I got a comment from reader Kest about the struggle to help kids deal with living in a fat phobic environment. It provides a great framework for talking to kids about Size Acceptance and Health at Every Size
My kidlet just finished kindergarten… recently the Kidlet has started making comments about how he doesn’t want to be fat…the Kidlet claimed that he was getting these ideas from commercials…I can certainly attribute this to a combination of commercials and the messages the school is sending, but I don’t know how to counter it…How do we address size acceptance with a generation coming up with all these messages bombarding them?
I think it’s an utter shame that the government has decided to focus on the weight of children, putting a “middle man” between kids and their health that doesn’t need to be there. It’s particularly disturbing because there is no evidence that it will work, and lots of evidence that it is dangerous. Kids are also barraged with the exact same 386,170 negative messages about fat bodies that adults are assaulted with every year. They are also encouraged by the media, schools, even the government to stereotype people based on how they look. That can cause a lot of difficulty for kids who are fat, and for kids who have people close to them who are fat. It can also be heartbreaking for fat parents.
There is an added difficulty with kids because no parent wants their kid to suffer, so I do want to point out that when people say that they don’t want a fat kid, what they may really be saying is that they don’t want their fat kid to grow up in a fatphobic society. I suggest that focusing on the weight of the kid is working the wrong end of the problem.
I have neither kids nor qualifications to tell people how to raise kids so I’m just going to tell you what I think I would do and also request that you use the comments to add your advice. If I had a kid, I think I would be having two ongoing conversations. The first would be about why we don’t stereotype people or treat them differently based on their size, health or anything else. The second would be an age appropriate conversation about how weight and health are two different things and that, as has happened before in science, medicine and society, some well intentioned people are making a big mistake and that we are among the first group of people to realize it, and how that poses its own difficulties.
You’ll need to decide if you want to encourage your kid(s) to challenge authority on this or perhaps have a mantra that they say in their heads when they hear things that they now know are problematic. There’s also the issue of sticking up for the fat kids who are being harmed by all of this.
I would continue to have these conversations, and find teachable moments. I hope that it would be a continuation of my work to instill critical thinking in my kid and I could encourage him/her to look at the evidence about this, ask if they thought it sounded like what happened to Galileo etc.
I think that some of the most important things that kids can be taught are critical thinking, questioning authority, the difference between opinion and fact, and the underpants rule – just looking at my hate mail page will give you a sample of the number of people I deal with every day who can’t get those skills together. It turns out the current anti-fat culture provides lots of opportunities for them to practice those things. Again I want to encourage you to add your thoughts to the comments!
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Thank you for this. It terrifies me that we are sending such dangerous messages to our kids. A blog friend’s post last night reminded me of why. Her 7 year old daughter is already obsessing over exercise and labelling dessert ‘bad’ from what she’s learnt at school – and it’s doubly upsetting as her mum is right now recovering from anorexia herself.
This is so very worrying.
Fiona,
I read your friend’s post; it is definitely disturbing, if not surprising. I certainly hope that your friend actually sent the letter to the school. The idea of “good” and “bad” foods is so ingrained that many people do not even realize the ridiculousness of the concept. Just one example: my husband was on a business trip recently and one of his colleagues mentioned that he wanted to go to a certain restaurant so he could “be good” (in this context, good is no red meat; his wife is a vegetarian and keeps close tabs on his food at home. While traveling, he often indulges in steaks, burgers, etc., but obviously feels guilty about it.) My husband thought the entire idea of “bad” food was ludicrous, but after further conversation I realized that hubby thought it was over the top because his coworker is letting his spouse control him, even from afar. When I said (to paraphrase), “Honey, the entire idea of ‘bad’ vs. ‘good’ food is bull,” it gave him pause. The idea that foods are “good” and “bad” is so strong, that even someone who loves and lives with a pretty darn vocal* NAAFA member did not hear the absurdity of the statement. Sometimes a farce has been so effectively presented as fact that well-meaning people perpetuate the lie without even realizing it.
* vocal in our world (among friends, family, acquaintances.)
