It’s Slimming

This is definitely an issue I’m passionate about- it’s tragic that young girls (heck, all girls and women) feel the pressure to look a certain way. I’ll walk through a bookstore see a magazine that used to be oriented toward “girl power” for tween-girls suddenly advertising kissing tips and how to look good and it makes me sad. I know first-hand the life-stealing experience of an eating disorder and it makes me very worried that young girls could so easily fall prey to body image issues that could lead to such horrible disorders. I want to raise more awareness about body image issues for young girls, because I wholeheartedly agree that this is a domain that is seriously lacking in education systems and society in general. I think by talking about it in public forums (like your blog!) we’re all doing what we can- but I’m hoping that with time positive body-image messages can help to minimize the harmful effects of the mass-media on girls’ self-esteem and body image. And now I’ll step down from my soap box… haha.

OMG. I was just thinking about something similar I heard the other day. I was shopping around Target for some turtlenecks and this mom with her two high school aged daughters started walking through the aisles near me. The one sister was like: “You’re too fat for that size, You have a muffin top, etc., etc.” and the other sister was like, “I wear a size two. If I can’t get a size two, I’m not getting it, etc., etc., etc.” It got me thinking as well. I forget about all the pressure I used to feel to wear the “right” size and have the “perfect” look. Ever since I became an athlete my body image has changed dramatically.

Anyway, I think a way to almost secretly promote better body image is through athletics. If you make girls feel empowered, strong, capable . . . make them see their bodies as more than just objects to gaze upon, they’ll feel better about themselves. They’ll (hopefully) focus more on their abilities and progress and less on their hips and thighs.

Plus, exercise keeps girls healthy. Healthy eating goes hand-in-hand, etc.

At least that’s what worked for me — and I had an ED for many years.

I have an 11 yr old daughter and it is one of the most difficult jobs in the world! They have so many more outside influences that I can remember having when I was this age.

I have heard conversations like that and it’s really sad.

My mom taught me to identify with the inside of my body, and treat myself well so my heart, lungs, and brain would work well. She also taught me to love my body for what it can DO and encouraged us to be active for that reason. I think her perspective helped me a lot.

I’m not just saying this because I pride myself in a fat talk free home, but it really does all start at home. Those girls have heard SOMEONE say all those things, and I’m guessing it wasn’t their teachers. Maybe they read it in teen magazines, but SOMEONE is buying those magazines and allowing them in their home. Not me!

It is very sad, indeed. Who is too blame? I love Operation Beautiful on so many levels for how much of an impact it can and does make. I think if woman could stop comparing themsleves to one another and just embrace themselves, they will feel Free and empowered instantly. I try to work with many of my clients on this one, it is just so deep. One Negative comment, hurtful parenting, low self esteem…all of this plays a role on a self image.
I probablly would of stepped in and said, “Don’t call her fat, she is beautiful!” lol :)jk

Geesh this stuff is starting way too early. I do remember being 11 in 6th grade and realizing my stomach was pudgy, and I know that it was about then when I started to think about things like that. To think some girls are learning it as young as 5 is SCARY!

A few weeks ago I also overheard the conversation of a few young girls on the bus (they also might have been around the age of 10) and they were talking about their weight. And my heart almost stopped when one girl said “well, if I don’t eat anything tomorrow, I am going to weigh 37 kilos (which is like 80 pounds)!!”
I so wanted to turn around and just scream “are you crazy???? not eat anything?? you are still a kid!!”

But instead my heart just sank (after it continued beating) and I also thought “what can we do for those young girls who don’t know how VITAL it is to eat in a healthy way?”

I totally agree with body image classes for young people – and I think they should be paired with some education on nutrition as well. I didn’t get educated on the important role of fats in a diet and when I also got sucked into this dieting tunnel, I thought “yey, low-fat, let’s cut every bit of fat out that I can possibly detect”
How should they know that our body is like a factory – it NEEDS all sorts of things to work properly, to develop, to grow new life and to live long.

