok trends that encourage some of this, and so even just really strict veganism sometimes can become a maladaptive path really quickly. And now if your kid says some celebrity or influencer is doing this, and they’re going to do it, and it lasts for 24 hours, then it’s probably… we don’t need to completely overreact. But if it’s a couple of weeks into it and you’re worried your kid’s not eating enough, and it’s just really disruptive to your household and their social life, they don’t want to go out with friends because they’re not eating certain things, then I would get a counselor, even if it’s a school counselor, someone maybe that the kid has access to anyways, involved sooner rather than later, because I’m sure you can speak to this even better than I can, because you spent more time in practice than me, but sometimes even a few visits at that stage, you can kind of nip something in the bud, verses if you wait until a child has a full blown eating disorder, then we have to start talking about physiological stability, inpatient treatment. It’s a really different regimen, and it’s much more serious.

Dr. Nicole Beurkens 

No, I agree. I think getting some support, and sometimes I think people think that going to therapy or putting your kid in therapy or getting some counseling appointments is this long, drawn out thing. I mean, it can be, depending on the needs and issues, but it can also be, as you said, a few sessions, sometimes of just another adult who has rapport with them, providing some accurate information, some strategies for that, and then that’s that. That supports them through that period of whatever they’re going through. So I think yeah, especially with this stuff, because letting it go, if you’re starting to see that it’s impacting your child’s daily functioning, those sorts of activities of daily living, anything that’s impacting their eating, their sleeping, their willingness or ability to connect with other people, their mood, those are things to say, “Okay, let’s, let’s talk about this.” And if you’re talking about it and doing what you know to do, and you’re still seeing issues, yeah, it’s best to have them connect with somebody around that, to try to avoid it going down a path of becoming really severe. I think your books are a great resource for parents to open these conversations or to put some of the good, factual, accurate information in the hands of kids. And so I’d love to have you briefly just share, you’ve got the two of them. What ages are they best for? Is there a way that you think these are best used? Is it the kind of book where it’s like, leave it on the bedside table and let them do it? Is it something that we should be looking at with our kids? What do you think?

Charlotte Markey 

I think in terms of the ages, parents know their own kids. And I’m also of the belief that it’s better to start these conversations early and often. So I would make a book available, perhaps to a child, before some parents might want to. I would say, as soon as eight or nine for some kids. I think it can be really useful to read along with your kid if they’re at that younger end. And then if there’s certain pages you want to skip, that’s fine, come back to them, you can move around. Parents tell me all the time that they learn things from these books. So I think that even though they aren’t parenting books per se, they’re meant for the child, I think that they can be really beneficial to parents. And I think if you have an older kid, they’re not going to sit with you at 15.

Dr. Nicole Beurkens 

Please don’t try to do that.

Charlotte Markey 

And so if they’re 15 or 16, they may kind of laugh at you, because they may think, “Oh, I already know all of this.” But yeah, leave it in the room, because you’ll be surprised how often then you’ll see that book move around the room. When I gave the final draft to my own son, who’s now 16, I put all these little sticky notes all over it because it was kind of a joke between us. Also, I wanted to make it really easy for him to see what the stuff about sex is, about muscles is. And he laughed at me because he knows what I do, and he’s been hearing about some of this since he can remember. But I do really, really believe in empowering our kids with evidence-based information. It’s just something that’s so important to me, especially as the misinformation culture grows. We don’t ever want it to be that our kids are making poor choices because they’re poor information.

Dr. Nicole Beurkens 

That’s right. And I think that’s why it’s so important that someone like you, who has spent so much of your career researching and understanding these things, writes these kinds of books, because as parents, we can’t be experts on all these topics. So tell people the names of both of the books, and then also where they can get them and where they can get more information about you and your work as well.

Charlotte Markey 

So the web pages are pretty easy. It’s the bodyimagebookforgirls.com, and thebodyimagebookforboys.com. The books are on Amazon and everywhere you can buy books. I do have a third book in the series coming out, not till 2024. So that’s going to be for slightly older kids. But I have been working on that as well. So that’ll all end up linked to those web pages. If you have an older kid, I’m thinking of you too. And information about me, articles I’ve written, those are all linked on those web pages.

Dr. Nicole Beurkens 

Awesome. Yep, nice, easy URLs. I encourage all of you who have kids in these age ranges and are thinking about these topics, I would say even if your kids are not quite in this age range yet, but you just want to kind of arm yourself with some good information and pre-thinking about it, pick those books up and let them be a great resource in your parenting library. Charlotte, I really appreciate the work you’re doing around this and putting it into a format that all of us can benefit from. So thank you for that and thank you for spending time with us today. Really appreciate you being here.

Charlotte Markey 

Thank you. It’s been really great to talk with you.

Dr. Nicole Beurkens 

And thanks as always to all of you for being here and for listening. We’ll catch you back here next time.