I think that is what I would do as well. I’m not a parent yet, but if I ever do have a child, i really want them to be educated on and learn to value on their health in terms of nutrition and activity, not size or obsess of their appearance in any way. I know that growing up I could have had much more fun if I hadn’t been so worried about how I looked compared to other kids my age. I want to take any and every opportunity to have regular conversations that build their self image, not tear it down, but also keep health in priority. It’s a possible thing to do, but parents need to stay active in the mission.
My six-year-old son is doing the same thing Fiona is describing above, describing food as “good” and “bad” and getting judgmental about the “bad” food we eat.
What’s worse to me, though, is this horrifying letter we received at the end of the school year, giving the height, weight, and BMI of each of my kids in a form letter that said, in essence, “Your doctor may not be concerned about your child’s weight, but if (s)he is outside of the normal range, there may be a problem you need to address. All children should have 60 minutes of activity a day, and in addition, should have 90 minutes a week of muscle-building activity, such as pushups, jumping jacks, or weight training.”
The idea that they were suggesting that I not only make sure my kids were active, but push them into workout-style activities instead of letting them choose their own fun, was appalling. Is there a better way to ruin something kids are doing naturally and for fun than to force them into doing it in parentally-mandated ways? No wonder so many people have disordered ideas about physical activity: the world is determined to tell us we’re doing it wrong if we’re just enjoying it.
WOW – especially the part about “your doctor may not be concerned”! Well, your qualified health professional might not know anything about their field, but we non-medicine qualified school employees sure do! :S
Our school sent something similar. My husband, who loves a fat woman, and has watched her not be fat and be horrendously fat, found it offensive while I did not. I think being raised by a fat hater I sort of became one myself. I need to learn more from my wonderful accepting husband and remember not to worry about my children’s appearance, but their insides. Thanks you!
You’ve touched on something I was thinking about recently, Betsy. I love to go on walks, to go rock climbing, to dance and to bike. But in school when I finally got to the year that gym was no longer required? I was thrilled, and so was everyone I knew. How come I hated gym if I loved moving? Because the whole program was competition or “workout” based, and I dislike both. When I think of how kids are still going through school, and gym is still hated by many, I think its time we speak up for enjoyable activity and movement. I could care less if it “makes kids thin”.(ugh) I think its a shame that the system doesn’t encourage kids to just discover their own happiness in movement.
I’m so fed up with the current national dialogue on obesity in kids, its so unbearably harmful.
Seriously, I’ve had THIRTEEN year olds ask me for diet advice on youtube. What the crap government? What the crap society? Leave the kids alone. I remember being a fat kid as being difficult enough without a massive government-sponsored campaign being waged against me
I don’t have kids of my own yet, but as a camp counselor it was heartbreaking to see the kids getting more and more wacked out about weight every successive summer.
I think there’s also a real problem with setting quotas on any desired and desirable activity. As soon as something is required, it stops being fun and starts being something you do until your obligation is fulfilled. Hence recess is good for encouraging activity, while gym is maybe not so productive.
I went to an uber-bohemian, very socially active high school. In my senior year, they added a requirement that every student log 10 hours of community service each year. The result was that the total community service tracked by our school dropped by 50%. Why? All of the kids who had held fundraisers to build Tibetan schools and made quilts for the local women’s shelter and organized food drives and got people together to do 150-mile bike rides for charity instead spent 10 hours stuffing envelopes for a fundraiser, then brushed their hands and said, “Welp, that’s done. Don’t need to be socially active again until next year.”
Food is the same way for me. I LOVE vegetables. When I am cooking whatever I want to, I do lots of veggie-heavy, low starch, dishes, like roasted corn and grilled zucchini boats. But as soon as I start thinking, “I need to eat more vegetables,” I start counting to my minimum, then saying, “Phew. Obligation fulfilled,” and stopping. I eat more vegetables when I’m not trying to eat vegetables than I do when I am.
If I tell myself I need to get thirty minutes of exercise a day, I get resentful, and the idea starts to drag at me until I can’t make myself not hate it. But if I get home and put on the music while I cook dinner, I end up dancing around with my kids like an idiot for much of the evening. No stress, no pain. And it’s because I’m not making myself do it, I’m just giving myself the chance to want to.
“Your doctor may not be concerned about your child’s weight, but…” Wait, what?
