Comments about dieting

[NineInchNails]

I find it really annoying when women (and it is usually women) talk about diets, calories, how many steps they have done and 'being good' regarding food around my daughters. My SIL does it all the time and seems to have no idea that it might effect them and their ideas about what is important to women.
Neither I nor my daughters are overweight and we eat healthily, they are 9 and 7. I just hear it all the time and wish people wouldn't do it as I do think they will take it all in. Grr

Women are their own worse enemy sometimes. It's this kind of talk which can give girls self esteem issue, not just what's in the media. YANBU:)

You're right. And people just don't think.

But I was always slim and healthy and when adults around me talked about dieting and shit as a child/teen, it went over my head as I didn't think it was relevant to me.

It might be a good idea to speak to your daughters about how some people need to diet and some people think they need to. And impress on them that they are both lucky that it's nothing they need to worry about.

It's difficult because it is good for young girls to see exercise as a normal part of adult life. But many people spout on in an obsessive way about exercise, diet, weight, appearance that is NOT helpful as a role model for young people.

Yanbu. Ask your sil kindly but firmly not to do it. If you don't see her when the children aren't there, just send a friendly text like this:

"Hi Sil, I'd be really grateful if you didn't talk about diets/exercise/calories and being "good" in the context of eating when you are with me and dds. They are at a vulnerable age for eating disorders and I want to minismise their exposure to the whole concept of dieting for as long as possible. Hope you don't mind me mentioning it, but it is really important to me."

YANBU. I don't want to listen to that boring rubbish myself, I definitely don't want it around my kids.

YANBU
Let her know kindly that it is now well attested that even the most innocent dieting talk can set up the basis for eating-disorders. With teenagers one 'diet' that is restrictive in the wrong way might be all it takes to literally wreck their lives.

YANBU. The worse I've experienced it was working with someone on weight watchers. Not only would she tell me how many 'points' there were in her food, she would tell me how many were in mine too. Errrr...fuck off, I'm not interested.

Not only is it airheaded and boring to babble about diets the whole time, talk of naughty, good and guilt free is infantile..mn does it too.

Tell her to get a life.

YANBU
It is fucking stupid. Yes, lots of it on MN too.

Your daughters will learn more from your attitudes to a healthy diet than they will from listening to their aunt.

People do talk about it too often, and body-image problems are a serious issue, but dieting is basically a mathematical exercise. Eat more calories than you burn, you gain weight, and vice-versa.

Some people can maintain a healthy weight without thinking about what they eat - it just happens. But your daughters need to know that their own bodies are shaped by what they eat and how much they exercise, because they might grow up not being one of the lucky few who don't need to count calories from time to time.

Hmm, not sure on this one...I think management of one's weight is something that needs to be taught, much like management of money/house etc. It isn't a skill that we are born with and I see it as being part of parenting to teach it in an appropriate manner.

Like many things, if the subject is avoided, or poorly taught, then problems are quite likely to occur.

I think we are doing our young people a disservice to allow then to grow up believing that 'people come in all shapes and sizes' or somehow that 'weight' is akin to 'appearance'.

Being able to maintain a healthy weight is something that will enable our DCs to live healthier lives for longer. As parents, we have a responsibility to find a way to communicate the message of calories in > calories out = weight gain and (for the most part) poor physical and mental health.

There are ways to do this without pushing DCs into eating disorders. I think a lot of the reluctance to do so comes from overweight parents who don;t wish to be 'called out' on their own weight by their DCs. If they convey the message to their DCs that fat = unhealthy, they will be forced to face up to their own weight issues which they are often reluctant to do.