On this episode of the Where Parents Talk podcast host Lianne Castelino sits down with leading body image researcher Dr. Charlotte Markey, professor at Rutgers University and author of The Body Image Book for Girls, for a conversation about raising confident kids in a social media-saturated world.

With nearly 30 years of research on body image, eating behaviours, puberty, and mental health, Dr. Markey unpacks the unprecedented pressures facing today’s tweens and teens — especially girls aged 9 to 15 — as they navigate hormonal changes alongside relentless digital comparison. From influencer culture and device use to bullying and shifting weight-loss trends, she explains how cultural ideals can distort self-perception and contribute to dieting, disordered eating, and low self-worth.

This evidence-based discussion equips parents with tools to:

1. Recognize early warning signs of body dissatisfaction and disordered eating
2. Navigate puberty conversations beyond just physical changes
3. Build media literacy and resilience in the age of social media
4. Foster open communication about consent, relationships, and emotional health
5. Create a body-positive home environment without overemphasizing appearance
6. Understand when professional support may be needed

Dr. Markey also explores the lasting effects of the pandemic, the rise in eating disorder rates, and how parents’ own attitudes toward food and appearance shape their children’s beliefs.

If you’re raising a tween, teen, or young adult and want science-backed strategies to help them develop body confidence, independence, and emotional resilience in a world that often prioritizes image over well-being, this episode is essential listening.

Links referenced in this episode:

1. whereparentstalk.com

Companies mentioned in this episode:

1. Rutgers University

This podcast is for parents, guardians, teachers and caregivers to learn proven strategies and trusted tips on raising kids, teens and young adults based on science, evidenced and lived experience.

You’ll learn the latest on topics like managing bullying, consent, fostering healthy relationships, and the interconnectedness of mental, emotional and physical health.

Welcome to the Where Parents Talk podcast. We help grow better parents through science, evidence and the lived experience of other parents.

Learn how to better navigate the mental and physical health of your tween teen or young adult through proven expert advice. Here's your host, Lianne Castelino.

Welcome to Where Parents talk. My name is Lianne Castelino. Our guest today is a leading global expert in body image research.

Dr. Charlotte Markey is a research scientist, a speaker and psychology professor at Rutgers University, Camden. She's also an author. Her latest book is called the Body Image Book for Girls, an updated version.

Dr. Markey is also a mother of two and she joins us today from Swarthmore, Pennsylvania. Appreciate you making the time.

Thank you so much for having me.

Really large and important topic and depending on who you talk to, something that more people are talking about since the pandemic. We'll get into some of that a little bit later. But you've been studying body image and eating behaviors for nearly 30 years now.

From your perspective, what has changed most for kids and who what hasn't changed nearly enough in your view?

I think what's changed a lot is that we see really people of all ages and genders and sexual orientations with body image concerns. So we really thought for a long time, perhaps inaccurately frankly, that this was an adolescent girl issue.

And increasingly our data suggests that it's just not, it's not really confined to an age or a gender. And in terms of what hasn't changed enough, I think is we still just need a lot more conversation about this topic.

It's a really difficult issue and it's not going to get any better until people have accurate evidence based information and have conversations to really understand the issues.

So what is the catalyst to affect that change?

I think a lot of the women I talk with who are probably roughly in our age cohort and have children are really motivated for their own children to have a better experience of their bodies, of their body images and of their eating behaviors as well. And so I see a lot of mothers and parents in general really pushing to try to get the information and make a difference.

The updated version of your book arrives at a time when girls self esteem is under, let's call it unprecedented pressure. What makes this moment uniquely challenging for girls aged nine to 15 in particular?

So girls have a lot going on during this developmental period in terms of both psychological and social and physical transitions. So their bodies are going to be changing. They are going to look appropriately more like adult female bodies.

However, those bodies bring Them farther from the beauty ideals that they often are exposed to because so much of what is praised culturally is essentially a prepubescent body with breasts.

So girls then often have a really difficult time experiencing the physical transition and that can bleed into their experiences both socially and psychologically.

So when we talk about body image for other demographics, so you talk about girls, but other demographics that you alluded to earlier, what is impacting that increase?