The school is now saying that, despite a medical professional’s lack of concern (a medical professional with 1st-hand knowledge of a child’s medical history), a parent should consider BMI a problem based on the 5-minute evaluation of a less-qualified professional using a flawed tool for measurement. Right. Wow.
And, without any good reason, they’ve concluded that a higher BMI automatically equals a lack of physical activity. Damn. Incredible. Are the skinny kids with no muscle tone getting notes home about the importance of strengthening exercise and nutritious food choices? I doubt it.
It’s infuriating.
Actually, the skinny kids did get the same note, because that’s where my son actually fell. But BMI is worse than a pointless measurement for kids, it’s a patently ridiculous one. Kids HAVE to get pudgier and skinnier in waves: it’s how their bodies work! They ingest calories and build mass steadily, and spurt vertically at key points. If your kid is approaching a growth spurt, the last thing you want to do is cut off their food or force them to work out to fix something that’s not only not a problem, but only a temporary NOT-PROBLEM.
Food does not have moral content. Food is nouishment. Yet our food supply has been tainted by agri-business which has pumped our livestock with antibiotics and hormones to make them fat, fed them corn instead of grass; and infused our crops with genetically modifications; sprayed them with dangerous pesticides and other chemicals. I believe that is what accounts for the increase in obesity.
Stigmatizing is easier than dealing with the actual problem.
Blame the victim or the crime instead of stopping the criminal.
Flame me if you like, but this issue is much more insidious than size acceptance.
*yawn* Shoo, troll, shoo.
Wait, what? Samantha is actually pointing out some of the reasons why a fat body isn’t always the individual’s fault, which is (amongst others) the point the HAES/FA folks are trying to make. I see similarities between what Samantha says here and what Ragen said in her “I’m supposed to eat what?” post. Our food IS being tampered with, you know…
“More insidious than size acceptance” indicates that size acceptance is insidious. Plus “Flame me if you like” indicates that it is, indeed, flame bait, and that is trolling.
Even if she’s totally sincere and just put it badly, it’s some pretty serious derailing.
In my work, I often need to speak about this with children and parents…..so thanks very much for addressing this, very good recommendations. One resource I recommend for parents is Appendix 11 from Ellyn Satter’s book “Your Child’s Weight: Helping Without Harming” This appendix provides research regarding the actual relationship between health and weight in children……helps parents embrace HAES for their children.
I have a two year old myself and of course I’m concerned about her health, but there are a ton of negative messages out there, making kids worry about things they shouldn’t. I believe in including healthy food (I provide a small variety on her plate and she picks what she wants to eat at any given meal. She may eat more protein at one time and more vegetables another.) I try to be active with her (we were just outside, walking around the yard, kicking a ball, looking at things. We also dance around inside and she creates her own obstacle courses.)
I always remember what another mom told me about how her child’s doctor started to talk about her daughter’s weight and she shut him right down. Later she told him she would never discuss that with her daughter in the room. She did not want her daughter to think about that issue if she could help it. Her mother was trying to instill the belief that her body was healthy and strong and that was what was important.
I know we’ll have to address it at some point, because of the messages she’ll be getting from society. I just hope I can give her a healthy sense of self to combat those messages. My mother knew how difficult it can be in our society to be overweight and she didn’t want me to suffer what she did so she went the way of society and tried to restrict my food. That, of course, had the opposite effect. My girl is on track to be 6 foot tall and probably muscular, like me. I hope I can teach her that healthy is way more important than skinny.
I’m not a parent, but I am a mental health professional and a child development specialist. When a kid says he or she don’t want to be fat, or that food is bad, I suggest asking them “Why?” Have the full conversation and explore how they are thinking about it, then along the way, talk about the problems that arise and insert some humor if you can. Here’s a very simplified example…
“Mom, I don’t want to be fat.”
“Why is that, son?”
“Well, because I saw kids at school bullying a boy at school because he was fat and I don’t want to get bullied.”
“Yes, son, you’re right, bullying sucks for any reason and no one wants to get bullied. It sounds like body shape isn’t the problem so much as there are bullies at school and you are afraid you could be bullied.”
“Yeah, bullies suck. I hate them. Teacher also says that brownies will make me fat and that brownies are bad and broccoli is good.”
“Do you think she is right?”
“Yeah, brownies make you fat. Broccoli is good for you.”
