5 Ways to Nurture a Positive Body Image In Kids

5 Ways to Nurture a Positive Body Image in Kids

Sometimes you can actually hear the whoosh. It sounds like a heavy sigh but is actually the sound of another load of confidence taking a dive, usually pushed by a mirror, a size tag or a set of scales. They’re the dirty little liars in our midst.

 If negative body image was caused by a pathogen, we’d be lining up the kids in our lives for immunity.

Having a positive body image doesn’t mean believing your body to be the picture of perfection. What it means is that the body is accepted and embraced as it is – bumps, bends, curves and all.

First (not that you probably need it) here are the stats:

 According to Eating Disorders Victoria:

  • Eating disorders are on the rise in boys and men.
  • 1 in 8 of women have had an eating disorder at some time in their lives.
  • In Australia, 28% of males and 35% of women aged 11-24 are dissatisfied with their appearance.
  • 41% of children are worried about how they look. 44% of girls and 27% of boys worry about being overweight. 16% worry about being too skinny.
  • A 2007 Sydney University study of nearly 9000 adolescents found that one-fifth of teenage girls starved themselves or vomited to control their weight. 8% smoked to control weight. Boys are doing it too.
  • In a study commissioned by Dove involving 3,300 girls and women aged between 15 and 64 from 10 countries, it was found that 67% of women withdraw from life-engaging activities because they feel bad about they way they look.

Now for the good news. There’s plenty we can do to protect our kids – boys and girls – against the assault of a negative body image:

  1. Model self-compassion.

    A recent study found that self-compassion protects girls and young women against unhealthy weight-control practices and eating disorders. Women who were able to be gentle to themselves in the face of disappointments and upsets had a more positive body image and better eating habits. Being kind to yourself in the face of disappointment will make it more likely that your kids will follow.

  2. Make positive comments about others.

    Whenever you can, make generous comments to your kiddos about people of all shapes. Confident people (not arrogant people) radiate a beauty that is enviable and unmissable. Let your children know that beauty doesn’t only come in a size 6, by pointing out other forms of beauty when you see it. This will counter the constant bombardment by the media that it’s otherwise. 

  1. No trash talk.

    Avoid talking about weight or the parts of your body you don’t like. If you need to do it because the absence of self-criticism is making you shudder, just try to avoid doing it in front of your kids. They’ll pick it up and they’ll run with it because out of everything they want to be, the thing they want to be the most is just like you. There is nobody more influential. They’ll follow your footsteps before they follow your advice. 

  1. Exposure to healthy cultures.

    Encourage your kids to participate in sports or activities that value performance over looks.

  1. Counter the comparisons.

    Harvard researchers found that when cable made it to Fiji in 1995 (Friends, Ally McBeal, Melrose Place and the like), rates of anorexia nervosa and bulimia skyrocketed. Prior to this, fuller figures were appreciated and eating disorders were almost unheard of on the island. Fast forward a few years, and girls who watched these shows at least three times a week were 50% more like to have a distorted body image. Many aspects of the media are relentless in their promotion of perfection and supermodel-esque beauty above all else. Nobody looks like the people in the photos. Not even the people in the photos. Let your kids know. They’re never too young to hear it.

The push against society’s blind infatuation with the perfect body shape isn’t easy. Occasionally I’ve found myself buying into the propaganda. It generally coincides with the lumbering escape of my body from a not so obliging zip but fortunately, these days, the buy-ins are short-lived.

None of us were born hating our bodies. Recently, 50 children and adults were asked what they would change about their bodies. The adults were asked first and their answers included ‘my Dumbo ears’, ‘my crooked feet’, ‘my skin’, ‘my eyes’. Then the kids had their turn and their answers were breathtaking – ‘a mermaid’s tail’, ‘wings’, ‘a shark’s mouth – to eat a lot of stuff’, ‘I like my body actually’ and ‘I don’t think there’s anything to change’. You can see the video by the Jubilee Project here. It’s beautiful, moving, confronting and deserves to be seen.

Children are clever and will pick up on the inconsistencies between what we say in the public moments and what we do in the private ones.

The way we treat ourselves is critical in protecting our kids against the insult of body image propaganda.

Stand between them and the propaganda and they’ll move mountains, or at the very least wave a confident, commanding ‘shush’ to a flimsy photo-shopped world that would have them believe that they can’t.

