Overcoming Worries About Body Image and Eating

Most teenagers worry about their body and appearance at some point, and some may try to alter their eating in order to change their weight or shape.

If you are spending a lot of time worrying about how you look or what you are eating, it can become overwhelming and have a big impact on your life. The aim of this book is to help you to understand a bit more about these worries, what you can do about them and, most importantly, how you can develop a healthy relationship with your body and with food.

If these worries take hold, there is a risk of developing an eating disorder or becoming depressed. Eating disorders can have a huge and negative impact on your physical health, your emotional wellbeing, your relationships and social life. They can take control of your mind and body, which makes it difficult to feel motivated to recover, and it can be a long and difficult journey to get back on track, so it's better to tackle these worries early on.

Written by clinicians with many years of experience working in specialist eating disorder services for children and adolescents, this book follows an approach called cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT), which is a really useful way of helping us to make sense of our experiences and overcome the difficulties that we face. CBT is an evidence-based approach, which means that lots of research has been done to evaluate it and show that it can be helpful.

The book includes help and support on:

• Adolescent development, how we make sense of our experiences, healthy eating and how to look after yourself during the teenage years.
• How you can stop body image and eating difficulties taking hold including ideas for feeling good about yourself, dealing with stress and managing social media. There is a chapter which focuses on issues for boys/young men.
• How to get help from family, friends or professionals if you are struggling. There is also a chapter for parents/carers and families with suggestions on how they can help.

Overcoming Worries About Body Image and Eating is a part of the Overcoming for Teenagers series to support young people through common mental health issues during adolescence, using scientific techniques that have been proven to work.

Series editors: Associate Professor Polly Waite and Emeritus Professor Peter Cooper