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Parenting

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Original poster

My 5 year old daughter calls me and herself fat

52 replies

KarenIsMyRealName · 19/07/2025 14:22

I'm an overweight 31 year old woman who's married to a thin 31 year old man. My daughter 5 year old daughter started calling me and herself fat. She's just "a little chubby" for a 5 year old girl. She's not dangerously overweight.
She's happy while calling me and herself that. When I ask my husband, he said he has been trying to to de-stigmatize the word fat to her. He said he wants he her grow up feeling happy and confident.
I'm not sure about this strategy but maybe I'm just too emotionally about the word fat. What do you think ?

OP posts:

MrsSunshine2b · 22/07/2025 16:38

I can see where your husband is coming from. If your daughter is fat, he feels that avoiding using the word fat will make her think it's bad that she's fat, and if he uses fat in a neutral way then she will see it as neutral thing.

The problem is that she will soon learn from the rest of society that fat is a negative word, and soon after she'll find out about the health risks associated with it. She'll also find out that when she casually refers to other people as fat, they really won't like it.

The good thing is there's no need for a 5 yo to be overweight, even a little bit. You're the parent and you control what she eats and how much exercise she gets. You can also teach her not to comment on other people's bodies.

Superscientist · 22/07/2025 16:58

Mumofmarauders · 22/07/2025 16:15

My dad used to describe my mum as “pleasantly plump”. It was a bit odd when I think about it (but it was the nineties!) but actually the fact that he obviously thought she was gorgeous - and still does! - was wonderful in terms of setting up a mode of what to expect from a partner for me and my sisters as we hit puberty and it became apparent that we would have a similar body type.

with my kids I’ve treated fat as a neutral word, it’s just another thing a body can be like tall, short etc. Not sure that was an unqualified success as one day my then five year old innocently asked an aunt why she was so fat, not realising it’s a rude thing to say (also mortifying for me though I explained it wasn’t something she had any negative connotations with, but still felt awful and a bit hypocritical as although I’ve got a healthy bmi etc it’s not like I’m a supermodel myself!). But the emphasis has always been on health and also showing that all bodies are good bodies rather than looking a certain way. I guess I’ll know when my kids are grown up if that’s worked well or not 😬

We have tried to go with the approach that it's not polite to point out any physical features in others which bypasses the some find certain words upsetting. I treat fat as a neutral word, we have spoken about how all women have a subcutaneous fat layer under their skin and that helps their bodies go through pregnancy for example.
My daughter is very small for her age and we have approached the conversation that she doesn't like it when others comment on how small/tiny she is and that maybe others wouldn't like it if she pointed out they are tall, fat, skinny, boringly normal and so on.

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