I think a lot of that has to do with just the social and cultural messages that everyone is vulnerable to.

So even if some of the physical changes may not be as tricky, I think for boys to navigate because they are becoming bigger, they are becoming stronger, they are looking more like men, they are looking more like the ideals they see and they believe they should be emulating, they still are not going to have a six pack and huge biceps and everything else that is just really different now than even when we were kids. Right.

I mean, a Ken Barbie doll maybe had sort of a masculine ideal body in some ways, but now, you know, any kind of action figures, they all have these muscles and it's, it's a really different sort of set of messages that boys get.

And so they're much, much more concerned about not just being tall and masculine, but being muscular and making sure they're lean and muscular, which is hard to do at the same time, frankly.

So then is there a common misconception in your view about body image that parents, even well intentioned ones, often get wrong?

I think so. I think parents, I think most people think that changing how you look will change your body image.

And so parents are often supportive of kids interests in going to the gym or cutting out dessert, or engaging in behaviors that at least initially may be healthy, but unfortunately can really devolve into maladaptive behaviors. Especially for young people who are growing, who need nourishment, who shouldn't be restricting their food intake and shouldn't be over exercising.

Let's unpack that example that you shared because I'm sure that that happens in many households. When you talk about maladaptive behaviors, what does the impact of that look like potentially over the lifesp?

Well, we risk for girls and boys who are not getting enough nourishment and developing as we'd like them to. We risk then that they are not going to experience the benefits of a fully developed brain, a fully developed heart.

For girls, this especially can compromise their fertility. So it's not.

The consequences aren't just confined then to adolescence, but sometimes the initiation of these maladaptive behaviors Is frankly encouraged culturally. Right? Watch what you eat, or don't eat carbs, or, you know, if you just consume this protein powder, then you can get really big muscles.

So what should those conversations with parents and kids sound like, look like, in your view?

So when kids express interest in any of these behaviors that are focused on trying to, quote, unquote, improve their bodies, it's really important for parents to question what is going on. Right. You don't want to invalidate any concerns that kids may have.

So it's really important to say, I noticed that you've been spending two hours a day at the gym lately. What's going on? Like, what are you. Do you have some kind of concern?

Just try to figure out what's driving the behavior and then you can address the behavior. Sometimes it's a kid was bullied at school, right? And so they feel like they need to change how they appear.

And so then you kind of have to address the initial, okay, well, why do you think that kid said that to you? And how can we make you feel better without necessarily you feeling like you need to change who you are?

You know, it leads into a question that a lot of parents may have and certainly experience when they talk about puberty biologically with their kids. Why is then the emotional piece of that conversation and the psychological side just as critical, but is often overlooked?

So often when parents or educators talk to kids about puberty, they focus on like, this is what will happen physically. And that's a great start.

But I think it's also really important to acknowledge that kids are going to have feelings about what is happening physically. They may feel really comfortable in their changing bodies, but it's also completely valid to not feel comfortable in your changing body.

And it's really a good opportunity for parents, I think, to acknowledge that because our bodies continue to change throughout our lifetime. Right. Maybe not as dramatically as they do when we're 12 or 13, but our bodies do not stay the same as we get older.

And so coming to understand that that doesn't mean that then we stop taking care of our bodies, that we are disappointed and restrict food or something from our body is not necessarily the solution. So it's a good time to start just to talk about how we need to take good care of ourselves for the long haul.

Let's talk a little bit about parents and their own relationship with food and their bodies. Can you take us through how that can influence and potentially shape their children's self image of their own body?

Well, I think so many parents grew up without the benefit of parents themselves, who were very body positive, who may have been critical of them in a variety of ways. And so it's really hard then to feel like you're a good role model for your kid when you're still kind of struggling yourself.

I often tell parents a great first step is just to try to sort of work out some of your own body image issues. Which doesn't mean that you have to love your body all the time, but it does mean that you don't disparage it in front of your kids.

In fact, you could even try doing something radical and say something positive about your body in front of your kids. Teach your kids that that's acceptable, to actually like yourself and your body and how you present yourself to the world.

When we talk about how we see ourselves, how we communicate with our kids, many parents struggle because they're afraid to say the wrong thing when it comes to body image and their child. What can you suggest in terms of how that can be better support by a parent?