“What if brownies are good for you too?”
“That’s just silly, mom!”
“Why? Do you want broccoli for dessert tonight?”
“Mo-om! ”
“Which is better, to eat a brownie feel happy because it tastes good and gives you energy to go play your ball game, or a dump-truck full of broccoli until your teeth turn green and you spew green chunks all over your new ball uniform.”
” gross, mom!”
“So if a dump truck full is too much broccoli, how much is just enough?”
“Teacher says a serving size at a meal.”
“Do you think she’s right on that?”
“Yes.”
“So then how much brownie is too much brownie? 2 brownies? 3, 4, a whole pan-ful? a dump-truck full?”
“I think 3 brownies is too many.”
“Ok, so maybe 3 brownies in a meal is overboard, but it sounds like 1 would be just fine?”
“Yeah, I guess.”
“So broccoli is good in moderation, but so are brownies, in moderation, right?”
“Sounds right.”
“So…broccoli for dessert tonight?”
” Mo-om!”
end scene.
When you have a conversation with a kid like this, you encourage them to discover one’s own thoughts and develop logic and critical thinking skills. Don’t be afraid to teach a kid to question what he or she hears, even if questioning authority, which is not always a bad thing. Questioning, asking “Why?” is how we learn to think for ourselves. Questioning a kid’s thinking allows them to be fully present and engaged in the conversation and the resolution, as opposed to you telling them what to think, lecture-style, which risks becoming one more source in the confusing world telling the kid what to think. Also, expect to have conversations like this a lot. This is not a one-time-and-it’s-over thing because your kid will get lots of messages regularly that he or she will need to learn to question for themselves.
Thanks for reading. I hope this has been helpful for someone.
Thanks, this is really helpful to me actually. My 5 year old son (who is naturally skinny) has started saying he doesn’t want to get fat recently, and I’ll try your approach. As an added complication, he has Asperger’s (and is slightly speech delayed, especially receptive language, so lots of breaking down, examples, yes or no questions required rather than a speech explaining things) and he tends to view things as “rules.” If the school said such and such food makes you fat, it’s hard to challenge the thought without challenging the whole notion of school and creating a different problem for him. Any advice specific to this would be very much appreciated!
I’m not a parent, but I was a kid with Asperger’s.
I guess it depends a lot on what he’s hearing at school, given that they undoubtedly think they’re doing the right thing, you may end up having to educate the educators with a few well-placed HAES pamphlets!
In my family’s experience (two Aspie kids and a lot of reading around the subject), Asperger’s tends to come with greater intellectual maturity; even if it isn’t coming out, I’d almost guarantee that it’s going in. Based on that, I would suggest talking to him about food groups and what each group does in the body now, so he knows why he needs fat and sugar as well as fruit and vegetables, before the school’s message of ‘fat == bad’ sinks in.
Also, if he has some hand in building his meals based on the food groups, he’ll be more involved in his diet and may be less inclined to let someone else dictate what he must and mustn’t eat. Or, at the very least, more likely to want to know why what they say is different to what he learned.
In the 1990’s my mother used to be a nanny for three great kids. When they were younger, I would occasionally babysit on a weekday night or weekend afternoon. Mom started noticing that their mom (we’ll call her Debbie) continually commented about “the fat kid” on Barney. Essentially, Debbie felt that the Barney producers were sending a “bad message” by letting a “fat kid” be on the show (I used quotation marks because I never noticed a “fat kid”; I really have no idea which one Debbie was talking about.) Anyway, sure enough, one day one of the kids came up to my mom and said, “I don’t like fat people.” Mom said, “oh, well do you like Jenni?” “Yes, I like Jenni.” “Well, Jenni is fat.” The child was simply traumatized, almost started crying. “But, I like Jenni; I like Jenni.” Even after mom calmed her down, she kept coming up to my mom during the day insisting that she liked me.
Anecdotal, for sure. But, this was one child during a time when the war on obesity (fat people) was just an undercurrent, who had but one person (her mom) spouting negative messages about fat people (this is before she was school aged) and the child adopted it as her own mantra before she even knew what fat meant. Children, at least this child, easily absorb the messages around them, even if they are not directed towards them. In good news, I believe children would be just as impressionable if parents teach children to love and accept, rather than to hate, people who are different from themselves.
