Love Your Body

It is not difficult to see where children are learning the "thin is beautiful" message. It's all around us. The images of thin movie stars, television celebrities, rock stars and super models are everywhere we look - and they all seem to be so happy. Impossibly so.

At a younger and younger age children, particularly little girls,are conscious of chasing the body beautiful. The elusive shape that such a small proportion of the population has written into their genes; the shape the rest of us, no matter what we do, will never achieve.

This obsession with thinness means that very young primary school-age girls can become anxious about their weight.

Tips for Parents

1. Promote an acceptance of your child's body shape - emphasisie the positives and play down the negatives.
2. Shift the focus from how children look. Girls in particular always receive comments on how they look. When buying clothes, comment on how they feel - are the clothes comfortable? - rather than just concentrating on how they look.
3. If you want your child to exercise more, share fun activities without nagging about exercise. Go skating, walking or riding together.
4. Do reality checks on what an enormous variety of shapes and sizes people come in. Find role models who aren't thin and beautiful, but talented, kind, funny etc. anyway.
5. Listen to your children without judging - let them talk about how they feel about their bodies.
6. Encourage a sense of humour about body issues.
7. Encourage your children to see past people's looks and concentrate on what's inside them.

Bibliography

Cooke, K. Real Gorgeous - The truth about body and beauty (Sydney: Allen & Unwin, 1994)