Military children are often praised for being strong and resilient, but that doesn’t mean they are immune to the impacts of diet culture, both generally and within the military.
Quite the opposite, in fact. While experiencing and being influenced by diet culture is not the same as having an eating disorder, the former can lead to the latter, especially for military children who are under extreme amounts of stress and pressure.
Recent data found that the rate of eating disorder diagnoses among 2,534 military dependents increased by nearly 65 percent from 2016 to 2021. Let’s talk about how diet culture can contribute to this increase and lead to other adverse mental health challenges for military children.
What is Diet Culture?
Diet culture is a set of collective cultural expectations telling the population that a smaller body is more worthy with the false promise that our lives will be more fulfilled by being thinner. No matter when it was said or what was said, for many people, this messaging plants a seed about how others view their bodies, and it's happening to our children too.
For example, do you remember the first time you heard a family member talk about someone’s body? Maybe you were in a dressing room with your mom while she tried on clothes, or sitting at dinner with your uncle who made a comment about someone walking by your table.
Even worse, maybe it is your body that was the topic of conversation. Were you encouraged to join Weight Watchers at a young age? Is “wow you’ve lost/gained so much weight!” the first thing that your family comments when you walk in the door on leave? Were you praised for “bouncing back” after you gave birth or told that you had let yourself go (the latter happens quite often, unfortunately)?
This was the version of diet culture that many of us have likely experienced all our lives, starting at a young age. Now, this focus on weight and body has become even more intense thanks to social media and a heightened focus on thinness and “wellness.” The conversation is becoming more subtle and even more dangerous because diet culture is just becoming the “norm.” And yet, it’s disrupting many people’s relationship with food and their body. Military children are not immune to this.
Diet culture and disordered eating behaviors have shifted away from the 1900’s and early millennial “Slimfast” era. Many parents are not focusing on how thin their children are. The new emphasis is on food: what is “healthy, whole foods, clean, processed, toxic, poison, and an additive.” This is the assigning of morality and fear to foods all in the name of “wellness.” This can present itself in the form of restrictive dieting like intermittent fasting, Paleo, Keto, or Whole 30.
What Does This Have to Do With Military Kids?
Diet culture becomes a mental health issue when it starts impacting the way someone lives and their behaviors. It leads to stress, anxiety, fear, and more. For example, hyper-fixation of a food’s level of “cleanness” both in the home and on social media can increase the need for mental health support and escalate chances of developing an eating disorder. Unfortunately, military children have a hard time accessing the mental health support they need.
Issues With Mental Health Support for Military Children
The 2022 Military Family Lifestyle Survey by Blue Star Families reported some alarming information about military children: 43 percent rated at least one of their children’s mental health as “fair,” “poor,” or “very poor.”
When it came to access to mental health care for military kids: “16 percent with at least one child in grades K-12 reported that they would like their child to receive mental health care, but such care was not being provided.” In recent years, receiving appropriate specialist care (regardless of the diagnosis) has become difficult.
We can infer that this lack of care comes from things that are related to military life: moving, long provider wait list times, and lack of a consistent support system make continuity of care for military kids very difficult. This is especially true if a military child is experiencing an acute mental health crisis in a location where there are few providers or the child has not needed mental health specialists before.
Finding the appropriate care becomes increasingly difficult. Both military spouses and military kids are diagnosed with eating disorders at a rate three times higher than their civilian peers. 21% of female adolescent dependents of military personnel met the criteria for disordered eating behaviors such as: binging, purging, and/or restrictive eating. At the multi-service level, the rate of disordered eating is significantly higher than that of the civilian population. PMID: 31593352
The Connection Between Diet Culture, Mental Health, and Disordered Eating
Military kids are left to absorb information about their bodies, food, and fitness from their families, peers, and social media thanks to:
A lack of appropriate care for military kids and teens.
The fact that many cases go unreported in that population.
The DoD’s refusal to acknowledge or provide a statement on the appropriate care for recognizing disordered eating.
Although disordered eating does not cause eating disorders, it can lead to them. Given that military children endure a higher-stress childhood than their civilian counterparts, they “appear to be at a greater risk of disordered eating than their military counterparts” (PMID: 33373856).
