AIRED: December 2, 2019
SPECIAL GUEST: Dana Suchow
We are currently living in an epidemic of self-hate, where children as young as four years old begin to compare themselves to others in unhealthy ways.
According to the National Center for Biotechnology Information (NCBI), by the age of 10, over 80% of girls and boys are afraid of being fat! Entering their teens years, over 50% of girls and nearly 33% of boys use unhealthy weight control behaviors such as skipping meals, fasting, smoking cigarettes, vomiting, and taking laxatives. 53% of 13-year-old American girls are unhappy with their bodies. This number grows to 78% by the time girls reach 17.
Overweight girls are more likely than normal-weight girls to engage in such extreme dieting with many demonstrating partial or full syndrome eating disorders.
Dina Borzekowski, professor at Johns Hopkins school of public health notes: “Social media may have a stronger impact on children’s body image than traditional media. “She also emphasizes that children most at risk are those with more exposure to media messages and less exposure to rational, clear messages from supportive adults.
As an eating disorder survivor, our guest Dana Suchow knows firsthand how harmful these thoughts and messages can be to young minds, and she works tirelessly to help parents stop eating disorders in children before they start. Dana will discuss topics that contribute to eating disorders, such as bullying, depression and anxiety, social media usage and more.
An award-winning speaker and coach, Dana works with parents and teachers to help adults raise kids who love their bodies and themselves. She will share powerful tools parents can implement right away to help kids know they are loved and accepted regardless of what their body looks like.
We welcome you to learn more about Dana’s outstanding work and to jump in and start discovering some “ah ha” moments and practices to bring your family closer together and raise healthy, self-confident kids and teens who know they are loved, no matter what!
ABOUT DANA SUCHOW
In 2012, Dana founded DoTheHotpants.com as a fashion blog, but once she realized fashion’s unattainable beauty standards were fueling her eating disorder, Dana made the difficult decision to leave the industry and focus on eating disorder prevention and activism.
In 2014 Dana founded #MyBodyStory, an ongoing storytelling series created to uplift girl’s and women’s voices that so often go unheard.
In 2016 Dana co-founded The Ripple, a nonprofit nationwide activist collective focused on helping women make waves in their communities. In 2018, Dana was awarded the Girl Up #GirlHero Award by This Is Us star and activist Chrissy Metz.
An international speaker, for years she has worked with audiences of 10 to auditoriums of over 1,000 and works with all school levels, from Elementary School to College, appearing in person or by video.
Dana lives in New York City and holds a Masters Degree in Creative Writing from San Francisco State University. You can find her on Good Morning America, The Oprah Winfrey Network, Vogue, Huffington Post, Yahoo, ELLE, Seventeen Magazine and more!
