Frequent weighing may lead to teen eating disorders

Frequent weighing may lead to teen eating disorders


The scale is your friend. Scales don’t lie. Weigh yourself daily.

We hear and heed this advice on our quest to achieve healthy body weight. And for most adults, daily weigh-ins are helpful. But for some teens, daily scale-stepping can be downright dangerous.

A University of Minnesota study found teenage girls who weigh themselves often are more likely to develop unhealthy weight-control habits or binge-eat. Many also gain almost double the weight they would have gained if they hadn’t weighed so often.

Researchers say frequent-weighers are at high risk for unhealthy behaviors like skipping meals, using laxatives or diet pills, smoking and even bingeing and vomiting to lose weight. For them, the scale doesn’t help manage their weight. Instead, it may cause them to obsess about it.

The study surveyed about twenty-five-hundred Minnesota adolescents to look at weight status and changes in eating patterns over five years. Study participants completed surveys in 1999 and 2004 to find out if frequent-weighers were more prone to eating disorders and obesity.

The results were surprising. The average weight gain over five years was nearly twice as high among teenage girls who weighed themselves often. Self-weighing also predicted increased meal skipping, smoking, binge eating and vomiting.

So what weight-control advice should parents give teenage girls? First, avoid focusing on weight as a number that’s tracked by frequent hops on the scale. Instead, help teens make healthy choices about eating and exercise. And, remember, weighing too often may make the scale your teen’s worst enemy.

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