Conditions and illnesses

Dr. Caroline Quach answers your questions

Body image is a struggle for any average teenager, but when concerns about appearance, dieting, exercise and weight loss become all-consuming, they can lead to the development of eating disorders.

“When negative thoughts about body image get so overwhelming and distressing that they interfere with a child’s or teen’s daily functioning, that should be a red flag that something more is going on,” says Dr. Holly Agostino, a specialist in Adolescent Medicine at the Montreal Children’s Hospital.

All of us, from time to time, have experienced moments in which a little voice inside our head manages to put us down and make us feel less than perfect. For individuals who have eating disorders, that voice is repetitive and all consuming.

False. This is perhaps the most widespread misconception about eating disorders and may be one of the reasons many disordered eating conditions go undiagnosed, according to Dr. Holly Agostino, a specialist in Adolescent Medicine at the Montreal Children’s Hospital.

What can I do to ensure she stops visiting them and that she is not taking the content of these sites as fact?

Who doesn’t love a chocolate chip cookie straight out of the oven? Or an icy cold soft drink on a hot summer day? These are tempting for sure, but do you know how much sugar you or your kids are eating when you indulge in one of these sweet treats?

Your son is one of many teens who are making the decision to become a vegetarian. People who choose vegetarian diets do so for any number of reasons, whether it’s a desire to get more of their nutrition from plant-based foods or a concern for animal welfare. Following a vegetarian diet is easier than it used to be. And with the growing availability of foods from other cultures, vegetarian diets have become a lot more interesting too.

False. It’s a common misunderstanding that sugar causes diabetes. It doesn’t. The real cause has more to do with insulin—or more precisely, the lack of it.