So this is my first post on the 'scary' thread - my complaint is old hat but I'm still fuming

[EllieG]

Don't know if this is the right place for this, but I don't suppose anyone will mind.

Lovely, lovely, DSD who is 12 comes home from school today and mopes a bit, then says that she is worried about her weight and thinks 'maybe I should eat less'. And apparently she weighed herself at her friend's house and she was much heavier and things she should be lighter and wants to be more like her friends. DSD is very tall for her age and developed, she is 5ft7 and has boobs and hips already, but is very healthy and not overweight by any means.

Now I know, I know, that logically, this was going to happen sometime. I don't know any woman who feels completely OK about the way she looks all the time, and I don't know why I was expecting anything else for her. But I want something else. I am so angry I could weep that my lovely girl has started to feel self-conscious and that her worth is somehow tied up in how she looks. I struggled with eating disorders for years and I am SO careful to give my daughters positive messages, never diet around then, tell them that they don't need to think about it, and now stupid fucking bloody school and bloody society is starting to make MY daughter feel bad about herself. At 12.

Sorry for my rant. And for the swearing. But I'm just so angry

Thank you, these are really useful ways of approaching this and are helping me construct some sort of response. Hullygully - you are right in lots of ways - I was fat as a child and the damage that did to me was horrible. My parents spent ages telling me how lovely I was, but now I think, well actually I might have felt better if you didn't damn well feed me as much as we went on some bike rides!

It's a hard line to work out isn't it? Yes, it is utterly, utterly wrong that society judges women who are overweight as undesirable and worthless, but teenagers have such a need to conform that if you don't allow them too they can really suffer. You can't protect them from jibes so have some responsibility to make sure they don't attract it perhaps. But i hate the idea of pandering to this nonsense, my parents did it (to a certain extent)- I think I went on my first diet at the age of 12 after a teacher called me fat, and it's never stopped being something that was difficult.

DSD is not at all fat, very slim in fact, but what I have said to her is that if she ever became overweight I would encourage her to be more active etc because being overweight can be a health issue, not something that will make her look ugly. I have said I would be equally concerned about her health and development if she got too thin. I worry about the early developer/eating disorder stuff though, I will have to pay attention.

Sorry that was bit rambly. All these suggestions and thoughts are very useful, thank you again.

I'm not crazy about anything that emphasizes beauty at allthere's plenty more to fret over besides weightbut you might get some use out of this:

healthyisthenewskinny.com/

Without wishing to be negative, she's going to worry about these kind of things, whatever you tell her. There's lots of great advice already about books and things. But you could also think about involving her more in the family's food choices. Obviously this might not be practical but maybe she could choose her own packed lunch or prepare a healthy dinner for the family one evening a week? That'd give her a bit of control over her diet but you'd be able to keep an eye on things too.
And maybe you could try exercising together? You could join a class or do a DVD together. She'll feel more confident about her body if she knows she's doing something to keep in shape/keep fit. Also it'd be a good habit to get into while she's young. Throughout secondary school me and my friends would eat all kinds of junk, and barely did any exercise, that was pretty typical of everyone, and it was fine when were 12/13 but by sixth form we suddenly needed to exercise/eat less and it was quite a shock really!
You can't stop her thinking negative things about herself but you could try and turn it into a positive, by getting her thinking about staying healthy :)

Good point re food choices - DSD has always been a big eater and will stuff herself given half a chance - maybe if we do a bit more food prep together it will reinforce the healthy message. We already go for a walk/job together (cos I like to run and she wanted to come with me) on sat evenings once a week, and I think that's a good time to indoctrinate her give her positive messages about body issues etc

I don't know what I'm talking about really. But I think the important thing to do is what others have suggested. Don't dismiss her concerns, by saying "don't worry, you're fine", but really listen. Try to not say much, but let her talk, it may be that she is just venting, and is not so worried after all. Or it may be something you need to have long conversations about. But don;t just utter platitudes would be my gut instinct. It is awful to have to confront this so young. But I remember myself, feeling utterly awful in my late teens about weight, and I did not feel listened to, and hated feeling criticised (which you are not doing!). The main problem, was that my self esteem was just not strong enough to deal with it all, so you have to work on that I think. It is only now that I realise I was slim!

