When Parents Enjoy Body-Shaming Their Child

Some parents have such dark feelings that actually love the power, control and superiority that they can have by shaming their child who overeats.

It has to be said, because in some cases this is true, and it's vital to work through it if it is the case for you.

There are parents who actually get a power trip from shaming their child who overeats or who has extra body weight.

It can give them what in reality is basically a sadistic high from making their child feel bad about themselves with regards to their eating or body.

This may have happened to you as a child, and even now as an adult, no matter your age, it could be — and likely is — still a dynamic playing out from your parents towards you. I can't tell you how many of my adult clients have parents who still do this.

Of course, this dynamic can take an overt form, where the parent directly says they should be ashamed, that they eat like a pig, or that they look terrible.

But it can also appear a lot more covert and "subtle", meanwhile the underlying motivations for the comments are actually just as dark as a parent who is more overt.

In some cases, an "encouragement" to eat healthier, smaller portions, or exercise more, can come from this feeling of delighting in criticizing you. The parent can be enjoying judging and feeling superior to you, and making you feel bad about yourself.

When this happens from a parent towards their child (adult or young), it is especially f***ed up, because our parents/caretakers in our childhood are the root cause of why we have eating issues in the first place!

They have created this compulsion in you in the first place, and now they are getting off on shaming you and criticizing you. Is that not dark?

It is important to feel through whether this is a dynamic for you. It certainly isn't for everyone, but if it is, even in the slightest, then facing it will help you heal faster.

And by the way, you never deserved to be treated this way.

Photo by Yuyu Hata via Unsplash