By addressing the false narrative that diet culture plants in the minds of military children, we can help mitigate the unintended consequences and potentially harmful outcomes..
Mitigating the Impact of Diet Culture Starts at Home
Parental influence, peer comparison, and mass media promotion are noted as the most significant factors in a child or adolescent’s participation in disordered eating (2022. Weiss. Fad Diets and Adolescents). With the increased stressors of military life, the need for coping strategies and control in a child’s life can increase these disordered behaviors.
A 2022 study indicates that military children who struggle to identify and describe feelings correlate to increased risks of disordered eating (including binge eating) and depression (PMID: 35852767).
While we might not be able to immediately address the issues of healthcare for military children—and the overall pervasiveness of diet culture—we can make changes at home. Here are a few ways parents and caregivers can minimize the impact of diet culture at home.
Unpack your own biases about body weight stigma. If you are speaking poorly about our own bodies, others' bodies, what we eat, and how we eat, our kids will absorb that information. You have to assess your own relationship with diet culture in order not to pass it on to the next generation.
Keep conversations away from bodies. Whether a body is small or large, the way you discuss our bodies or other’s bodies in your home can play a role in how children see their own bodies. Setting boundaries with family members and friends about how they comment on your child’s body also helps kids feel safe about their bodies within their own homes.
Take the morality away from foods. Teaching kids that there is room for all foods in their diet helps keep food neutral and not something that should be restricted as punishment or given as a reward.
Know who your kids are following and idolizing online. As a certified personal trainer, I spend much of my time debunking false information shared by “fitfluencers.” You know that the content we follow is curated—but do our kids know that? Discussing tactics used by fitfluencers to sell programs or supplements can help your kids understand what they’re consuming and buy less into diet culture.
Diet Culture Books for Parents
As parents, we are also influenced by diet culture. Even while dealing with the ripples of our own body image or disordered eating struggles, we can still make sure that our children develop a well-rounded, positive mindset around how they fuel and care for their bodies. Here are some books to help you heal from diet culture while also supporting this mentality within your home:
How Sea Waves is Impacting Diet Culture
Sea Waves is dedicated to ensuring more appropriate, comprehensive care for those who are in the trenches of disordered eating and active eating disorders. The first step in this battle is through education in the military community. They provide this education through speaking at conferences, attending events, and hosting trainings for military leadership.
Sea Waves is also dedicated to addressing policy concerns that stigmatize eating disorders and dismiss the concerns of disordered eating both in service members and dependents. Currently, the TRICARE policy for covering inpatient and residential eating disorder treatment ends at age 20. This policy perpetuates the narrative that anyone with an eating disorder is an adolescent and young folks eventually “grow out of” eating disorders.
In reality, if there is no appropriate care for recovery, the patient will likely pass on their disordered eating tendencies to their children, if they survive to adulthood since eating disorders have the highest mortality rate of any mental illness. (PMID: 34505367)
Without the help of policymakers and military leadership, we cannot ensure appropriate care for our service members or their family members who are experiencing disordered eating symptoms or are in an active eating disorder.
Part of this policy change is also advocating for an adjustment to the training of behavioral health and medical staff when it comes to body image stigma, praising disordered eating, and de-stigmatizing eating disorders. I unfortunately have to add here that this is an issue on the civilian side, too.
In collaboration with civilian organizations and advocates, Sea Waves seeks to transform the approach to treating individuals with disordered eating symptoms and active eating disorders. Without policy changes at both cultural and healthcare levels, we risk continuing to lose those we care about—including our military children—to the harmful myths perpetuated by diet culture.
Is This Really Something I Can Change?
Statistics, like the ones I shared in the article, keep me up at night. I am a mom to two kids in the military community; the way forward is murky and intimidating. My single voice cannot change TRICARE or military policies.
I do know, however, that I can continue to educate myself about the lies that diet culture tells me and my children. I can be the voice of reason. Aligning with non-profits like SEA WAVES who are changing the narrative of how we address diet culture, disordered eating, and treatment of eating disorders will have an impact. You can also join the SEA WAVES mission by choosing one of the numerous supportive initiatives or volunteer your time making waves with us!
Remember that you are an influencer in your home. How you speak to and behave around your children matters. You can minimize the effects of diet culture with your children by starting with yourself and your home.
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