HEALTH
A new study indicates that normal weight and underweight teenage girls who falsely believe they are overweight may succumb to unsafe weight-loss behaviours.
A new study indicates that normal weight and underweight teenage girls who falsely believe they are overweight may succumb to unsafe weight-loss behaviours.
"Body-image distortion appears to be a more discriminating indicator of distress than body dissatisfaction, but it's not something that's typically screened for by health-care providers," said University of Illinois expert Janet M Liechty.
"Usually, teens and their parents only get weight-related feedback from the doctor when the child is overweight. But kids of any weight can struggle with body-image, and poor body-image can negatively affect medical outcomes in ways we often don't recognize," she added.
Liechty's research involved studying three types of weight-loss behaviours - exercise, dieting, and extreme ways of losing weight such as laxatives, diet pills and purging. If the teens perceived themselves to be overweight when they actually were not, the discrepancy was flagged as overestimation, or body-image distortion.
"What this means is, a girl with a distorted body-image is at much greater risk for resorting to unsafe dieting and extreme weight-loss methods than a girl without body-image distortion, even if she doesn't need to lose weight," Liechty said.
Liechty stressed on the need to identify such trends in teenage girls as early as possible before they resorted to unnecessary dieting and unsafe weight-loss methods that may lead to eating disorders, depression and high-risk behaviours among adolescent girls.
"Parents can encourage healthy eating and exercise habits from the start by leading by example, but if teens want to lose weight, parents should take them to the doctor or health-care professional and discuss how much they should lose, at what pace, and how to do it safely in a careful, planned way," she said.
"The key is to cultivate a positive, realistic, and appreciative relationship with your body regardless of your weight, then get support to develop eating and activity habits that balance input and output, and that you can live with for long time," Liechty added.
The research is published in the Journal of Adolescent Health.
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