How Do I Respond When My Child Calls Their Body Fat?

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Hi, welcome to Talking Sense, a podcast with me, Dr. Marta. I'm a clinical psychologist trained in family therapy and every week I answer one of your real life crafts questions, giving you psychological understandings, strategies and ideas to guide you. Before we begin, I always like to give you a few minutes of pause, something to ground you as we are beginning our conversation together. I'm really hoping for some sunny weather. So what I'm going to ask you to do is to make sure that you spend a few moments today offering your skin to the fresh air. Hopefully that means sunshine, but even if it's windy or a little bit gray, just make sure that you have some moments where you are paying attention to what it feels like to have your skin outdoors and have it be felt by nature, it can be such a soothing, grounding moment for you and it can only take a couple of seconds.

This week's question is about how to respond to an older child when they call themselves or their body fat. So let's have a listen.

Hi Dr. Marta. My seven year old daughter has just confided in me that she feels that her thighs are fat and she's Asked me if I can buy her a new swimming costume to cover them up. She was clearly very uncomfortable speaking about it, and she's made me promise not to tell anyone. I've always taken great care to be only positive in my comments about my own body and never comment on other people's shape. I'm really glad that she's confided in me, but I'm just not sure how to best tackle this one. I'd really appreciate your advice here.

I wonder how many of your children have said this to you. I know this is something that children say. I know that it is something that lots of parents have contacted me about and found quite difficult to witness in their child. I think we have such an ingrained view of fat as badness. Okay? We see fat as being bad, and therefore, if our child calls any part of their body fat or somebody else fat, we find that really emotionally triggering. So I think one of the things to really think about today together is first of all, what is fat? And in this question, it's very clear that fat isn't something that people are talking about. And I'm going to kind of spin that on its head. I think we need to talk about fat and we need to destigmatize its badness, its ugliness, its unworthiness. We need to think about fat as something that we all carry because bodies do carry fat. And actually fat isn't bad. It is just another chemical in our body. And some bodies carry more fat than others. But that shouldn't be something that we are looking down upon or judging or making stigmatizing comments about or shaming. And it's so important that as adults, we have these conversations with our children, because if we don't, one of the things that happens is that the things we don't speak about, children feel like they. They can't be spoken about and. Or they are bad. So often when we are avoiding a certain topic or a certain word in our conversations or communications, what can happen is that we give that word a lot of power. And I think that's often what happens with the word fat that it's become a really powerful word. It's become a little bit of a weapon that people, and often children use to hurt and shame others as well as themselves. And to me, it's not surprising because as I said at the beginning, I think fat has become a synonym in our society for badness. And there is a big cultural story and discourse associated with idealized views around beauty. What is good looking? What is Ugly, what stigmatizes body shape and size. And when children use words of self loathing and body shaming, I think the upset that you feel as a parent is very real. It's very understandable. And it can feel so difficult to know what to do next. So let's talk about all of this. I'm going to go through a couple of things. I'm going to talk about fat, I am going to talk about what you do and I'm also going to hopefully help you understand what it actually means when a child says I'm fat or my thighs are fat, like what are they asking for? So how do you respond to this and how do you make sense sense of this communication? Because yes, sometimes children feel fat in their bodies, but overall talking about their bodies in this way is actually tapping into a feeling, not a realistic view of their body. And that's what you need to be kind of focusing on and leaning into. But it's a hard thing to do because often we take communication at face value. And what I'm going to ask you to do is to really look beneath to get curious and to really help your child disentangle this idea of fat as badness. And what is the feeling that they're carrying that's making them say these things about themselves? When a child comes to you and tells you that they are fat, I think the first step is to really hear them out. Okay. Because those that kind of talking about themselves, particularly if it's coming from a negative point of view, okay, they're saying it with a tone of voice that sounds sad. They're saying it looking upset or annoyed. Then what you want to do is really look at what does fat mean for your child? Because it's often a code word for a deeper emotion. It's not usually about weight or looks. It's about a feeling and it's about looking beneath the words to focus on the core of what is actually happening to your child. What is making them feel bad or different or feel like they need to shame a part of their body. Of course, some children might say, hey mummy, look, I've got a really fat tummy. But they say it in a jovial tone of voice in a way that isn't stigmatizing or shaming of their body. They're actually just naming something that is maybe true. They've got a little like chubby tummy and it's there. And in that moment it's about just meeting your child where they're at and kind of saying, yeah, you're right. Tummies do carry fat and they go all soft sometimes. What do you feel about that? Get curious. Ask your child. Even when they're saying it jovially, well, how do you feel about it? Yeah, I love my tummy. I know lots of little ones who actually love soft squeegee tummies, particularly on their parents, my child included. You know, it's like a little cushion for them. It's comforting. It's, you know, a part of their, of your body that they might actually love and a part of their body that they might love. So don't just assume that fat is spoken in negative terms. Obviously in this question and the way it's been phrased and sent, I can hear, hear that there is a sense that this child is saying it in a negative way, but perhaps she's not and perhaps it's about tapping into your curiosity. So first things first, remember that it's about a deeper emotion. And sometimes fat can be a code word for things like I feel hurt or I feel in pain or I feel sad, or I feel rejected, or I feel like I don't really feel fit in within my peer group, or there's something about me that's different and I feel really uncomfortable about it. Okay, so you need to think, what does this mean? And ask your child, get really curious because it's really important that the first thing you don't do is reassure. And a bit like in this question, it's what I hear so commonly from parents, parents saying to me, but my child isn't fat. They're really fit and they eat healthy and we don't shame their body and we don't talk in this way. It's important to recognize that your child hasn't necessarily learned that fat is bad from you. Yes, in some households, parents do talk about healthy and fat and they talk about fat in a negative way, in which case your child may have learned that from you. But in most cases, many cases, children will learn that fat is something that they don't want to be. They learn that through interactions with others, peer interactions at school, adult interactions in the world, you know, that they've got out there. And because of all the kind of explicit and implicit messaging that we receive every day and children receive every day, whether it's advertising and the kind of bodies that children see on magazines, on kind of billboards, on tv and if you're thinking, well, we don't have those magazines in my home and you know, billboards are a bit old fashioned, kids aren't really paying attention to that. Kids are watching tv and lots of children, including in cartoons, will see bodies being shown in a particular way. Most cartoons, Disney films, whatever kind of film, Pixar films that you can think of, the bodies that they show when it comes to people tend to be slim bodied white people, and even when they are of a different culture, because I know that they're trying to expand this in cartoons for children, which is absolutely wonderful, but they very rarely look like they have larger bodies or carry more fat. They often are drawn and shown in ways that show slim builds. So whether it's explicit or implicit, kids are getting a message that certain bodies are acceptable because they are what they see as the norm and other bodies are not. And this also includes toys, by the way, dolls, figures, action figures. If you pay a little bit of attention to it, you will notice that certain bodies are privileged and other bodies just don't show up. Okay? My daughter is only four and she's got lots of figures and dollies and none of them carry any form of weight. Like, absolutely not. They are slim, if not extremely slim. And, and possibly some of the babies that she plays with do carry a bit more fat and seem a bit more realistic. They are still probably slimmer than like she was when she was a baby. So, you know, if we notice this as adults, it'll start to make sense as to why children suddenly use the word fat as a weapon to shame or to talk about difficult and ugly feelings that they may have have. And I want to reassure you that you are not the culprit of this. You are not causing your child to have developed these views around fatness. Like I said, in some families fat is talked about in a negative way, but it's often done in a way that is trying to prioritize health. What I often will say is, don't make fat the bad guy, okay? Don't make fats such a bad thing. Because we do need fat, and in particular children for their growth and their well being, need to eat more calories and more fat because it helps them develop and grow, which includes things like growing bones and muscles and growing tall. And over time, children's bodies stretch out. And without adequate levels of fat in their diet, children can really struggle to reach their, their height potential and to be fit and healthy. So fat is an ingredient that we need. Our bodies do need it. And therefore, even when we're talking about healthy eating, we need to try and just be mindful of not making fat into like a really terrible thing. But more often than not, I will say to you, it is not coming from you. This is coming from just being a human in our society. And these messages are obviously also being passed down to us, the adults. So holding on to that can be really helpful to kind of separate the idea that you've caused this in some way and hopefully also empower you in finding a different way of navigating these conversations with your children.

