to think my 14 year old sister aspiring to go down to a size 6 shows what is wrong with society and the media?

[PotterWatch]

My perfectly healthy sized sister is on a diet, announced on Facebook or course. I asked her why on earth she was dieting and she said she wants to go down to a size 6. I don't know what size she is now but her profile picture is of her in a bikini and there is nothing wrong at all with the way she looks but she won't listen.

One of her friends had recently posted about how a size 10 was not skinny and how a 12-14 was curvy. As a 10-12 I am probably a bit fat to them, although I am pretty happy with my weight (except the post baby belly but never mind).

It still astonishes me how they look at these really skinny models and think that they look nice. They look ill and I was picked on at school for being too thin, seems like you can't actually win when you are at school. Women like Beyonce, J-Lo and Christina Hendricks look fabulous. Nadine Coyle, Victoria Beckham and others look dreadful. Why can't young girls see this!

It is also a sad state of affairs when 14 year old girls are on diets. Their bodies are still growing for a start. It never occured to me to be that worried about my weight at that age.

I don't think the problem is so much that she wants to be a bit slimmer but that she seems to have this magical 'size 6' figure in her head. That's what would worry me. What happens when she is a size 6 but the ideal has gone down to a size 4 or whatever?

OP though YANBU to be concerned you have to find a way to deal with this... its okay to say 'I think you look great as you are, but if you must diet please do it sensibly!' but you must not MUST not start saying she's silly for thinking of dieting, or become something for her to rebel against.

I'd say half my weight issues are down to being told what not to do by my mother, and the other half were down to her trying to control what I did do! I've recently lost a couple of stone (healthily) and already my mum (who is generally lovely but has issues of her own) is saying 'don't lose any more you'll look awful' which will either make me more determined to lose twice what I intended OR it will make me give up and stuff my face... I'm 37 and still fall victim to older person rebellion.

At 14 she needs to hear from you that you love her regardless, but that you support her decision and will help her do this sensibly and healthily.

I agree with MaryLacey.

Maybe she healthily be slimmer, but where has this magical number come from?

I see it on MN, not usually 6, but people saying that they want to be a certain dress size, which is a ridiculously variable thing and when they get close to that size may not suit them.

Size 6!!! My sister was a size six as a teenager - but that was after she had been seriously ill, almost died and hospitalised and it took a long time for her to get her weight up. Who would want to look like a famine victim? She looked dreadful, her hair went nasty, skin spotty and her boobs went to an A.

I was always pretty skinny (even though I ate like a horse but my dad was the same, so blame genetics) and I was asked so many times if I was sick, anorexic, on a diet... Skinny does not look healthy!! I would never have considered dress size at 14.

Models and actresses are airbrished so much even their mums don't recognise them! Even a primary school child knows this!

To all those posters saying size 6 wouldn't be too skinny for a 14 year old, maybe that would have been true 20-30 years ago but girls are developing differently now. Most of them by that age have had their period for a couple of years, reached adult height and already grown a bust and hips. I work in a secondary school and I can't help but notice the 11-12 year old girls now often have very womanly figures (not all, there are still skinny, child-shaped girls but not as many).
I think people get quite het up on how we're so much fatter than in the '60s or '70s or whatever, but the fact is as sources of nutrition become abundant in a society the body shape and rate of development changes. Our lifestyles, hormone levels and underwear have all contributed towards our changing body shape. It doesn't have to be negative (the amount of morbidly obese people is a huge problem but the fact that the norm is bigger? IMO it doesn't really matter).

Forgot about this thread.

She is fairly small, don't know her actual height. Her profile picture showed her as a size 10, I think she looks good. She said she is eating 500 calories a day and burning off 650 so she is not being sensible or healthy about it. Her friends are congratulating her. I did say just don't make yourself ill, but that was before I knew how many calories she is eating and burning off. I hope its another one of her fads but with her mother being useless and she is allowed to do whatever she likes without, I can't see her getting some sensible advice.

She should be on at least 1000 calories a day. 500 is ridiculous she cannot live on that.

I know, how she isn't collapsing from lack of food I don't know, hopefully she is exaggerating to her mates!

I don't really get the getting hung up on clothes sizes thing - they vary so massively from shop to shop.

Plus what's right for each person will vary massively on their height, frame and shape. So it's a bit random really.

I'm sorry Penguins but she is old enough to have a facebook profile, they are not pornographic pictures so she is free to put them up. Her mother is not going to make her meals and force her to eat them because I say so . Her teachers are not going to talk to me and I can't drag her to the doctors. I have no authority over her at all. All I can do is advise her and she is NOT the type to listen, like most teenagers, she knows everything, you cannot tell her a single thing. I can speak to my dad, which I will but your advice is a bit crap. There isn't anything I can physically do about it and the more my sister is harped on at, the more she will go the other way, her mother will take her side against me, I will be the worst, interferring person in the world etc. Its just not that easy for me to 'step up'. But thanks for making me feel crap anyway. Well done.