I don't have kids but I often read Babble just because of the razor sharp writing and commentary, and today when I read Jeanne's post, I drew a sharp intake of breath. What you have here is an unflinching view of how a mom's own mental damage can affect a child's body image. Jeanne worries about the subtle ways she might be influencing her daughter. From Babble:

One day in March, when I was overwhelmed by the loss of my grandmother, Jillian caught me throwing up. I never meant her to see me like that. She burst into the bathroom without knocking and found me on the floor in front of "the potty." She ran to wrap her arms around my neck. Her voice was full of concern as she repeated the words she's heard so many times from me: "It's okay. I'm sorry you don't feel good," and she patted my back with her little hands. I wanted the floor to swallow me whole. I didn't deserve her.

A week later, I heard her leaning over the toilet bowl coughing, and I could tell the cough was fake. I could hear her giggling while she told my husband, "I'm sick, Daddy. Have to throw up, Daddy."

I sank against the door in the next room. What have I done?

As we all know, it's usually a mindless comment or passing expression that forms some of our most powerful perceptions. It's so messed up: parents can be 99.99% perfect, but then a badly-timed comment and blammo, little McKenzie or Stella is penning an entry for The Vault 20 years from now.

A relative of mine with a severe eating disorder was only able to maintain a healthy weight when she could exercise control over her two young daughters. She effectively starved them, lying about having run out of food when they asked for seconds at dinner, carefully monitoring their intake at family gathers, leading other relatives to sneak food to them and even hide Rubbermaid containers full of peanut butter crackers and sandwiches each morning in the bushes, where the girls knew where to look. The girls are adults now: one seems to have a fine attitude about herself, only bitter that her growth was stunted by lack of nutrition, while the other aspires to be as small as possible and has been heard throwing up after meals. Meanwhile, their mother's weight has reached a frighteningly low state that reminds me of a P.O.W. Clearly, that's an extreme scenario where an eating disorder was completely out of control.

It's easy to demonize the parents in these childhood traumas, but what kind of Oscar-worthy performances do we expect from parents? Is it really possible to sublimate all of one's self-doubts and fears and insecurity from your children during every second of their day? And while many of my friends can point to specific moments in our impressionable years when our psyches formed around hateful kernels passed down from others, there are plenty of people with disordered eating or body insecurity who grew up in virtually ideal situations, filled with acceptance and unconditional love.

Has the original eating disorder morphed into a new form: a kind of Munchausen-by-proxy, only instead of making your kid sick, you project your control issues onto them? I don't have any answers, only questions. But I hope some of our readers with daughters will pipe up in the comments. Tell us about how your experience with food and body issues has translated into parenting.