Okay. I get it. Words matter...Even with Teenage Boys.

When I found out I was having a boy, who would be followed three years later by another boy, I was relieved. I wouldn't have to be mindful of magazines in my house that promoted emaciated bodies as the gold standard for women. I could talk about my

weight. I wouldn't have to edit my comments, such as, "God, I'm fat," which became increasingly common after I had kids.

Yes. I know. I was wrong. This realization punched me in the gut the other day when my oldest son, who struggles with his weight, had on a shirt I didn't recognize. It was very tight. I asked him where he had gotten it. He had bought it a few months before when he was school clothes shopping. I said, "It looks like it shrunk."

His face fell. A few minutes later he came into the kitchen wearing a different shirt. "Why did you change?" I asked. He nervously grabbed at the new shirt, which was also a little tight, and said, "I don't know." But his face said it all. I had hurt him by drawing attention to what he already knew. Just the day before, my husband had told him he needed to lose weight. (Don't get me started on that.) Bottom line, it was too much for him to hear.

I have struggled with an eating disorder for 16 years. This same son had just turned one when it started. I dieted. Everyone told me I looked great. Then something went off in my head, and my eating and weight have never been the same. I don't want this for my kids. And typically, I am very careful about how we talk about food and body image. I mean. I have had YEARS of therapy. I know how to talk about it.

So I should have recognized that my husband's comments would have a long shelf life. I should have known that pointing out his shirt had shrunk would be interpreted as code for, "You are overweight."

As parents, we want our children to make healthy choices. When I was growing up, my family often used food as a medicine. Did you have a bad day? Grab a Ding Dong out of the junk drawer. Sore throat? Eat french fries and a milkshake from McDonald's. Are you sad? Eat. And eat some more. Food as medicine has followed me into adulthood, and I struggle with it today.

I want my kids to make better choices. But when does teaching them good habits become judgment? When does it begin sending the message that some foods are good and others are bad? That there is a perfect body size. How do you balance teaching good habits without passing judgment and societal norms onto your child?

I know that more times than not I do the right thing. I speak often about how there are not bad foods. I use my many years of therapy to talk about food the right way, but that look on my son's face told me that there are other ways that we can draw too much attention to body image.

Here's to remembering that words matter.