Signe Darpinian - Raising Body Positive Teens: A Parents Guide to Diet-Free Living, Exercise, and Body Image

Raising Body Positive Teens is a wonderful resource for parents who want to help their kids develop habits that will lead to true, enduring healthreplacing the harmful and misleading size-focused health that diet culture offers. The expert team of authors offer countless practical ways to develop a friendship with food and body while honoring culinary traditions from around the world. This book breaks down common misconceptions and replaces them with thoughtful, scientifically sound, weight neutral, and body positive lessons that can be deployed that same day.

Jennifer L. Gaudiani, MD, CEDS-S, FAED, Founder and Medical Director of the Gaudiani Clinic and author of Sick Enough: A Guide to the Medical Complications of Eating Disorders

This smart, well-researched book guides parents through every hard conversation and stumbling block were likely to encounter as we work to empower our kids to love and care for their bodies, and to understand the harm caused by anti-fat bias. Im so grateful to have this on my bookshelf!

Virginia Sole-Smith, author of The Eating Instinct

My margin notes had margin notes! I eagerly absorbed the sound wisdom and concrete suggestions in this book, and will be suggesting it to friends, colleagues, and fellow parents for years to come. Raising Body Positive Teens is smart, readable, and endlessly helpful.

Sara Gilliam, co-author of Reviving Ophelia: 25th Anniversary Edition

Raising Body Positive Teens provides parents with practical advice, interactive activities, and real-life examples as they support their children through adolescence. The authors are respected experts with extensive experience in mental health, nutrition, and adolescent medicine.

Jason Nagata, MD, MSc, Assistant Professor of Pediatrics, University of California

How we nurture ourselves and the well-being of our children requires thoughtful awareness. Raising Body Positive Teens is the best go-to book for parents on learning how to support, inspire, and navigate teens toward their best possible selves.

Dan Tomasulo, PhD, author of Learned Hopefulness: The Power of Positivity to Overcome Depression and Academic Director, Spirituality Mind Body Institute Teachers College, Columbia University

This is the book we wish our own parents had read when we were teens, and just the balm todays parents are looking for to navigate the messiness of current day diet culture. Perfect for anyone whose own food and body journey has been on the wobbly side of things and wanting something different for our own young people, this gem will be on my go-to recommended list for many years to come.

Fiona Sutherland, ADP, RYT. Director, The Mindful Dietitian and Host, The Mindful Dietitian Podcast

by the same authors

No Weigh!

A Teens Guide to Positive Body Image, Food, and Emotional Wisdom

Signe Darpinian, Wendy Sterling, Shelley Aggarwal

Foreword by Connie Sobczak

ISBN 978 1 78592 825 3

eISBN 978 1 78450 946 0

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eISBN 978 1 78775 888 9

The Parents Guide to Body Dysmorphic Disorder

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eISBN 978 1 78775 114 9

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RAISING BODY

POSITIVE

TEENS

A Parents Guide to Diet-Free Living,
Exercise, and Body Image

Signe Darpinian, Wendy Sterling,
and Shelley Aggarwal

First published in Great Britain in 2022 by Jessica Kingsley Publishers

An imprint of Hodder & Stoughton Ltd

An Hachette UK Company

Copyright Signe Darpinian, Wendy Sterling, and Shelley Aggarwal 2022

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means without the prior written permission of the publisher, nor be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

Disclaimer: The information contained in this book is not intended to replace the services of trained medical professionals or to be a substitute for medical advice. You are advised to consult a doctor on any matters relating to your health, and in particular on any matters that may require diagnosis or medical attention.

A CIP catalogue record for this title is available from the British Library and the Library of Congress

ISBN 978 1 83997 039 9

eISBN 978 1 83997 040 5

Jessica Kingsley Publishers policy is to use papers that are natural, renewable and recyclable products and made from wood grown in sustainable forests. The logging and manufacturing processes are expected to conform to the environmental regulations of the country of origin.

Jessica Kingsley Publishers

Carmelite House,

50 Victoria Embankment,

London, EC4Y 0DZ, UK

www.jkp.com

We would like to acknowledge those who have assisted us across the lifespan of this project: Anna Lutz, nationally recognized leader and family feeding specialist, for contributing endless hours of her time, her expertise, and her passionate commitment to our diet-free parenting chapter; Riley Nickols, Ph.D., sport psychologist, for sharing his voice and wisdom in our exercise and body image chapters; Dan Tomasulo, Ph.D., author of Learned Hopefulness: The Power of Positivity to Overcome Depression , for generously lending his time and techniques for improving body image through micro-goals and hope; Joanna Steinglass, M.D., professor of psychiatry and the associate director of the Center for Eating Disorders at Columbia University Medical Center and the New York State Psychiatric Institute, for her assistance with infusing the habit-based model throughout our exercise chapter; Meeta Singh, M.D., service chief of sleep medicine, and section head and medical director at the Henry Ford Allegiance Sleep Health Center in Michigan, for sharing her expertise and guidance on sleep science; Margaret R. Hunter, certified eating disorder creative arts therapist and author of Reflections of Body Image in Art Therapy , for her insights on our social media chapter; Elizabeth Scott, co-founder of The Body Positive, for her insights on expanding the definition of beauty and helping people develop balanced, joyful self-care and a relationship with their bodies that is guided by love, forgiveness, and humor; Kristen Meinzer, culture critic and host of the podcast Movie Therapy with Rafer and Kristen, for offering our readers her brilliant insights into becoming critical viewers of the media through movies; Aaron Flores, registered dietitian nutritionist, for his excerpt on reclaiming the word fat, and for his lifes work helping individuals leave behind the world of diets and body shame; Norman Kim, Ph.D., co-founder of Reasons Eating Disorder Center, for offering their lived experiences of food and culture; Virginia Sole-Smith, author of The Eating Instinct: Food Culture, Body Image, and Guilt in America , for fielding questions from parents about diet culture and fatphobia; and Sara Pipher Gilliam, co-author of Reviving Ophelia: Saving the Selves of Adolescent Girls, 25th Anniversary Edition , for her expertise on social media wellness, and for her amazing edits that made our words sing.