I am in the middle of preparing for my clerkship exams but I was thinking about taking some night classes on nutrition and then trying to set up a way to reach those girls and boys who don’t know what they are doing to their future health & body image!

I agree, I think messaging on positive body image needs to come from both the home and school environments. I have 10 and 12 year old nieces and it kills me to hear them talk about their bodies. The 10 year old is already concerned about losing weight! The 12 year old talks to her friends about who has a better body and what they need to change about their own. Growing up with a poor body image, I know how it can affect every aspect of your life and control the way you think, act, and feel. I love the mission of Operation Beautiful and would love to see some sort of body image lessons implemented into school curricula.

I have seen my best friends 5 year old little girl do this! She was playing dress up and made a comment to her sister along the lines as “I am a princess but a chubby one.” It broke my heart. First, how does she even know the word chubby. She is only 5 and already thinking about her looks :( I grabbed her and gave her a hug, and said you look so beautiful as a princess and you are a princess :)
I think that we lead by example. If little girls see their mommy partaking in fat talk and pointing out things that they dislike in themselves, they will learn to do that to themselves. My mom did and does this. She never points out the positive about herself. So, growing up I learned to look at myself that way too. I focused on negativity and would not believe there was anything beautiful about myself. I struggled with getting beyond the fat talk and learning to love me. I feel that if girls and/or boys are surrounded with positive talk they will learn it and feel it. Positive affirmations, positive imagery, and positive messages from others are very powerful!
I think positive body image messages should be over flowing in the school setting. Teachers should step in, but that’s a whole can of worms I won’t open :)
When I have children I am going to read to them Caitlin’s Operation Beautiful book. It is honest and helps people of all ages learn to love themselves. Also, I believe being honest with kids about the “reality” of celebrities, models, and the images we are slammed with are lies. That real beauty comes from within :) Also, to learn to see not just the beauty we see in others but in ourselves as well :)

Great post!

I could not agree more about a class in school on body image, or for it to at least be included meaningfully into health/life management course material!

I was a camp counsellor my first year in University and I lead a cabin of 8 year old girls. The conversation around the dinner table was similar. “Don’t eat that, it will make you fat”, often they wouldn’t eat dinner and would want sweets later in the evening. I made a rule; everyone had to eat a bit of dinner and no negative self/body/food talk at the table. I also explained that we were very active, swimming and hiking everyday and that our bodies needed fuel for energy!

Having a tenuous relationship with food myself, my heart went out to these girls. I think the best thing we can do is lead by example and be as caring and understanding as possible!

I recently found myself getting into running, and eating healthier, including many recipes found on your blog. The initial impetus for this was to lose weight that I’d put on over the past two years. I found myself telling people these past couple weeks that I’d be totally okay with not being able to get back to my 26 year old weight. If I am leading a healthy lifestyle, my body will settle at the size it should be. I am 30, and I only came to that realization now. At 11, there’s no way they can come to that realization without help from us adults (in terms of advertising, your body image class ideas, the brilliant Operation Beautiful post it projects, etc).
Great post Angela!

As a mother of a 3 year old daughter, I think it’s sooo important to stop the fat talk at home, allow your child to see you eat and to see you eat healthy food, to have her watch you exercise, walk, yoga, etc but doing so in moderation, and to just lead by example by being a strong confident woman.

They will emulate what they see and hear. If there is no negative body talk at home, and they see their mom being strong and proud, they will hopefully come to take refuge and solace in that. Not that the bombarding of it will stop in society, but we all must be that one voice, that one light, hoping to raise and change the overall consciousness of society.

Great topic :)

I’ve tried eating my Green Monsters with a spoon before too, and I agree: it’s not my favorite. I like drinking them and getting a green mustache. :)

The clump factor is definitely important in granola. I can’t wait for the “perfect” recipe.

