Parents and carers are being invited to a Christchurch community event aimed at challenging the messages young people receive about food, weight, fitness and body image.

Eating Disorders Carer Support NZ is holding its Redefining Wellness community conversation at St Andrew’s Centennial Chapel on Monday night as part of New Zealand Eating Disorders and Body Image Awareness Week.

The event will bring together local health professionals, eating disorder services and people with lived experience to discuss how everyday ideas about health and wellness can influence body image and eating behaviours.

Sarah Rowland, co founder and Immediate Past Chair of Eating Disorders Carer Support NZ, said recognising that something had changed in a young person could be more important than immediately knowing how to define it.

“You don’t have to know whether it is an eating disorder to notice that something has changed.” 

Rowland said young people were surrounded by powerful and often conflicting messages about food, weight, fitness, appearance and what it meant to be healthy.

Social media had added another dimension, with highly curated bodies, diets, exercise routines and wellness trends potentially blurring the line between healthy behaviours and those becoming harmful. 

International research involving more than 63,000 children and adolescents found more than one in five screened positive for disordered eating, increasing to about 30 percent among girls.

Australian research has also reported disordered eating among about one third of adolescents. 

Rowland said some of the first warning signs might not be immediately recognised as being connected with an eating disorder.

Eating could change alongside mood or anxiety, exercise could become increasingly rigid and a young person might withdraw from friends or family.

They could also begin avoiding situations involving food, become increasingly focused on health, fitness or their body, or simply appear not to be themselves. 

Rowland said undernutrition could affect physical health, concentration, mood, thinking and emotional regulation when the body and brain were not receiving enough nutrition for their needs, regardless of body size. 

The Christchurch event will also give families an opportunity to learn what to look for, where to seek help and what happens when someone first reaches out for support.

“Don’t wait until you can define what you’re seeing. Notice change. Start the conversation. Seek advice early,” Rowland said. 

Redefining Wellness is being held at St Andrew’s Centennial Chapel in Christchurch on Monday, September 7, from 7pm to 9pm. The event is open to everyone.