When Your Child’s Teacher Promotes Disordered Eating: What I Learned And What You Can Do
Lila dragged her muddy cross country spikes through the front door last October, dropped her backpack on the hardwood, and leaned against the fridge instead of grabbing for the crunchy peanut butter jar on the counter, like she did after every practice. I was folding her grass-stained uniform tops at the table, and looked up when she didn’t say anything. “Bad practice?” I asked. She shook her head, picked at a loose piece of paint on the fridge door, and mumbled that Ms. Henderson, her PE teacher and cross country coach, had talked to the team after practice about performance.
“Ms. Henderson said if we want to get faster before the city invitational, we should cut all carbs after 3 pm,” she said, not looking at me. “She said a little hunger before practice is good, because extra weight just slows you down. She pointed out Mia and said Mia got 30 seconds faster because she lost 10 pounds over summer. I haven’t cut any time in six weeks. I should probably lose five pounds.”
I stopped folding. Lila was 13, had always been a solid, active kid who baked chocolate chip cookies on weekends and never thought twice about finishing a whole pizza after a long bike ride. That night, she picked at a side salad for dinner, left half of it on her plate, and said she wasn’t hungry. Later, when I walked past her room to bring in laundry, I saw her scrolling through a Pinterest board titled “Low Carb Snacks for Runners Trying to Lose Weight.”
I texted a group chat of other cross country parents that night, just asking casually if their kids had mentioned the talk. Three other moms replied within 10 minutes, all saying their daughters had come home with the same message. One of them, whose 12 year old had already done outpatient therapy for disordered eating the year before, said her daughter had stopped eating lunch at school that day.
At first, I wanted to fire off an angry email to the principal and call for Ms. Henderson to be suspended. But after I slept on it, I realized most people don’t set out to promote eating disorders. Ms. Henderson was a runner herself in high school in the 90s, and she was just repeating the same bad advice she’d gotten as a teen. She didn’t mean to hurt kids, she just didn’t know better. That didn’t make what she said okay, but it changed how I approached it.
First, I wrote down every specific thing Lila had told me, including the date of the talk, the exact phrases she’d heard, and the changes I’d seen in Lila’s eating at home over the past week. I asked the two other parents who’d confirmed the talk if they’d be willing to add their notes too, so we had a clear record of what was said. Then I emailed Ms. Henderson, the school counselor, and the athletic director to ask for a 30 minute meeting, no rush, just to talk through what happened.
When we met, I didn’t start by accusing her of anything. I just pulled out my notes and said, “This is what my daughter heard, and this is what she’s changed about her eating because of it. She’s 13, and she’s now skipping her after-practice snack because she thinks being hungry will make her faster. That’s not safe, and it’s not helping her run better.” Ms. Henderson was defensive at first, said she was just trying to help kids hit their goals, but when we laid out the specific changes we’d all seen in our kids, she softened. She said she’d never thought about how that kind of talk could push kids into disordered eating.
We left the meeting with three concrete changes: Ms. Henderson would send a note to all team members and parents correcting her earlier comments, explaining that performance comes from proper fueling and consistent training, not weight loss. She added a no weight or body comment rule to the team handbook, for coaches and teammates. The athletic director agreed to schedule a district eating disorder prevention training for all PE teachers and coaches before the next season.
After the meeting, I made a few small changes at home too. I stopped making any comments about my own food or weight in front of Lila – I used to say things like “I shouldn’t eat this cookie” after dinner, and I just stopped that cold. I started talking about food only in terms of what it does for her, not how it affects size: “That banana will give you enough energy for your warm up tomorrow” instead of “this is a healthy snack.” I also asked the school counselor to check in with Lila every other week, just to give her a space to talk if she was still stressed about her body or running.
It’s been four months now. Lila just finished her middle school cross country season, and she hit a new personal best at the city meet last week. After she crossed the finish line, she grabbed a hot dog and an orange soda from the snack stand and ate the whole thing while she waited for awards, no mentions of carbs or weight. But not everything is fixed. The mom whose daughter has a history of disordered eating pulled her out of the team, because she didn’t feel comfortable leaving her there after the talk. The district training got pushed back to next fall, because of scheduling conflicts, and I’ve had to nudge the athletic director twice already to get it on the calendar. Ms. Henderson still makes offhand comments sometimes; another parent told me she mentioned “shedding a few pounds” before a meet a month ago, just in passing.
If this happens to you, you don’t have to storm the school board to make a difference. Write down specific details right away, find one or two other parents to confirm what was said, go into the meeting focused on your child’s experience instead of blaming, and ask for concrete changes instead of just an apology. It won’t fix everything overnight, but it’s the first step to keeping your kid safe. I’m still nudging the district to get that training scheduled, and I still check in with Lila every week about how she’s feeling. It’s messy, and it’s not done, but it’s progress.
Please indicate: Thinking In Educating » When Your Child’s Teacher Promotes Disordered Eating: What I Learned And What You Can Do