Kids get in trouble when they challenge authority in school. Most kids find being in trouble very unpleasant. Unless the reward for thinking critically is greater than the punishment for thinking critically (which is hard to do when kids are in school most of the day), I wouldn’t expect much.
School and TV poison a lot of good parental intentions. Someone is going to come in and say that its wrong to “shelter” kids, but the kid in question here is in friggin kindergarten. They can barely understand the difference between real and pretend. I don’t think its fair that they get bombarded with all this weird crap before they can understand any of it or the arguments against it.
In other news, 6th graders in my area took a no-sugar pledge “for health”, urged on by their teacher. No one asked parents if they were ok with it first or anything. I know this because of a kid I know, not because the news or anyone really cares about it. It puts kids on a diet with the whole rest of the class and never explained how it was supposed to make them healthier.
Several years ago, I taught middle school (as a full time teacher and also a substitute). When issues came up about fatness or bmi or health =weight dogma, as a fat person that the children adored, I gave them HAES and body positive messages to counteract any negative they might be getting with the lesson, or just in reply to stereotypes brought up by students. It was great to have a room full of 8th graders raptly listening to me when I told them that the BMI that they were about to be required to take a measurement for was not a measure of their worth, or their health, but just a plain old math problem. That being healthy was a lot of things, not just a few numbers on a scale. And that no matter what their measurement was, they could choose to like themselves, always.
I also had a wonderful experience where we had this self-esteem building week. I thought it was great until we got to a place in the literature that required the students to quantify their exercise and healthy food intake and indicated that you were more worthy if you were more healthy. At that point, I told my students to ignore that page and that they only need to judge themselves on goals they find worthy. If you don’t want to run a mile because you really would rather spend your time writing or drawing, then you don’t have to feel bad about not running. You should only worry about meeting your own goals that matter to you and create your own chosen path. I wrote to the company and said, basically, “Your curriculum was great, but you just wrecked it all on page 16. People should feel worthy and beautiful no matter what their health or habits regarding health!” and the company replied saying that I was absolutely right and that they would change that message in the next edition.
Another great moment was informing a student, when she incorrectly assumed that all fat people are over-eaters, some of the mechanisms that cause weight gain, including dieting itself, and then hearing her brother, a week later, stand up for a fat kid in his class, quoting what I had told his sister. I was really proud and surprised even that she thought enough about what I said to share it with her family.
So, there are quite a few kids in North Florida, who have gotten some messages, and hopefully they continue to share them.
I’ve been having these conversations with my 13 yo son. I was even going to write for advice! You read my mind.
He said he didn’t want to be fat. First, I pointed out that he isn’t fat. Second, I gave him my lecture on adolescence and weight gain that everyone seems to forget (we gotta gain some weight to handle growth and hormones!). Third, we talked about fat/not fat not equaling healthy. Fourth, we talked about ways we could be healthier.
I encourage him to eat healthy and be active. He doesn’t always accept my help or suggestions. Now when I say a food is “bad” he corrects me and says “no food is good or bad” because we’ve had that discussion. Still, in our context, I’m pretty sure a diet of Munchies would be “bad!”
It doesn’t help that his school’s nutrition lessons were horrifically outdated. When we would talk about what he was learning at dinner each night, I gently re-taught what he had heard that day.
The really funny thing? He started the summer (just one month ago!) going through a really chubby state. The other day I watched him walk toward me, amazed at how thin he was looking. Kids’ bodies are changing constantly. How can we even judge them on this issue?!
I have cut out as many chemical-laden foods as possible. I don’t let him drink diet pop. Soda is a rare event when we eat out or buy some for floats at night. But at school they feed him skinny cow ice cream, sugar-laden fruit drinks, and sun chips. It’s a battle we can’t win…
I would say that chemical laden processed food is always bad. I also read once that if you can’t visualise an ingredient you probably shouldn’t be eating it!
I’ve meant to leave a comment for a while, and this is a perfect opportunity.
First, I wanted to say how much I enjoy your clever responses over on your “hate mail” blog – if only we could all think up such satisfying returns in the moment.