Wow, that is so sad about those girls!! That makes me want to cry. Age 11 is about when it all started happening for me, too. You are crazy influenceable at that age and you have to be so careful. I can’t believe those girls were already worried about how their butt looks and what jeans make them look skinny. I guess it isn’t much of a surprise when all we see on TV is this new slimming jean that makes you look this many sizes smaller. I definitely agree that a positive body-image class would be helpful, but at the same time I’m not sure that it would be. No matter how often you are told “You are beautiful just the way you are” there is still the desire to look like that perfect girl at the beach or that skinny dancer on DWTS. Ah, it’s so hard.

Some days I feel the world is going crazy. The media portrays body image as the solution to all your problems, as the key to happiness! Ironically enough, for me at least, being at peace with my body image is the key to my happiness. If I find these messages overwhelming, I can’t imagine the pressure young girls have to deal with. Sometimes I do find myself wondering about the challenges that my future children will face. This motivates me even more to be at peace with my body because I strongly believe that kids start building their confidence at home.

On another subject, snap-on bracelets ruled!!!!! Haha!

It blows me away how image-conscious young girls are today. I don’t think I ever gave a second’s thought to what was “slimming” when I was 10. I’ve heard some pretty outrageous tween conversations lately, one in particular was last week at the cinema where 2 girls were talking in bathroom stalls about boys and I couldn’t believe how low their self-worth was. Operation Beautiful and classes with the same message would be so helpful.

That’s awful!! So sad :( I remember overhearing a conversation between 2 first graders, FIRST GRADERS, about how they were fat and needed to go on a diet. It broke my heart.

I agree that it starts at home. Dads are super important too, as they help girls build an understanding if what a man is and how they should be treated by a man. I think that has a lot to do with body image as well.

Conversations like that make me so, so sad.

While I never had an eating disorder where I didn’t eat enough, I did have a problem where I ate too much. Despite being a pudgy kid, I never felt bad about myself until I was around 11 years old. In middle school I became hyper aware of the fact that I was larger. Right down to my own friend announcing, “You have a big butt!” when I was putting on my jeans after a sleep over at her house. I didn’t have the willpower to restrain from food, but I did try to hide the fat however I could. I started wearing huge shirts and men’s jeans to hide my figure. To hide my shame. What started when I was eleven continued on until I was twenty-five. And even now, though I am much more balanced and educated, I still get uneasy.

The idea that those little girls are running around, thinking that they are fat, that they need to find clothes that make them look skinny, and that they even need to have good looking butts in the first place is a tragedy. Ever since I started to try and find health and happiness in my own life, I’ve been crying for the eleven year old me who got told she had a big butt. For all of the years where I missed out on life because I felt like an ugly thing like me needed to be in the shadows.

I agree that there needs to be education and involvement in projects that teach these girls to love themselves…and each other. That teaches how much this stuff really hurts and damages a person. I really want to get involved in reaching out to kids on this subject…not sure how I can yet…but I do want to make it a goal to try. Girls shouldn’t have to grow up like that.

Yes! I used to take public transportation daily, so I’ve heard a lot of disturbing body image discussions. Additionally, my STUDENTS (11-14 years old) sometimes felt negatively toward their bodies. It was SO SAD to hear KIDS talking about how they were fat or ugly or how they had not eaten all day.

It is disturbing to note that focus on weight/body image at increasingly younger ages. I think that we need to also keep in mind that the goal of being slim has been around for quite some time. Having a slim figure at the age of 11, however, does seem to be a newer issue facing our culture.

What to me is the real problem, is that there *are* quite a bit of unhealthy behaviors that kids adopt at a younger age, and that many of these kids *are* out of shape, and eating unhealthy foods. Instead of appreciating quality foods, and healthy behaviors, kids seem to only appreciate a particular “look”. Although I have a deep belief that the home determines a child’s outlook for the most part, I do believe that have incorporating a series of speakers who are female atheletes to discuss health could be good on a school/community level. I vividly recall an assembly on AIDS when I was in high school, where many myths/areas of confusion were cleared up by the group of speakers. Something like that could make a difference.

