Wannarexia?

For women it’s a tense subject. For teenage girls it can be even worse. Who hasn’t wanted to be thinner or had a hard time being satisfied with the body they have? I think when we’re honest, we can all admit we’ve had moments, days, or months where we’ve been there.

On August 4, I found an interesting, eye-opening, and scary story on USAToday.com about girls who are wannarexic. These are young women who wish they could be anorexic! Yikes! And yes, they truly want to be anorexic.

Read the article if you have adolescent girls around you. It’s a scary wake-up call.

The psychologists quoted in the article attribute the trend to girls who think the anorexic girls are the popular ones. If they could just be like those girls, then they too could be popular.

Frankly, I think this is a scary proposition. As the mother of an almost seven year old girl, it reinfornces the difficult job I have as a mother. How do I encourage healthy lifestyle choices and help her see herself as the very special creation that God made?

It’s a tough job, but a critical one. If you have girls, what do you do?