BodiMojo Teen Health Blog – Teenage Nutrition, Fitness, Stress, Relationships & More

This week, Monica Seles’ well-regarded memoir about her struggles with food—“Getting a Grip: On My Body, My Mind, My Self” (Avery, 2009)—comes out in paperback.

For any of you who’ve worried about how your body looks, or felt like your eating (or not eating) was mixed up with your emotions, Seles’ book might be worth a look.

Celebrities deal with even greater pressure to look good. Take Seles, who at age 16 seemed to have it all—she was a world-renowned tennis star with a supportive family. But after dealing with some severe emotional trauma, she turned to food for comfort, and put on weight. And because she was so much in the public eye, she got criticized for being too heavy.

Luckily for her, she finally came to terms with her emotions, which helped get her binge eating under control.

There are plenty of other celebrities who have struggled with food. Victoria Beckham—“Posh Spice” of the Spice Girls and wife of star soccer player David Beckham—wrote about her anorexia in her book, “Learning to Fly” (Penguin, 2005). “Feeding the Fame: Celebrities Tell Their Real-life Stories of Eating Disorders And Recovery” (Hazelden, 2006) is a collection of interviews with renowned writers, models, actors, athletes, and other celebrities who have overcome eating disorders and who courageously share their personal struggles and triumphs.

So many teens (and adults) focus on food because they feel pressure to look a certain way. Restricting food intake—or eating too much—makes them feel good, or in control, at least for the moment. But when emotions are involved, eating can get out of control.

It took Seles more than a decade to “get a grip” on her emotional eating. Our BodiMojo Web site gives teens the information they need to tell if they’ve got eating issues and what they can do about it.

BodiMojo offers lots more info about good nutrition, too. Because it’s important to let teens know, like Seles does now, that it’s great to eat food, but not to let food eat at you. And not to let society—or our own harsh self-judgments—dictate how we’re supposed to look.