Do girls as young as 6 really hate their bodies?

[nharvey]

Having recently read the article in femail about the six year olds who hate their bodies I was shocked- is this an isolated incident or do many parents face this now?

[SueBaroo]

Well, I wasn't happy when my 6 year old came home from Girl's Brigade this week saying that she shouldn't eat butter because she would get fat otherwise.

oo, I was cross.

[iheartdusty]

I haven't had experience of this but just noticed the juxtaposition with the 'what's wrong with Barbies' thread

says it all

[MamaVonG]

I don't know [worried]

i do think about this sort of thing a lot, my dd was 7 when she said that she'd weighed herself and was sad becuase she was heavier



Have hidden said scales and make a point NEVER to talk about feeling fat/being fat/dieting in front of her. Ever. Igo to slimming wrold and refer to it as my "healthy eating club", telling her that its ok to have choc etc in small quantities just because it doesnt have hte nutritional value of veg /fruit etc

I do fuss about it

[Bink]

I really haven't come across it at all. Dd is 7 (yr2), goes to an all-girls' school, does ballet - so in the sort of environment where, if it were a common subject of discussion, you'd have noticed that. And nothing, really, absolutely nothing.

Hair they talk about constantly; status of tooth-loss, wobblers, etc., nearly all the time; but body-shape as a general matter doesn't seem to be on the radar. Thank goodness.

[peatbogfaerie]

am worrying already with 3 dds (tho all under 5). I have a vague feeling that a close relationship with dh (for the girls, that is) and me not being overly concerned by my own shape/eating may help, but a bit cod psych perhaps?

[motherinferior]

I'm sure some do.

I started hating mine at around 8, when my parents told me I was getting too fat.

[Bink]

MI - of course, I was just thinking about peer pressures - as those have always seemed to me the most potentially dangerous. Obviously they're not always the culprit

[HuwEdwards]

My DD is 7 and eats like every meal will be her last. She makes no mention of her body shape, she's just convinced she's gorgeous

[peatbogfaerie]

ff Is there a big strong superhero that he's into so that you can say only tall big boys can grow up to be like him? is his dad same sort of build ("you're just like daddy" etc)?

[sweetheart]

My dd is 7 and won't wear skirts because she says she has fat knees - I wouldn't mind but there is not an inch of fat on her!

I do blame myself though - I am constantly on a diet and moan frequently about my body, although I have tried to stop talking about it in front of her since she said this about herself!

[OrmIrian]

DD has a friend who used to cry because she was so fat the boys wouldn't like her. Which made me on so many levels. She was 7.

[OrmIrian]

DS#1 went through a phase of never wearing clothes that 'made him look fat'. I think the worst of it is past now - he's 11 - although he still favours hugely baggy clothes but I suspect that is an 'emo' thing or so I'm told.

[Pollyanna]

my dd is 7 and is definitely aware of her body shape - she is very vain though and thinks she looks wonderful , it does make me sad though that she is definitely aware of fat issues - she is very slim but dd3 (who is 3) is a very different build to her. I am sure I haven't passed any prejudices onto her. I really worry as it will only get more difficult for her as she gets older.

[fondant4000]

The word 'fat' is so damaging - i hate it when one particular girl says it to my dd (4 years old ffs ). She's not even chubby

The other girl says it because her mum is obsessed with weight.

I'm hoping that (like my mum) i never diet, don't own scales, don't care about weight, that dd will grow up with healthy attitude.

Dh and I are very careful to always praise and never criticise body image (ours and hers).

It is tough though. I always thought I was a slightly chubby child, but when I see photos of myself I realise I wasn't at all chubby - just not stick thin

[Carnival]

Iheartdusty, I agree, I stupidly joined a thread to agree that Barbies are not the best in terms of their shape being anatomically impossible to achieve, partly because I'm worried about the number of eating disorders in my DP's family. This resulted in flippant remarks about someone's son not thinking he would grow up to look like Iggle Piggle. Then you get all the folk that say I had a Barbie when I was young and I'm ok - well I was belted as a child and I'm ok, that doesn't mean I will unquestioningly do the same with my daughter.

The thing for me is that we have all this shit on the TV, in magazines, etc telling us how we should look, that we really didn't have to the same extent when we were growing up (I'm 33), plus we didn't have people having operations then to conform to these images.