I think parents can really focus more on the positive and just really how cool our bodies are.

From the time kids are really young, our bodies are capable of amazing feats, and they protect us and ward off illness and allow us to live our lives. And when you start sort of framing the physical shell of who we are a little bit differently, I think it becomes a lot easier to.

To quote, unquote, imperfections across the lifespan, not just when we're adolescents. Right. I talked to a body image activist recently who said she just calls it her meat suit. Her body is her meat suit.

Who gets her through that, gets her through the day, and it's just not perfect. And I think that that kind of a mindset is really valuable to kids. You know, it's. Your body can do all these amazing things. It's cool.

Talk about the biology of it. Let's talk about how to take good care of yourself, both physically and mentally.

And let's not belabor some of the specifics when it comes to, you know, skin care or hair care or whatever may be trending.

So along those lines, then let's unpack that a little bit more. What does body positive messaging in a home actually look like in practice?

Well, like I said, it starts with, I think, not being negative. Right.

So if it's hard for you to feel positive about your own body or to be a body positive influence in your home, you can at least maybe try to catch yourself from saying negative things like, oh, I can't believe I just Ate all of that. Now I feel so fat. Or these clothes didn't used to be this tight before the holidays. Right? It's okay. We all think those things.

Things I completely understand thinking them.

But the messages that we're sending to our kids about sort of how we're monitoring ourselves and worrying about our bodies and our presentation of those bodies can be really problematic. So cut out some of the negativity again, say something maybe even positive about bodies and how cool they are.

And be really careful, I think, also not to just over emphasize appearance in general. Right.

Like there are all those messages kids are going to get about fashion and style and hair and skin and clothes, and we don't really have to add to it. They're gonna, they're gonna find that information on their own pretty easily.

So.

And the follow up really is about that to say, should parents then consider being intentional in some way of, you know, curbing social media exposure for their kids or sitting down and explaining to them, because, you know, curbing it is, is virtually impossible, especially as they get older, about what these messages actually mean?

Yeah, I mean, Pandora's box is open. It's pretty hard to curb social media entirely. But I also think we need to realize that there is good in social media.

It is a valuable way for kids to connect with peers sometimes to connect with people who may be like them, who aren't in their community. Right. Who share interests, maybe a music interest, for example.

So we don't need to throw the baby out with the bathwater, but we do need, I think, to really work on media literacy and make it really clear to young people as they start to use social media, which should be delayed basically as long as you can, probably. But as they start to use social media that a lot of this is advertising. Right.

So influencers, any sort of the advertisements you see, if it's not someone you know, it's very likely someone trying to sell you something. And so you really need to be careful about believing everything you see. It's not all real.

And I think when you talk about media literacy, you can use some examples. You can show kids online something that maybe looks like it's been edited or looks like it's selling something. But it's tricky, it's not obvious.

Maybe it's a good way just to start these conversations. Right. Tell kids, come talk to me if you're not sure. Like, I won't be upset at you. Like, we all come across stuff and we're not sure what it is. It's.

It's Good to talk about it.

Now, your book clearly states that diets are bad news for kids.

And I wonder if you can take us through what the research tells us about how early exposure to diet culture, specifically for girls, can affect them over the long term.

So dieting is problematic for a variety of reasons really, at any age. But I think one of the most compelling reasons it's problematic is just that it's usually not effective, right?

So people engage in restrictive behaviors, typically that are not fun, that do not improve your quality of life, and then don't lead to the desired result. And so you've made yourself kind of miserable for no reason.

Ultimately, with young people, it's especially problematic because as I mentioned earlier, they're still growing, right? And growth during puberty is not just parts of the body you can see, right? It's the heart, it's bones, it's the brain.

When kids don't have enough nourishment, those really essential organs don't develop properly.

So it's much better, frankly, for kids to be eating maybe too much than not enough, because we want to ensure that development of these essential organs takes place, as it should, during the adolescent years. So diet eating is problematic for young people because it's not just a behavior that may make them miserable and bring no desired effect.

It may actually negatively impact critical development. And we also know that it's one of the best predictors of the development of eating disorders.

