Evidence of meeting #15 for Status of Women in the 41st Parliament, 2nd Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was disorders.

A recording is available from Parliament.

On the agenda

MPs speaking

Also speaking

Patricia Lemoine  As an Individual
Valerie Steeves  Associate Professor, University of Ottawa
Laura Beattie  Co-chair, Families Empowered and Supporting Treatment of Eating Disorders Canada Task Force
Elaine Stevenson  Co-Administrator, Alyssa Stevenson Eating Disorder Memorial Trust

5 p.m.

As an Individual

Patricia Lemoine

I actually did.

5 p.m.

Conservative

Terence Young Conservative Oakville, ON

What advice do you have for parents? If a parent notices their daughter's going to the washroom after dinner all the time and they think she might be purging, what should they do?

5 p.m.

As an Individual

Patricia Lemoine

If they can't engage in dialogue with him or her, they should try to find someone who is trusted in the entourage of the child to actually try to speak to them, whether it's the parent of another friend or a friend or another family member.

It can go really easily from bad to worse so the sooner you address it one way or another....

5 p.m.

Conservative

Terence Young Conservative Oakville, ON

What do they do if the child or the teenager denies it?

5 p.m.

As an Individual

Patricia Lemoine

Well of course they will because at first it's fine, after—

5:05 p.m.

Conservative

Terence Young Conservative Oakville, ON

How do you handle that?

5:05 p.m.

As an Individual

Patricia Lemoine

I'm not a parent myself, but I would really encourage parents to not stop at, “No, I'm not interested, you're crazy, I don't want to talk to you about this, it's my life.” I would really encourage them to go past that or find someone who can.

5:05 p.m.

Conservative

Terence Young Conservative Oakville, ON

Are there resources on the Internet you would recommend for parents or patients?

5:05 p.m.

As an Individual

Patricia Lemoine

Probably looking at different forums and different websites where parents themselves are talking about what they're going through with their kids might be helpful. Of course, I write for the HealthyPlace and I think it's a great website, a great resource for that. I would really encourage furthering the research.

5:05 p.m.

NDP

The Chair NDP Hélène LeBlanc

Thank you.

Thank you very much, Mr. Young.

Ms. Ambler, you have five minutes.

5:05 p.m.

Conservative

Stella Ambler Conservative Mississauga South, ON

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you, to all of you, for being here today to tell us your stories. We really appreciate it.

I'll start with you, Ms. Steeves, if that's okay.

I was also fascinated. I have two teenage children myself and just last week my daughter—I don't even know the terminology, that's how out of it I am—didn't retweet something a friend tweeted, but a friend sent her a direct tweet. It was four pictures of really skinny bodies. One was the thigh gap, so I've now heard of it for all of a week. The pictures showed a skinny body part and then each one asked a question. Would you rather have your hip bones showing, or would you rather have this chocolate bar? Would you rather have a thigh gap or a piece of pizza?

5:05 p.m.

Associate Professor, University of Ottawa

Dr. Valerie Steeves

If that's a question, pizza.

March 3rd, 2014 / 5:05 p.m.

Conservative

Stella Ambler Conservative Mississauga South, ON

Yes, I'm for the pizza.

She hates that I monitor her on Twitter. In fact, I have to do it by googling her because she keeps blocking me. It's easy to do, luckily, so I do that. I asked her to take it off.

I said, “That's not appropriate. Please take that off. It's not funny.” She said, “Oh, Mom, you're too serious. It is funny. You take everything too seriously.”

Then I told her that we're doing a study and that some young girls take this very seriously, and some of them die because they try to have those hip bones that don't come naturally.

I really want to say, first of all, thank you for the work that you do keeping young people safe in cyberspace.

What are the dangers? When it comes to young people's self-confidence and self-worth, what can we do to help? What can be done?

5:05 p.m.

Associate Professor, University of Ottawa

Dr. Valerie Steeves

As a committee, or as individuals? We've talked about regulation, so perhaps...what's the—

5:05 p.m.

Conservative

Stella Ambler Conservative Mississauga South, ON

[Inaudible—Editor] thank you for the two suggestions that are in federal jurisdiction. Maybe one of those.

5:05 p.m.

Associate Professor, University of Ottawa

Dr. Valerie Steeves

One of the things that I've worked on for a number of years, as I'm sure other people around the table have as well, is education and outreach.

Certainly with young children there is a certain digital literacy and media literacy that's required so they can navigate through all the various images that do bombard them throughout their lives. There are a lot of teachable moments when children are very young. I think that one of the things we can do to be more effective is to talk to kids about this when they're very young, and not wait until they're 13 and 14 and suddenly under all of this pressure. That dialogue helps them question the images they see around them, and then we can model that questioning as well. I think that's incredibly powerful.

As I said, I'm a parent of teenagers as well, so I understand where you're coming from. The research quite clearly indicates that monitoring is not necessarily an effective response because what you want to do is create an environment of trust where you open up spaces for dialogue. I completely agree with what Patricia was saying.

5:05 p.m.

Conservative

Stella Ambler Conservative Mississauga South, ON

I'm not supposed to be stalking her on Twitter?

5:05 p.m.

Associate Professor, University of Ottawa

Dr. Valerie Steeves

Actually, in the research it correlates with less pro-social behaviour. Certainly I've done research with kids who have said if their parents or their family members are spying on them, that means they can't talk to them. It can shut down spaces for dialogue.

I think part of it is that we're stunned by some of the environmental things we see, and they appear very upsetting and dangerous. I'm always fascinated when I talk, particularly to young kids, that they're quite aware of these images. To a certain extent they do think of adults as relatively naive, “Oh, that's so cute. You think that girls shouldn't have to worry about their thigh gap.”

5:10 p.m.

Conservative

Stella Ambler Conservative Mississauga South, ON

Right. In other words, this is her world and I should just recognize that she has to deal with it.

5:10 p.m.

Associate Professor, University of Ottawa

Dr. Valerie Steeves

And you are her greatest resource. You create conditions where hopefully she will come and talk to you about it and you open up those spaces.

I think that does come with outreach to parents. It comes with education for kids, it comes with creating spaces for dialogue.

5:10 p.m.

Conservative

Stella Ambler Conservative Mississauga South, ON

So parents need education too, then?

5:10 p.m.

Associate Professor, University of Ottawa

Dr. Valerie Steeves

Yes. I think a lot of parents feel totally overwhelmed by this. Dialogues with parents are often very effective. Nobody loves their kids more than their parents, and yet it's very difficult to talk to their kids about this.

I found as a parent myself, do I talk about dieting? Do I talk about the dieting industry? I don't want to encourage them to diet. I don't want to be the one to bring it up. After walking by a few La Senza ads with my daughters when they were four, I realized, heck, it's been brought up.

5:10 p.m.

NDP

The Chair NDP Hélène LeBlanc

Thank you very much.

Ms. St-Denis, you have five minutes.

5:10 p.m.

Liberal

Lise St-Denis Liberal Saint-Maurice—Champlain, QC

Oh, I did not expect to speak a second time. I will skip my turn. I will let someone else ask questions.

5:10 p.m.

NDP

The Chair NDP Hélène LeBlanc

You would like to skip your turn?