This is so sad. It’s true that schools don’t focus enough on body image — we talk about eating disorders briefly from time to time, but the feelings behind them are never really addressed, and even the students without specific eating disorders may still have those strong feelings of inadequacy and striving to reach some ideal impossible image. I think classes like that would have been helpful for me when I was young, and now that I’m nineteen (but turning twenty tomorrow!) I have to sort of figure those things out for myself… long after those feelings of inadequacy have already sunk in. It’s hard. But hopefully future generations of girls won’t feel the way I do, or the way other girls who struggle with weight and body image do!

I hate hearing anyone talk negatively about their looks and body, especially young girls who have so much ahead of them.

I make it my mission to never refer to the way I look or “feel” outloud, and it actually has helped me stop having negative body image thoughts as well. I also try to steer conversations away from body talk when I’m with friends who are about to start bashing themselves.

As positive as I try to be about my body, there are times it can be very hard to find a balance between thinking and feeling confidently. Some days a cute outfit or fun makeup DO help me to feel better, and I think that’s okay sometimes. I have to remind myself that these are temporary and its a positive body image in the LONG run that will keep me happy consistently.

I think we have to start by feeling good about ourselves. I have so so so so many girlfriends who constantly say “ugh, I look fat” and “I can’t wear this because I’ll look like a whale” etc etc. None of us have kids yet, but if we already think this about ourselves now, how will we feel about our bodies after they change drastically in pregnancy and we have kids? I can’t imagine it’s going to get much better. I think it’s so sad and we need to embrace being healthy instead of being thin. I know I am guilty of having those moments too, but I try to be aware of them so I can stop the negative thinking in its tracks.

This breaks my heart! I think I was about 10 or 11 when my disordered eating started and was full blown anorexic by 16.
My daughter is 16, a dancer and couldn’t be more proud of her strong athletic body. I have always told her as long as you eat healthy foods to fuel your body, no size is too big (fat) or undesirable. I wish the world would see people for their beauty!

When we celebrated my daughters seventh birthday this year i asked one girl (6 years old) if she´d like to eat one more piece of cake. She answered: “No, if i eat more i will get fat.”
I was totally speechless!

I think it is really important to start a conversation with young girls when they start talking like that. I was looking at my wedding pictures with me 6-year-old niece when she mentioned how “fat” I looked. Well I WAS. I weighed almost 100 pounds more back then!

But we talked about how “fat” isn’t something nice to stay. I talked about how happy I was that day because I was marrying a very special man. And how he loved me for everything I was and still am.

It really worried me because at a play place a little girl had told my niece to move her “big fat butt.” I think that’s where she first heard the word and I don’t want her to think there is anything wrong with the body God gave her.

I worked at a kids camp during the summer and often the lunch time scene was horrifying. There were kids as young as 6 years old discussing calories- I wanted to cry..6!!! I didn’t even know what a calorie was until I was like 12 or older. I had 9 and 10 year olds saying, “You shouldn’t have more than 1200 calories a day.” I obviously jumped in and said my part, (Umm, 1200 is not enough guys! You are growing kids and we don’t count calories- we eat when we are hungry and our bodies tells us we need fuel!) but I really think that the parents definitely play a HUGE role. Media is huge as well. Things like Operation Beautiful are awesome too! One person CAN make a difference, so I feel we all have an obligation to speak up if we feel able. It may make a difference in one young girls life! :)

You should have put the GM in a BOWL!!! With glonola on top!

I’ve definitely heard little girls talk about being “fat.” It’s very surprising and sad how young these negative thoughts can start..

