Did you know that more than 70 percent of young women are dissatisfied with their bodies and want to lose weight? There is almost nothing as strong as peer pressure to convince people to do things that are not good for them. When it comes to eating disorders, there are simply so many messages about how important an attractive body is that people will take extreme measure to get thin even at the expense of their health. In addition, prevailing attitudes about food and dieting also trigger eating disorders.

One problem stems from the fact that most children are never shown the right way to eat. There’s lots of fast food and vending machines in the schools, and at home, their parents often are not eating any healthier than the kids would for school lunches. Kids never learn the right way to eat, and even if parents tell them not to eat a certain way, if the parents aren’t setting the right example, their behavior reinforces negative dietary habits that can cause weight gain and deny bodies the nutrients they need.

In fact, parents have more of an influence on their children than they might realize. If you think about what tends to trigger eating disorders, you might cite things such as a desire to be more attractive, to fit in, to have control over some aspect of your life, to seek a way to deal with pain, to give in to hunger or lack of hunger, and things of this nature. These are all valid, but what about seeking parental approval?

There are a lot of children that are neglected or abused. If a child grows up in a household where their parents are never around, but there’s always a bag of chips or a tub of ice cream, it’s easier to get dependent on food as a source of comfort. In addition, children who are always told that they aren’t good enough or attractive enough––even if the parents mean well by saying so––might resort to something desperate in order gain approval. Worst of all, society is so conditioned to approve of losing weight that someone who is getting thinner because of an eating disorder is bound to get compliments and encouragement along the way.

Another way children can grow up with an eating disorder is to feel conditioned to accept food as a reward. For example, a neglectful or busy parent might substitute actual parenting with sweets as a reward. When a child does something well, they get some kind of dessert as a reward, and if they do something bad, they are encouraged to behave better because they’ll get something tasty. With this conditioning, a child can grow up to link food to behavior, rather than something necessary for a body’s well being.

Our attitudes might trigger eating disorders in other ways too. If you have a negative attitude toward food because you were verbally abused about your weight, you are more likely to develop an eating disorder than someone who has a healthy relationship with food.