Do Better
Every single thing we say around our kids matters. It becomes their inner voice.
I was walking into the grocery store when I saw the familiar table set up outside. It is Girl Scout cookie time of year, and I stopped to buy my favorite flavors. The young girl told me about her favorite cookie and the conversation paused while I dug in my purse for payment.
Another mom with her three children walked by. My child cashier looked at her and smiled and the woman said, “You’re selling Girl Scout cookies, too? I guess we’re all going to be fat!”
I guess we’re all going to be fat. Holy cow and other words, I thought. Did she really just say that? To a nine-year-old?
The little girl looked up into my eyes and smiled. She was unfazed, or so it seemed, but I know that message seeped down into her subconscious like a moldy rot. Like the conversation started by an adult at a party I attended who asked loudly, “Why are all the teenage girls so skinny these days?” Like the well meaning uncle who teased the adolescent boy by saying, “Are you ever gonna grow? Gonna stay short forever?”
My heart broke for her and all the other kids who grow up thinking, at some time or another, that their bodies are not good enough. This little Girl Scout appears confident now. She is smart and sweet and has her whole life ahead of her. Her eyes actually twinkle when she smiles.
In my work as a pediatrician, I have conversations several times a week with a tween or teen or young adult who is drowning in self-consciousness about his or her body. I’ve had a young college student tell me he covers his mirrors because he can’t stand to look at his acne. I’ve had children break into tears when they see the number on the scale at my office, as if that number means a dang thing about the amazing human they are.
A kindergartener told me that a classmate said she had fat thighs. A kindergartener. I’ve had girls with healthy, strong bodies tell me they just don’t like the pooch on their abdomen, or the size of their legs, or the angle of their shoulders. Why is my butt so big (or so little?) I can’t wear sandals because my toes are so ugly. What is wrong with my skin?
I’ve had young men with healthy, strong bodies ask me what they can do to bulk up, or have more muscles, or be built like so-and-so. Why can’t I gain weight? What is wrong with me? Some teens are self-conscious because they feel their bodies are not tall enough. Others feel self-conscious that their bodies are too tall. Sometimes on the same day.
I can’t do anything with my hair. I wish it were straight. I wish it were curly. I wish it were long. I wish it were thicker. Everyone else has long eyelashes. Thicker eyebrows. Thinner eyebrows. What’s wrong with my arm right here, where it’s hanging down?
I can distinctly remember a classmate (who will remain nameless) telling me that my dry, sensitive skin – keratosis pilaris, if you must know – was like alligator skin in seventh grade. I am 49 years old, and I remember how it felt when he told everyone at the bus stop I had alligator skin.
I also remember how it felt when a woman in the Whole Foods parking lot blew up her cheeks like a puffer fish as she passed me in her giant car, pissed off that I had taken her parking spot or turned in front of her or some other accidental offense. What kind of person handles anger over a parking place by body-shaming the person who took the spot?
Maybe someone who was told when she was selling Girl Scout cookies thirty years ago that she would be fat if she ate them. Maybe someone who has been shamed about her own body. I need to forgive both her and my seventh grade classmate, I know.
But guys – we have got to do better in the body messaging we are giving our kids. We must do better. They are growing up in a social media world, where people choose their best angles to post and use filters to make their hips thinner and stomach flatter and skin blemish-free. They don’t need to hear it from us, too.
I’m a pediatrician and part of my job is to discuss healthy eating. I hope I do it in a non-judgemental way. Your body needs good energy to grow. Five or six servings of fruits and veggies; and three servings of calcium and vitamin D; and healthy grains and healthy proteins and all that. Your body needs exercise, and it needs sleep and sunshine.
Sometimes the balance of healthy food and junk food is way off, of course, and that is a conversation we can have. A mother of a toddler told me recently the child won’t eat any solid foods except fast food french fries, and it was my job to guide her and help her understand healthy ways to feed her child.
But let’s all check ourselves. There is never a need to comment on a child or teen’s body except to say: aren’t you glad your body is strong and healthy?
After all, a young adult during cancer treatment would love to be able to put on weight. A teen with kidney failure is grateful to make urine. A child who’s lost a leg to bone cancer is grateful for the other leg. Parents of a baby with heart failure are grateful for a heartbeat. These are the bodily functions that matter. These are the people who will never be sidelined by the superficialities of appearance.
So please, adults in the room, mind your words. Is what you’re saying really what you want to teach your children? That what matters is a number on the scale and not the amazing, talented, thoughtful, kind, curious person that the child is?
The answer to healthy living is not avoiding thin mints. It’s developing a healthy, mindful relationship with nutrition and exercise. And that, as we know, is a lifelong process.
If you want some good advice about helping your kids build a good relationship with food, follow Jennifer Anderson MSPH, RDN, at kidseatincolor.com. Or you can look on the American Academy of Pediatrics website, healthychildren.org, which has dozens of helpful articles.
The advice and opinions herein are by no means meant to be a substitute for professional medical advice. Please contact your personal physician, mental health provider or health care professional for medical advice. Opinions are my own.