Advice for Parents by Doris Smeltzer

What will we talk about?

Last week I interviewed a dear friend on my radio show.  I must first give a bit of background.  Joslyn Smith and I connected soon after Andrea died.  At that time, Joslyn was a student at Scripps College and Andrea had been a student at Pitzer.  These two campuses share acreage with the three other Claremont Colleges in southern California:  Harvey Mudd, Claremont McKenna and Pomona.  Because they are a related consortium their students share professors and classes.  That’s how Joslyn and Andrea met…through a shared class.

Given what I know now…

While keynoting at an eating disorder coalition gathering in Florida last week, an audience member asked what I’d do differently as a parent given what I know now.

This is a question I am asked often so I know that it’s been a topic of previous blogs yet each time my answer differs slightly.  On this day I told her, first that I now understand I did not cause Andrea’s eating disorder.  I also stated that I no longer feel guilt for my daughter’s death—I’d done the best I could with what I knew at the time.  Yet there are things I’d do differently today.

Becoming savvy on the media

On Saturday I trained 10 new Peer Leaders in the Body Positive Curriculum (http://www.thebodypositive.org).  During this training, I always share Jean Kilbourn’s DVD, “Killing Us Softly III.”  (http://www.mediaed.org/videos/MediaGenderAndDiversity/KillingUsSoftly3) It shows, disturbingly, the negative ways the media portrays women.  This movie is eight years old, which obviously dates many of the ads featured, but for me that just adds to its power.  What a delight it would be if when viewing these old magazine and television advertisements we could proclaim, “Wow!  Look how far we’ve come!”  Sadly, that is not the case.  Women models are thinner than ever before and men are now included as the targets for the bombardment of weight-loss ads.