Second, I want to share: I have six children. I was skinny as a kid, not so much now – in fact, I’m pretty fat now. But dieting has always seemed strange and not quite right to me; HAES is perfect. You’ve encouraged me to take the body I have now and make it healthy – maybe I’ll get skinny again, maybe not: it doesn’t matter. Some of my kids are chubby, some skinny. It’s obviously not what I’m feeding them, or amount of exercise, because that’s pretty consistent across the board. I’ve kind of avoided the issue in the past, because I didn’t know what to say; now, it seems obvious that I should just encourage all of them to be as healthy as they can, and never worry about weight. One of them in particular will be helped with this – when we went for his last well-child visit, the doctor was concerned because his BMI was in the 96th percentile. He wanted us to chart exercise, screen time, and foods – he was convinced we must drink lots of soda or something. I asked him to check what my son was the year before – ninety-somethingth percentile. And before that? He was born 10lbs 4oz. He is active, healthy, and a very cheerful child. His favorite foods are fresh, garden-grown vegetables. He often doesn’t care for sweets – just not his thing. I was furious that the doctor was going to try and give him a hard time about that: I asked what good it would do. He tried to claim they’d helped a lot of families to make healthier choices- I declined any further involvement. With HAES info it’s been easier to just encourage all my children to be healthy, and understand what that really involves (diet, exercise, sleep).
So – a very long comment just to say, thank-you. You’ve helped. Keep up the good work.
Amen!
I recently had a well-child checkup with my daughter that I shared with Ragen and I might as well post it here since your post is so similar.
I have a 4 year old who is quite tall for her age. At 4.5 years, she’s 3’9″ and weighed in at 56 pounds. Of course, both of these numbers are off the ‘curve’ but they still follow the curve as she has grown. (You know, started off short and average for height/weight when she was born, but as time went on, she grew taller and heavier and stayed pretty even-keel with the curve, just a bit above it now in both categories.) Now, if she spiked up in weight – like sky rocketed off the chart, sure, I’d be a bit concerned because that would be a flag that there may be an underlying health issue. However, she’s just fine, she’s just a thick girl (I remember one visit around 9-12 months they remarked they’ve never seen a child with as ‘built’ ab muscles as she had).
Anyway, this last visit the doctor comes in and hands me a script for getting her cholesterol checked because it’s “routine for any child above the 95th percentile”. Sorry. No. Tell me it’s routine for all children and I’d give my doctor a high-five for wanting to make sure all children are healthy – but do not tell me it’s strictly because of her BMI. Tell me what reasons trigger concern that she should get her cholesterol checked, but BMI should not be one of those.
Now, I was thinking about going and doing it anyway because, yes – it’s always great to have that information at hand, however when my daughter was jumping and spinning around the exam room and exclaims to her doctor, “I want to be a ballerina!” and her doctor snips back, “Well ballerinas are tall and THIN.” (yes, with verbal emphasis on the thin part) I struggled so hard with keeping my fist firmly planted at my side instead of firmly planted in her face. Fortunately my daughter’s “I don’t care what you say, I’m going to do my own thing anyway” switch was on and she hasn’t once asked me what her soon to be ex-doctor (as soon as I can find an HAES friendly doctor in my area) meant by it and I’ve done nothing but dote on how perfect she is the way she is. I give her a wide assortment of foods to pick from and she normally picks vegetables (she prefers them raw than cooked) and fruit, she gets her choice of water or milk (cow, almond, or coconut) and there’s the rare occasion I will let her have a soda if we’re out of the house but normally she opts for water. She loves water. She eats intuitively and I don’t force her to finish her plate (just that she eats a bit of everything).
So, yep. Not exactly looking forward to school coming up but I definitely will be using that discussion Duckie outlined above!
Oh my goodness, I would have needed my fist to be stapled to my side to keep from knocking that doctor on the floor.
What a horrible thing for anyone to say to a child–much less a doctor. Maybe the world is tired of tall and thin ballerinas!
By the way, what happened to being enthralled with chubby babies and kids?! Has that been tossed to the side in our country’s thin obsession?!