You seem to know what you are talking about to me! Good point re no platitudes - it doesn't make it better. I think I am a bit quick to tell her things too. Maybe I need to listen more.

Well you're really in kind of a dilemma here. At first it seemed as if the girl was heading into an all too typical adolescent neurosis about her size. But if she genuinely does have a tendency to overeat, that's trouble too. And there really is an "epidemic of obesity" going on--it's not fiction. Can you talk about this with a feminist slant, and present it as something you share, not something you're trying to impose on her?

Perhaps it might be worth getting her interested in the GL approach to eating - it's very healthy, not faddy and because it's about keeping blood sugar reasonably low, has the added benefit of evening out moods and improving energy levels.

If she takes an interest, it would set up healthy eating habits for life without the emphasis on ridiculous, unhealthy "dieting" regimes. That might also help her feel like she's taking control of the situation.

The method of talking/listening outlined by itsalarf is one of the techniques advocated in the book I recommended upthread. Very useful when it comes to encouraging children/teens to address sensitive issues.

If she does already have a tendency to over-eat then you do need to perhaps start to help her rein things in a little. I am 20 now, and spent many years in my late teens being unhappy with my weight because my mum told me that it was nonsense that people needed to diet and that I could eat as much as I wanted etc. I ended up being several stone overweight, due to health problems mainly, but not helped by the fact that I didn't really worry about what I ate or how much of it.

Now that I am at university I am able to control what I eat and how much etc. and I have lots a lot of weight and I feel much happier about my body and my health. I try to follow the principles of a low GI diet - similar to GL suggested above, I think - but my main rule is to only eat when I am hungry and to stop eating when I feel full. The other thing is that I always wait 20 minutes after eating before I eat anything else, as apparently that's how long it takes for your body to decide if it's full or not. I know things like that are probably a lot less practical when you have a family to feed though! :)

To be honest, I don't think you should necessarily introduce her to any kind of specific approach to eating or anything like that, but just try and very subtly introduce healthy eating habits if you feel that she perhaps needs it.

I know your step-daughter doesn't need to lose weight but it'll be so much easier for her to learn these lessons now than when she is older and more set in her ways! :)

Have you had any more thoughts or talks about this OP? Just wondering how you were getting on as your thread really got me thinking the other day. Hope all is well.

It's still a bit complicated. She is very slim, but does over-eat and uses food as a comfort thing (her mother died when she was 6 and food was a bit comfort thing). I've known that for years and do talk to her about it quite a lot, as emotional eating isn't a good pattern. That said, in recent months this seems to have improved and she was being a bit more receptive to learning portion control etc. However - she is very tall and growing fast, so does need quite a bit of food.

I'm not sure how this is sinking in really. I am trying to do lots of listening and not dismissing it all by saying 'no no you look lovely', which, as a few people quite rightly said, doesn't really help. Equally well, I want her to know that this insane pressure to be thin IS wrong.

I thought we were getting somewhere, as we've had some good chats. She did say this evening before she went out for dinner that a dress she was wearing made her bum look too big. But I guess Rome wasn't built in a day.

The books and websites recommended have been super though - I showed her the retouching one, and she was quite shocked, and got all cross about it - which is how I want her to be (yey!)

Goode luck. It sounds like you are being brilliant, giving this so much thought and attention. I am sure she appreciates you.

Quick update - the Uglies book arrived today from amazon and DSD hasn't put it down. Surfaced briefly this evening to give me a run down on the plot so far and to comment on how good it was, and we had a chat about image retouching in magazines etc. Que DSD saying 'It's just like in my book Mum! Those girls aren't ugly but they feel they have to change - it's a bit like that in our world isn't it?'

Que me doing a little internal dance of relief about some positive messages getting through - we had a really good chat tonight about some of the pressures on girls as they grow and I felt we made some progress.

Thank you all - I've had some great advice here and it's really helped me have a moderate and sensible approach (rather than my first response which was to rant at her until she submitted )