Maybe I'm just an old stick in the mud? A lot of people were saying what's wrong with being pretty. There's nothing wrong with being pretty, I think my daughter is beautiful. However, I don't want her appearance to be at the forefront of her thoughts. I can't remember thinking about how I looked until well into secondary school.

Anyway, part of the reason I wrote this is that some adult (her gran, I suspect) has told her she has a fat tummy. She's 3 for Christ's sake. Anyway, I told her it's a beautiful tummy and blew raspberries on it.

I think these folk underestimate the strength of the subliminal messages that our kids are subject to. At 2 years old, my daughter started asking for Barbie merchandise after seeing 1 advert. It's not JUST A DOLL.

[preparing myself for the backlash, and not giving a shit, cause she's not having a piece of plastic tat Barbie]

[SueBaroo]

There's nothing wrong with being pretty. My daughters are pretty, they just don't look like Barbie, and if they are consistently told that Barbie=pretty and they don't look like Barbie, it's not a wild leap in the dark to think that's not a positive help to self-image.

[peatbogfaerie]

Carnival, I agree. And I was furious when someone told dd1 she had a big belly (I think it was someone at her nursery!)

I had to keep telling her it was just right for her age, etc.

[motherinferior]

Carnival, I agree.

There's nothing wrong with being pretty, there's everything wrong with thinking that being pretty is something you should spend your life working towards, I reckon.

(I work for a women's magazine, btw.)

[OrmIrian]

I think that people are so afraid of the fat word that they overreact. My 12 yr old nephew has been told that he's overweight by the school. He probably has an above average BMI but he's a stocky build and quite active. His little sister (8) is (not to put too fine a point on it) distintly chubby but because her parents haven't been told by the school that she's overweight they can't see it. So he's is constantly told 'no you can't have that' and 'no xxx that's enough for you', whereas she eats anything she wants in front of her brother. It's a horrible situation and I think they will both end up with issues around food. Crazy. And very cross-making because I feel for the poor lad

[nortynamechanger]

Bink, I wish it were the same for my DD. I think it is if you conform to the 'norm'. My DD (8 yrs/yr 3)is much taller and generally bigger than all of her year, bar 2 very tall girls.

We never discuss weight, just healthy eating etc She does Ballet, horse riding, we have quite an active lifestyle and she does competitive sport 4 times a week at school (thursdays for 2.5 hours including X-country).

She came home sad recently, I asked why and she told me she hated being bigger than all of her friends. She even hates having bigger feet than them all (size 1.5-2). She is on 98th centile for height and weight, she is above the height for car seats - although she still uses a high backed booster. She used the word fat.

I stress all the advantages of being tall (goal keeper in netball, getting things from the top shelves, having the longest legs therefore good at long/high jump etc) but it seems when you are 7/8 the desire to fit in is greater than the desire to be different.

Also girls can be cruel, they like to pick out a 'difference' and make a thing out of it - which is what I belived happened, as she has never heard the word fat (well maybe, that blackbird has a fat juicy worm)used by anyone in this house, although conceivably she has watched Newsround and may have heard it on there.

[OrmIrian]

norty - I don't know how you make that better TBH. I'm 5'11 and was always taller than my classmates. But I didn't see it as just 'taller' but 'bigger'. I thought I was clumsy and fat. I wasn't but it took me years and years to accept myself as I am. And only in the last decade or so, in my 30s and 40s, I actually like my body.

[Bink]

Norty - sorry to hear that. I don't want to sound complacent - in fact I'm the opposite & worry about it a good bit - which is why I have my antennae out constantly monitoring even their idle chat (in fact that's how I've come aware of quite so very much hair-related wittering). Which I don't think is too pernicious.

I just wanted to suggest that it isn't (as far as our/dd's experience goes, which I think is one which easily could be infected with those sorts of issues) a wholesale systematic problem.

What line does Femail suggest be taken if a child does show body image anxieties?

[motherinferior]

Probably Encourage Her Femininity and Spend Your Time Cooking Meals, Bink, I bet.

I worry desperately about my daughters developing body image problems. It has had the salutory effect of curbing a lot of my own (louder) recriminations about my own body.

(Which is, I should add, a pretty fine specimen. It was never that appalling, despite my parents' dire warnings.)