That is so sad. I think I became aware of weight a bit earlier than most but definitely not at 10 years old! You should be enjoying your childhood then not worrying about buying flattering jeans. I mean…you’re ten. That is just ridiculous and very, very sad.

one way to help young girls with their body image is to be a personal example to any young girls in your life. whether we realize it or not, or want to be or not, young girls look up to us and admire us, as ” special and important people” in their lives.
different topic, quick story: angela i stopped drinking diet coke a couple weeks after eric did. he was partly my inspiration (talk about role models!). NO cravings, all was going great…until about 10 days ago when i REALLY started to want a diet pop. i relate it all to a couple stressful weeks…anyway, i caved today and bought a coke zero. took one sip and….BLECH! it was SO syrupy and sweet! i poured the rest out. best $2.25 i ever wasted. i am so relieved! anyway, hope eric is still pop-free, too, and that his lifestyle change in that regard is going well!

I have a 4 year old daughter and I hope she never has to deal with disordered eating like I did. I try to focus on our food making us strong and giving us energy. Or on the other hand if we are choosing not to buy sweets, like other people might be, we talk about how those foods don’t give us energy for playing all day and we need energy. I hope I can always keep the focus on health and doing and eating things to make us feel strong. I know when she gets into school things will be different and I will keep doing my best to stay positive and be a good role model.

It is frightening as a mom to a beautiful little girl. It makes me want to hide her away from all of the world some days.

Ugh, as a mom to a little girl this makes me so sick to my stomach. I know in our family we try to focus on good healthy food and how that makes your body feel and how exercise makes your body feel. That and making sure you talk to your kids about body image and health, that matters…especially when you start from a young age.

I think its important to lead by example. Although I would never dream of blaming my mother for any of my past issues, shes been on a diet my whole life, so it seemed normal to me.
Actually, one of my first memories is from when I was maybe 5, we were at the neighbors house and she was talking about her daughter, who’s probably 5 years older than me so she would have been ten at the time. Anyhow, I remember her saying something about how helpful her daughter was because she would get up and say “we need to go on a diet today mom”.
Even at 5 I can remember wondering why someone so young would go on a diet. Diets were for old people in my mind.
I just think its so sad how obesessed we’ve all become with weight. It isnt the only thing in the world. There is SO much more to life that people are missing out on because of this obsession with being “thin”.

It’s sad, but I’m convinced that most of those attitudes are learned at home — from mothers, big sisters, aunts, etc. I was just as exposed to all the media messages as my friends were growing up, but I attribute my (mostly) healthy and sane outlook towards weight, eating, and working out to my mom. Even though she never really sat me down to talk about that kind of “girl stuff,” she led by example, staying active herself, signing me up for every sports team I wanted, and never pressuring me about how I looked or how much I weighed.

I’ve noticed, though, that SO MANY girls/women use those speech patterns, suggesting that their clothes make them look a certain way. When I realized this a few years ago, I started trying to consciously change my comments, from “I look good in these jeans” to “These jeans look good on me.” ;) *I’m* the one wearing my clothes, not the other way around!

Last year I was at the pool with my three-year-old daughter. She is very tiny and petite. There were three girls, who couldn’t have been older than 11-12, looking at her and one of them said, “She is so thin!” and the other one said, “I’m so jealous!” I hope that they were joking, but I really don’t know. It kind of blew me away. She’s three years old! That kind of talk bothers me a lot. My younger sister went through that with her friends a few years ago, all of them thinking they were “so fat!” when they were not at all. I hope I can instill a positive body image in my own daughter.

It is conversations like those that break my heart. I was actually only saying to Mr BBB the other day that I have never felt more ‘free’ with my body image than I do right now – and it pains me to hear others bemoan, belittle or hate their bodies. I think that is why movements such as Operation Beautiful are just so very very important – in terms of challenging how you see yourself, and to challenge the norality of comparing yourself to others.

One of the most interesting things that I can remember doing at school that really opened my eyes was in sex education classes… we split into groups of boys and girls, and then had to make a list with all of the things that you would want in a boyfriend/girlfriend, both physical and personality related.