I am still shaken about something I saw at the gym about an hour ago:
While I was on the treadmill, I hear a thunk and a scream. I look over and some kid (12-14 year old range) had fallen down and then into the wall in back of him. He hurt his wrist and was crying. His a$$hole dad was yelling at him, “get up, get back on” over and over again. Poor kid did, but he was just dripping drool and snot all over the place, as he was HURT. I was watching, kind of frozen with my eyes bugging out, when some other woman (thank God) went over and yelled at the a$$hat. It was loud (we were in the cardio cinema), so I don’t know what she said, except “he’s a kid.” The “father” left with the kid in tow, followed by the woman and her friend. They (the women) never came back in, so I have no idea what happened. I just could not believe my eyes. Also, kind of embarrassing — I wish my first instinct was to stick up for him. Anyway, just all around shaken. I have seen so many miserable kids at the gym so far this summer, but this one is by far the worst thing I have seen.
I am not saying this child was being overworked at the gym because of the issues discussed in these comments (certainly he could have been an athlete that dad was trying to condition, a timid child he was trying to “toughen up” or any number of other lame excuses for abuse), but it seems to me that by labeling non-abuse (body size) as abuse, it just might lead to actual abuse.
I’m teaching English in two Korean public elementary schools. In the sixth grade textbook, there is a lesson coming up about how to describe people’s physical appearance. I’m not sure what I will tell them to say about body size. In Korean culture, it’s not considered rude to say someone is a fat pig, but they need to know not to say that to, say, an American or a Canadian.
Personally, I think saying “fat” is better than using transparent euphemisms, but most of the other native English teachers I’ve talked to said that they found the word “fat” extremely offensive.
I was one of those lucky girls who hit puberty really early, I was 8 years old when all that fun started happening. It changed my body, I went from a scrawny kid who had worn the same size clothes for 3 years to an 8 year old who was gradually starting to resemble someone much older than my actual age. Part of that included weight gain. Teachers were obsessed with sending notes home telling my mom they concerned for my health, that I was bigger than the other girls, that if I lost weight I wouldn’t need a bra (HA!). Luckily my mom ignored it and talked to me about how people are all shaped different and that there was nothing wrong with my body. It took me years to be ok with body because it was different than so many of the girls around me. The last thing kids need is to be treated differently because of their body size. Teachers are there to teach not to send home notes about BMI and recommended activity levels. Why is it so hard to comprehend that people come in different sizes and body size has nothing to do with health and even if it does you can’t tell that just by looking at someone’s body!
Children are the most impressionable about culture because their brains are wired to learn very quickly. That age is the part where we learn the most and have the greatest amount of impact on our lives to come. I remember being a fat kid when I was young. I was big an bulky, but it was actually something people found adorable in my time and in my era. I guess the recent War on Obesity BS would have done a number on my self-esteem instead if I was born more recently. I was actually considered strong for being the fat kid so I used it to protect my smaller friends from bullies. Only when I grew up into adolescence did things get bad – it’s still part of one’s childhood when you’re a teenager so I definitely count that as experience: I remember getting weighed in and calculating our own BMI at school. I was told I was at a healthy normal weight and I had a tiny sexy waist (I was thirteen, why would an adult honest to God comment about a thirteen year old’s sexiness?) and was congratulated for it. Until now, I’m having a hard time trying to not correlate my personal value towards my appearance and probably a contributor to the ED I’m battling now. I remember fatter friends being laughed at, teased and mocked openly for not being within the “correct” range. I remember there being a fat girl talking about her sweet boyfriend from overseas and a bunch of friends collecting to a jerk circle when she disappeared and saying that because she was so fat she had to be making up her boyfriend story. That was never an issue back when I was really young when the whole BMI thing or just generally the weight thing hadn’t been put into the social equation but when they did, things got nasty. It comes as no surprise that kids have unhealthier attitudes towards eating in more recent times because it’s being taught to them in their schools much earlier.
Families can still impact the way kids can think about fat and how it doesn’t relate to health or morality and it’s just a body size type like being tall. Because kids aren’t really stupid, they just keep being misinformed by a very predominant culture and things can change within the house. I always thought that my parents telling me stuff outweighs school taught information.
Childhood is such a defining moment in our lives that being taught self-esteem and body acceptance early on might help just soften the brunt of fat hatred coming from all sides. I hope one day when I have my own kids that they never have to live in a fat-phobic society and that they just get to be whoever they are and want to be without people telling them they can’t because their body isn’t right.