Fifty years ago there was little or no knowledge among teenagers about eating disorders like anorexia nervosa and bulimia nervosa. In today’s image-obsessed and social-media saturated world, the great majority of our kids not only stress over their appearance, but many are struggling with body dysmorphia, which is defined as a mental health condition in which you can’t stop thinking about one or more perceived defects or flaws in your appearance. New data from a study of thirty-nine-thousand adolescents ages fourteen to eighteen reports that the dominant factor raising the risk of self-harm, including suicide, is one’s perception regarding their weight. Our kids are being hammered by a constant diet of marketing images and social media posts which leave them feeling inadequate and less than. As Christian parents, we must affirm their standing as loved divine-image bearers, emphasizing the fact that God looks on the inside, not the outside. Our identity is not to be found in appearance.

Even though we were once adolescents ourselves, the cloudy nature of those memories combines with a teenage world that’s very different from the one we grew up in to leave us. . . well. . . pretty clueless. We need to go out of our way to learn about the uniqueness of living and growing as a teenager in today’s world by asking good questions. . . . over and over and over again. Here are some questions to get you started: What changes is my child facing as he grows from a child into an adult? How can I support, love, and lead my teenager through these changes in a way that brings honor and glory to God? What must I do to build bridges into my teen’s life that keep the lines of communication open? What makes my kid tick? What is their world like? What does my child find confusing at this point in her life? Why does she think and act the way she does? When it comes to our kids and their culture, what we don’t know, don’t want to know, or refuse to know, can hurt them.

Parents, here’s a challenge to adopt a new years resolution that has you bent on gaining weight. No, I’m not encouraging you to go against conventional new year’s resolutions and decide to eat more so that the scale in your home goes on overload. Rather, I’m encouraging you to resolve to weigh yourself down each and every day with the life-giving good weight of ingesting more and more of God’s Word into your mind and heart. As the great J.I. Packer once wrote, “Wisdom is divinely wrought in those, and those only, who apply themselves to God’s revelation.” The Apostle Paul writes in Colossians 3:16, “let the word of Christ dwell in you richly, with all wisdom.” What we need to do is soak ourselves in the Scriptures on a daily basis. As you do that, God will form and conform you more and more into His image. And, not only will you be changed, but you will be better equipped to nurture you children and teens in the faith through your words and your example.