No, no, no.....you're not fat!

My friend came to me in a panic, unsure of how to respond to her eight year old daughter. 

The night before, her daughter had looked in the mirror and asked her mom if she was fat. It's hard to not feel like this is a loaded statement as every woman in America has been brainwashed into diet culture's code of ethics that states every good woman should do her part to stay, maintain or at the very least throw spaghetti at the wall until she finds a weight loss gimmick that sticks. 

My friend, stunned by her daughter's comment replied like you probably would have....

"No, no, no honey, you're not fat. You're beautiful and strong and just look at all the things you can do!" 

I would've said the same thing until I knew better. 

Assuring this sweet girl that she's not fat actually just reinforced the idea that fat is bad and thin is good. My book takes a deeper dive into how to respond to these comments, especially if the comment is coming from a straight sized child or a child in a bigger body, but the important thing is that you DON'T assure a child they aren't fat. Your child will pick up on your assured panic and register that fat is, indeed, something bad and to be avoided. Instead, you ask more questions. You find out what they mean by "fat" and what other feelings they might be having that led them to focus on their size in the first place. What's happening at home? At school? With friends? So many ways to go outside of outright assurances against this three letter word that has become the enemy for women and girls as young as five years old. 

You might be thinking that only the girls are susceptible to this talk. I'm afraid not. Just today, I was driving my sons to soccer and one said that their brother was a fat baby. Kids talk, cartoons talk and commercials talk, so I'm not completely surprised at the comment arising in our size friendly house. 

Without skipping a beat, I asked my son what he meant by the word "fat". He wasn't really sure and then said that his brother's cheeks were just fat. To which I replied, you can have fat cheeks and a bigger body and it means nothing about your health or who you are as a person. Fat just describes someone's shape and no shape is better than another shape. Your brother's body is perfect and strong and exactly what it's meant to be. My son accused of having fat cheeks chimed in right away and said, "Yeah, and I'm the strongest kid in my class!" The conversation was dropped as quickly as it came up because we just don't have a charge around that word. It's a description word like tall or short, blue eyed or brown and we're moving on. No panic and no underlying messaging. 

If you can teach your kids that fat isn't bad, you're already way ahead of the game. I've got you covered on this topic and so much more in my upcoming book, Raising Anti-Diet Kids. We're currently in upload to print mode so it's coming very soon! How can you help your kids see body size as neutral this week? Hit reply if you need help with what to say to your child struggling with body issues.