This is because the problem is widespread and worsening. Lerer says the dual pressure around appearances and academic performance are among the key causes. “It used to be that girls needed to look good, which was pressure enough. Now they also have to achieve well in school.” In addition, she says girls are constantly bombarded with images from the internet, television and social media, while the high value placed on food within the Jewish community can simply exacerbate the stress that causes.
Every Friday night, we’re all around food. And then there are all the festivals – it’s such a big part of our culture
“Every Friday night, we’re all around food. And then there are all the festivals – it’s such a big part of our culture.”
As others have reported, there was a noticeable upturn in anorexia during lockdown. Lerer believes it was because youngsters were forced to stay at home, leading to feelings of powerlessness. The one area they still had control over was what they ate, and for some this provided an outlet of sorts. Dismissed by some as fad dieting gone wrong, anorexia has the highest mortality rate of any psychiatric illness so needs to be taken very seriously. Stories like Rebecca’s all too often end in tragedy. Lerer says early intervention is key, but parents can be unsure how to respond to a change in eating habits for fear of making things worse by drawing attention to it.
But maybe a new book will give them the words they think they lack. In How to Talk to Children about Food, Dr Anna Colton provides a common sense guide through the emotional quagmire of disordered eating. Despite its title, it’s not just a “How To” book, but an examination of the confusing and mixed messages our culture generates about food, and how these can fuse with parents’ own personal, emotional issues to create a toxic cocktail. Or as she puts it: “It’s about how we as a society are pretty screwed up around food, and how we as parents inadvertently pass our baggage onto our kids.”
Helping hands: Dr Anna Cotton (far left) and and Noa Girls founder Naomi Lerer with (right) Tzipi Hotovely, former ambassador to the UK[Missing Credit]
The book distils some complex ideas into a readable form, and comes with what it is probably wrong to call “bite-sized” chunks of advice at the end of each chapter – though even Dr Colton calls these “Takeaways”. Maybe food references are simply, cough, baked into our language.
As Dr Colton is a clinical psychologist who has years of experience at Great Ormond Street Hospital, the Tavistock and the Priory clinic, we shouldn’t be surprised that her analysis hits the mark. Despite the efforts of the “body positive” movement to persuade us otherwise, our society is wedded to the idea that thin is good and fat is bad, that fruit, vegetables and the so-called “superfoods” confer virtue. Anything ultra-processed is at worst toxic, at best a pleasurable sin – an attitude summed up by the slogan “naughty but nice” coined by novelist Salman Rushdie in the 1970s to advertise fresh cream cakes.
In her new book Dr Colton demonstrates how we pass on these “moral values” about food to our children. By saying “you can’t have dessert unless you eat all your vegetables”, or “you’ve been such a good girl today – here’s a treat for you”, we are implicitly giving some foods emotional labels. Worse still, we may add “Mummy’s on a diet, so she can’t eat that,” imparting the lesson that women need to watch their weight.
And even if they don’t learn this from their parents, children will likely absorb it from elsewhere. Whatever faith or identity we profess, Dr Colton thinks “the predominant culture is diet culture”.
She believes that amid the emotional and physiological turmoil of adolescence, pressures around appearance can make some youngsters particularly prone to eating disorders, especially if they or their family are dealing with other difficult issues.
To troubled teens, the numbing effect of starving oneself can seem attractive. “In terms of managing difficult emotions, starvation works really well in the immediate moment, because what it does is suppress all of the emotions you’re feeling at the time, as you start to become fixated on food. At the beginning you feel really in control. ‘Oh, I’m doing so well, and I’ve made these changes, and I feel good in my body.’”
So far, so uncontroversial, perhaps. But Colton also believes that apparently positive messages about exercise and healthy eating can inadvertently be just as dangerous. She points at the explosion of online fitness programmes during lockdown, most of which came with nutrition advice, encouraging followers to weigh their food and measure their bodies. She believes that the adoption of this kind of regime by youngsters can be the beginning of a slippery slope. And it’s worrying that in an arena that requires sensitivity and expertise, some of the most popular disseminators of this material are unqualified “influencers”.
There’s no simple solution. Dr Colton recommends parents begin by understanding their own emotional issues around food, then learn to speak to their children about feelings and the bodily changes of adolescence. Above all, they should find other ways of rewarding and disciplining, and keep conversations about eating emotionally neutral at every stage of a child’s development.
Maybe if we all did this, we could slowly begin to change wider attitudes. “I wanted to write something that really made a bit of a call for societal change and parental engagement in a way that no other single book out there does,” she says.
This volume will certainly help many parents and children, but probably wouldn’t have helped Rebecca and her family. They needed professional help and eventually got it at Noa Girls. “I wish I would have found this sooner,” says her mother Miriam now, praising the charity’s warmth, compassion and empathy. After her daughter’s very first session she came home saying, ‘They got me Mum, they absolutely understood me.’”
Now, Rebecca is in a much better place. “The smile on her face when she comes back [and says] that she’s gained weight is wonderful. And she’s doing it for herself, she’s doing it for her future.”
* Names have been changed to respect confidentiality
How to Talk to Children About Food by Dr Anna Colton is published by Leap
noagirls.com
Children’s Mental Health Week 2026 begins on February 9