The boys put on theirs that they wanted someone who wasn’t really skinny, who ate normally and who didn’t slap on loads and loads of makeup every day – until that point, I’d thought that unless I was super skinny, perfectly made up and pretended that i wasn’t hungry and didn’t like eating in front of boys, I would never be able to have a boyfriend.

I’m aware that this exercise could have gone wrong in several ways (or been offensive as it is if you were a naturally skinny person) so I don’t think it’s necessarily a good idea, but I do think that it’s important that girls understand that other girls their age (especially when they’re teenagers) generally are not happy with their own bodies, and quite a lot will lash out at others to make themselves feel better, and that you shouldn’t take things like that to heart.

The things that I remember which made me feel bad about how I looked or start to develop disordered eating were being called a whale when I was about 13 (when I wasn’t fat at all….) and another person coming up to me and my friend and calling us Jenny fat and Abi ugly (which I realise now is ridiculous, as Abi is in no way ugly, and I was not fat!)… I think it’s important to realise where those insults are coming from, and that they probably have little to do with how you actually look.

I have been one of those girls… And reading this made me sad. Young girls shouldn’t feel this way. There is too much pressure on young girls to be skinny and perfect.

I agree and love your idea of having body image classes!

This post hits so close to home! My little sister in law has been saying for the past few months that she needs to lose weight and then just recently she said she’s trying to get down to the same weight as her older sister. Both these girls look fabulous! They’re both healthy, very active, gorgeous girls. I never know what to say to her, so I just tell her she looks great the way she is, she doesn’t need to lose an ounce. I know it’s not getting through. I can’t see how this girl can think she needs to lose weight, but I know it’s from what she sees of other people. Her mom is always talking about how “fat” she is, but she’s no where near overweight and I just recently lost about 20-25 pounds after having my baby girl. I’ve told her it’s not very healthy for her to be trying to lose weight at her age as she’s only 13. I wish I could help her, but I don’t know what else to do except be a good example and stop with the fat talk(which I have! There’s no way I will talk like that now that I have kids… But I think I need to talk to my mother in law about it too :( )

Both granola’s look good. I’m making some as soon as I can find the time. :)

One time, in American Eagle, this woman was shopping when her young daughter (maybe 11-12) and everything she tried on, she asked her daughter “does this make me look fat?” and “I have such huge thighs” and let me just say, this woman’s body was rockin’. Her daughter was just like, “No! You look so thin…” Broke my heart to watch this woman teach her daughter to objectify herself like that.

I don’t have kids yet, but my Mr and I already have started to focus on “health” instead of “thin” or “muscular” in our house. We eat healthy, whole foods and exercise because it makes us feel good to be strong and healthy. I could probably lose 5 lbs and better fit into the american standard of beauty but it is more important to me to be free of worrying about calories or cardio than it is to have a six pack. Free from guilt over food, free from guilt over skipping a workout, eating nutritious, delicious whole foods and working out to feel good because I like they way I feel when I’m healthy.

I personally believe that a healthy body STARTS with a healthy mind and healthy attitudes.

I love how personal this post is! When I read your blog everyday, it always gives me inspiration to follow my dreams and reminds me of why I should be healthy. Thanks for the daily inspirations!

so sad, isnt it?! i wrote a post on this a week ago. it is SO common, it is heartbreaking.

on the other hand, the birdseye photo of your green monster parfait is brilliant!

Heidi xo

A couple of younger women (by maybe a couple of years at most) where having a similar conversation just today. I was sitting beside them during a morning break and one was offering the other chocolate cake but the other declined in fear of getting fat! But both these girls are rather slim–even slimmer than I am and I’d consider myself average or slim. I couldn’t believe it. As I sat there eating my oatmeal and drinking my tea, I could only imagine what they’d be saying about me behind my back.

I really wanted to say something to them, about how NOT fat either one of them are and how talk like that is ridiculous, but I hardly know either one of them since we don’t work in the same department. I just couldn’t believe what I was hearing.