Is there anything specific in the research that you've uncovered recently that gives you, you pause on this topic?

I think what I have come to see, and it's less in the research than in my clinical work, is just how self perpetuating maladaptive eating behaviors can be. And so a lot of the adolescents I see in clinic, maybe they stop eating sweets or they stop doing something just even on a whim.

Maybe there's no deep seated insecurity driving it. And then they're not hungry as, as much, right? As our bodies adapt, right? That's how we've survived thousands of years as a species. Our bodies adapt.

So they don't eat as much, they're not as hungry, they eat even less. All of a sudden they're not getting the nourishment they need.

Their heart rate's dropping for girls, they lose their period and it just can almost really feel like it happens accidentally, right? Like it's not always about, like I'm so insecure and I really want to lose 20 pounds.

Sometimes it's just something that happens and it's much More likely to be. So for young people whose energy needs are higher because of the development they're

experiencing, how would you go about characterizing the influence of the global pandemic on the subject matter? Because we all had many, many days where we were with ourselves and potentially looking in the mirror.

And there's all kinds of research around, you know, how people were eating during that time and the impact of that. But I wonder, are there any specific trends or trends that we're still living through as a result of COVID when we talk about body image?

Well, we definitely saw an increase in eating disorders during the pandemic and a lot of that is believed to be due in part just to changes in routines and schedules, people being home, more people not having the support they needed maybe in their community or from professionals that maybe they couldn't go to therapy or whatever it may be. So, so that's definitely a piece of the pandemic that lingers a bit.

We've, we've seen those rates start to decline again, but there is still some, some lingering of that effect, I believe. And I think also just all of our video based communication can be hard for people. Right.

So we're having a lovely chat and we're able to do it because of, you know, Zoom and other platforms like this. But for a lot of people, spending a lot of time like this can be really distressing. You start to notice kind of everything wrong with yourself.

You have to keep staring at yourself all the time. Right.

So it's going to then lead people to think about, okay, what should I do now if I'm going to have to keep looking at myself, everyone's going to be looking at me. And we have actually seen, seen the rates of cosmetic surgery increase.

We talked about the updated edition of your book, the Body Image Book for Girls. Can you take us through what is new in that book and what parents need to really focus on and draw their attention to?

So we didn't know what we were in for when I was writing the book. Now I can talk a little bit about like the consequences of the pandemic.

But also more importantly, I think we've seen a lot of changes in social media use in the last six or seven years among young people. So I'm, I dive into that much deeper. I also talk much more about puberty.

We have data all the time about puberty and the timing of puberty decreasing for girls and how parents and girls can. Can cope with that. And when that's problematic versus normative. I also talk more about relationships and mental health in the second edition.

That's something I did in other books in the body image book series. So the girls book I wrote first, then I wrote a book for boys, then I wrote a book for young adults.

And each book I wrote, I thought of more things to include.

And so by the time I was done with the last one, I felt like I really needed to circle back to the girl's book and not just touch on mental health, but also talk more about, like, treatment and treatment options and how this all ties into our body image.

So when we talk about social media, and you alluded to some of it earlier, what do you believe girls actually need to learn? Learn in order to engage with social media in a more safe manner. When we talk about body image, I

think they need to learn media literacy, which can start at home, and I wish was a regular part of the curricula in schools, but it does not seem to be. I also think, though, that this is kind of hard because it's not typical for young people, but they need to learn restraint.

And so I think parents can play a real role there and helping to set some boundaries. You know, like, you're not on your phone or social media during meals. It's a pretty low bar. You're not on it, you know, in bed at night.

And developing some rules like that right from the get go can. Can really help young people who don't have a lot of impulse control yet. Right.

Like their prefrontal cortex is not developed, and that's where impulse control is typically found.

And so they can't help it, but they can be socialized to develop some of that restraint so that they're not wasting hours and hours every day on social media, which, frankly, is typical right now.

As you look out at this topic, given your vast experience, three decades of, you know, research and being on the front lines, clinical practice, as a mother yourself, what concerns you most about where we are and where we're going on the topic of body image and what also gives you hope?