[irp posts=”1338″ name=”19 Practical, Powerful Ways to Build Social-Emotional Intelligence in Kids & Teens:”]

4 Comments

Sarah

How would you so this if you’ve already altered your body to fit the popular image?

Reply
Tammy

Thank you for sharing, this is so beautifully touching! I would like to think that I encourage my children to see beauty in all people & will definitely continue to do so.
I loved the video, it made my day. X

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Consequences are about repair and restoration, and putting things right. ‘You are such a great kid. I know you would never be mean on purpose but here we are. What happened? Can you help me understand? What might you do differently next time you feel like this? How can we put this right? Do you need my help with that?’

Punishment and consequences that don’t make sense teach kids to steer around us, not how to steer themselves. We can’t guide them if they are too scared of the fallout to turn towards us when things get messy.♥️
Anxiety is driven by a lack of certainty about safety. It doesn’t mean they aren’t safe, and it certainly doesn’t mean they aren’t capable. It means they don’t feel safe enough - yet. 

The question isn’t, ‘How do we fix them?’ They aren’t broken. 

It’s, ‘How do we fix what’s happening around them to help them feel so they can feel safe enough to be brave enough?’

How can we make the environment feel safer? Sensory accommodations? Relational safety?

Or if the environment is as safe as we can make it, how can we show them that we believe so much in their safety and their capability, that they can rest in that certainty? 

They can feel anxious, and do brave. 

We want them to listen to their anxiety, check things out, but don’t always let their anxiety take the lead.

Sometimes it’s spot on. And sometimes it isn’t. Whole living is about being able to tell the difference. 

As long as they are safe, let them know you believe them, and that you believe IN them. ‘I know this feels big and I know you can handle this. We’ll do this together.’♥️
Research has shown us, without a doubt, that a sense of belonging is one of the most important contributors to wellbeing and success at school. 

Yet for too many children, that sense of belonging is dependent on success and wellbeing. The belonging has to come first, then the rest will follow.

Rather than, ‘What’s wrong with them?’, how might things be different for so many kids if we shift to, ‘What needs to happen to let them know we want them here?’❤️
There is a quiet strength in making space for the duality of being human. It's how we honour the vastness of who we are, and expand who we can be. 

So much of our stuckness, and our children's stuckness, comes from needing to silence the parts of us that don't fit with who we 'should' be. Or from believing that the thought or feeling showing up the loudest is the only truth. 

We believe their anxiety, because their brave is softer - there, but softer.
We believe our 'not enoughness', because our 'everything to everyone all the time' has been stretched to threadbare for a while.
We feel scared so we lose faith in our strength.

One of our loving roles as parents is to show our children how to make space for their own contradictions, not to fight them, or believe the thought or feeling that is showing up the biggest. Honour that thought or feeling, and make space for the 'and'.

Because we can be strong and fragile all at once.
Certain and undone.
Anxious and brave.
Tender and fierce.
Joyful and lonely.
We can love who we are and miss who we were.

When we make space for 'Yes, and ...' we gently hold our contradictions in one hand, and let go of the need to fight them. This is how we make loving space for wholeness, in us and in our children. 

We validate what is real while making space for what is possible.
All feelings are important. What’s also important is the story - the ‘why’ - we put to those feelings. 

When our children are distressed, anxious, in fight or flight, we’ll feel it. We’re meant to. It’s one of the ways we keep them safe. Our brains tell us they’re in danger and our bodies organise to fight for them or flee with them.

When there is an actual threat, this is a perfect response. But when the anxiety is in response to something important, brave, new, hard, that instinct to fight for them or flee with them might not be so helpful.

When you can, take a moment to be clear about the ‘why’. Are they in danger or

Ask, ‘Do I feel like this because they’re in danger, or because they’re doing something hard, brave, new, important?’ 

‘Is this a time for me to keep them safe (fight for them or flee with them) or is this a time for me to help them be brave?’

‘What am I protecting them from -  danger or an opportunity to show them they can do hard things?’

Then make space for ‘and’, ‘I want to protect them AND they are safe.’

‘I want to protect them from anxiety AND anxiety is unavoidable - I can take care of them through it.’

‘This is so hard AND they can do hard things. So can I.’

Sometimes you’ll need to protect them, and sometimes you need to show them how much you believe in them. Anxiety can make it hard to tell the difference, which is why they need us.♥️

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