“Mum, why does it go out here now?” my 11 year old asked, pointing to his lower belly. Of course he decided to walk into the kitchen and ask me this as I was trying to make school lunches, encourage everyone to eat breakfast, put away groceries, plan the post-school activity logistics and do all of the things…
As someone who grew up surrounded by diet culture in the 90s, it was tempting to take the opportunity to make him feel guilty about what he has been eating lately, and say something like, “Well, you’ve been eating a lot of lollies and soft drink and snacky foods. Try eating a vegetable for once! And I found so many chocolate wrappers in your room last week.”
But given what I do for work, I took a deep breath and said, as nonchalantly and neutrally as possible, “Oh, your body is just growing right now… it knows what it’s doing to turn your child body into an adult body. Sometimes your body has to store some energy there in its bigger plan to help you grow taller.”
“Well, I don’t like it,” he said as he went back to his room to continue playing video games… and that was that. Even though I talk about this stuff in my work, it’s still hard to have these conversations – and perhaps even more tricky as I know how important these moments are on many levels.
I am often asked, “Your advice is all lovely, but what if my child is in a larger body? How do I help them?”
As one of those kids who was in a larger body myself, I can tell you two things we should avoid doing with our kids:
Encouraging any sort of weight loss or changing what they’re eating/how they’re moving their bodies for the sole purpose of changing their body
Weighing them or allowing their weight or BMI to be calculated, assessed or discussed in their presence at the doctor’s office
Now, the thing is, these are often the first two things that people do in this situation. So if you have ever done either of the above, it’s very understandable. Our entire culture and every piece of messaging you have probably ever received about bodies is that you should weigh yourself and change your diet and exercise patterns to make your body smaller.
It’s also very tempting to encourage weight loss when children are being teased or bullied about their weight and shape. The logic makes sense – if they were smaller, they wouldn’t get teased, right? Maybe, but here’s the thing: if your child is in a larger body, research shows that in the long run, when we tell them they are ‘overweight’* and introduce the idea that they can and should try to lose weight, we introduce a whole world of shame. This shame ends up leading to weight cycling and weight gain over time, disordered eating behaviours and poor mental health.
Remember, your kids probably haven’t been exposed to all of the diet culture-riddled messaging that you have – you know, the ads that told us to ‘pinch an inch’ or showed Norm on the couch; the many, many diet books about the cabbage soup and grapefruit diet; or the primetime TV shows glorifying weight loss and cosmetic surgery. They haven’t yet had all of this poured into their brains, so we have the opportunity to stop the cycle and avoid passing all of this on to the next generation. We have the opportunity to tell them that their body is just right as it is, and to help them care for their bodies and look after themselves in the same way that kids in smaller bodies should.
So, how do we do things differently? As a body image expert (who is also a parent and was a child in a larger body), here’s what I recommend.
Accept that their body is the way it is right now
It doesn’t need to change or be smaller, even if the world tells you that is the case. As long as they are doing the things to keep them healthy – engaging in physical activity, eating nutritious foods, getting enough sleep and drinking water – then they are doing enough. Avoid comparing them to others, or wishing they looked a certain way. You might think that encouraging them to lose weight will help them to feel accepted by their peers and others, but actually YOUR acceptance of their bodies is the most important thing here. If you’re wondering how to address appearance-related bullying, we’ve got a whole blog post coming on that!