I think what concerns me most is I feel like we are in a moment right now where, especially for girls, a lot of the imagery they're seeing in terms of influencers and celebrities, you know, I guess I'll use sort of the headlines. People are saying increasingly thin is really back in. Right.

So some of the embracing of more diverse or voluptuous figures seems to now be passe again. And the trend is towards really emaciated thinness among a lot of the examples our girls look up to.

And this seems to be driven in part by the use of medications for weight loss. And it's a really sort of complicated cultural environment to be growing up in and trying to make sense of your own body in.

And I could probably talk for two hours just about this, so I will leave it at that. But obviously I do touch on it in the updated version of the book. In terms of what gives me hope.

I interview so many kids when I'm working on these books and usually the kids who are willing to be interviewed are a little more comfortable in themselves or just comfortable talking about these issues.

So it's not always a very representative sample, but some of the kids are unbelievably thoughtful about these issues in ways that I certainly don't think I was until I was studying them as a scientist.

So, you know, to talk to a 14 year old girl and have her say something to you about how maybe she was bullied in the past because she didn't fit into her school uniform the way other girls were wearing them, and yet she understands now that that says more about those kids than about her, that she's worked through this, that she is more comfortable with herself, that she's talked to her mom or a school counselor.

You know, it's just amazing to sort of hear this kind of conversation coming out of a lot of young girls who are getting support, support at home or professional support in ways that I think previous generations didn't necessarily. So there's a. There's a lot of young people out there who I think are making the world a better place.

When a child who's already struggling with body dissatisfaction, you know, for that child. What would you say is the most helpful thing that a parent can do as a first step?

Knowing that that child is already coming from a negative place about how they see themselves.

I think you want to avoid the temptation to just say you're perfect, you're beautiful, whatever, and end it there. Right. As parents, of course we feel that way about our children. Our children don't believe us. They know we're a biased source of information.

So we need to validate the concern, ask questions and know when we're out of our depths and it makes sense for us to bring in a professional. There are people trained both in psychology and as registered dietitians who work with body image and eating disorders.

And this doesn't necessarily have to be a long term commitment, but just to get some Positive influence from a professional before something becomes a really big problem, I think can be critical.

And how do you position it to the child so that they are engaged in moving forward with professional help should they need it?

I think you position it as sort of a luxury if you can, in fact, procure it for your child, because that's how I see it, that we all will struggle in some facets of our life. There is no life that is easy and perfect.

And if a young person is struggling in this particular domain, if you can help them develop coping skills to manage these concerns when they're still young, that could be set them up for a lot less struggle later in life. It's the same thing I tell a parent whose child has anxiety, right? Like, we all have anxiety sometimes.

And if you can learn coping skills when you're 14 and that helps you have less anxiety across the rest of your life, then consider it almost a good thing that it happened to you early and you figured out how to get it under control and got the help and support support you needed.

Is there a difference in raising a child who is confident versus raising a child who's resilient? When we talk about body image,

That's a tricky question. I think we all have to be resilient when it comes to body image.

In all of my research for these books, I've talked with, you know, Olympians, models, people who look, you know, as our culture would say, perfect. And they will tell me how much they have struggled, and they will say that they don't always feel good about their bodies.

I don't know if genuine, complete confidence about this issue necessarily exists, at least not without work. And so I think resilience is really important in nurturing that.

And helping young people to find other sources of confidence that are not superficial or physical is really important.

If parents listening or watching this interview could change just one habit this week to support their child's body image, what would you say would make the biggest difference?

I think saying something positive. Be positive about your body. Be positive about somebody else's.

And not in a, oh, they lost weight, they look great kind of way, but in a, wow, we always see that neighbor running around the neighborhood. They look really strong. And that's pretty amazing that their body lets them do that. It depends on the age of your child.

You want to be developmentally appropriate and how you talk about things, of course, but just keeping it positive.

Lots of really important food for thought from Dr. Charlotte Markey, research scientist, speaker, psychology professor, and author of the Body Image book for girls, Updated edition. Thank you so much for your time and your perspective today.

Yes, it's been so fun to talk with you.

To learn more about today's podcast, guest and topic, as well as other parenting themes, visit whereparentstalk. Com.