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So when you start to think that fat is a code word for something uglier and more painful emotionally, it can help then to move away from reassurance because we don't want to fix things and tell our child that they're beautiful or they're super slim or you know, their thighs are perfect. Because as soon as we do that, what we are actually feeding into is again this narrative of fat being bad and your child not being that we are saying to our child, but you're not ugly, you're not fat. And again, that just reinforces that narrative of what acceptable bodies are like and that they meet this in your eyes. Now this might be true. Your child will meet standards of beauty for you and be acceptable in their body. But when we do it, we're both dismissing their experiences and secondly, reinforcing some of the stories that are really unhelpful about fat and thin. So instead of saying things like you're not fat or you're perfect as you are, don't be silly, that's absolutely not True. I really want you to to focus on the emotion that lies beneath. And this means perhaps slowing down, taking a breath and then getting curious. Really get curious. What is going on for your child in this moment? So it might sound a bit more like, thank you for telling me that you feel like you're fat. I've never heard you say anything like that about your body before. Can you tell me what's happening? What's different? I wonder what you're feeling right now. What is it like to feel like your thighs are fat? Where have you heard this idea of thighs being fat or not? What does a not fat thigh look like? Now I'm breaking it down, but those are some of the questions that I would try and hold in mind and think about explaining. Exploring with your child slowly, at their pace. Some children might get very upset with a conversation very quickly and you want to just slow it down. So we don't want to bombard our child with all these questions in one go, but we do want to have a think with them about some of these questions when they feel able to do so. And if your child gets very upset as soon as you touch the topic when you're beginning this conversation, just do what your gut instinct tells you or what feels right. More often than not, it'll be just give them a cuddle and sit with them and just acknowledge their sadness or whatever is happening for them in that moment. Slow it down. Because sometimes just acknowledging and validating your child's experience without placing a judgment on whether fat is ugly or whether they are fat or not fat can really open up your child to emotion and they can feel really vulnerable. And this is, can be a really helpful place when they are trusting you to be their safe person, to be able to contain and hold these feelings. So remember, this might be just part of the process. It doesn't mean you've said or done anything wrong. It just means that this, whatever they're holding in their body that has made them communicate this to you is ugly. And they're a little bit scared of showing you this. And this can be really the first step towards overcoming self loathing and to feel accepted. Because in this moment, when you open up this conversation like this, what you're saying to your child is whatever you're feeling or experiencing right now is okay, I am here for you, you are acceptable and so is your body. But we don't have to talk about fat and beauty or anything like that in a way that shames. We can talk about it with openness, with Kind of willingness to understand what our child is experiencing in this moment so we can hold them through this experience and help them and support them in whichever way is appropriate. Another thing I think is really important outside of these conversations is that when children start to talk about fatness and bodies, I always see this as an opportunity to open up their curiosity. And we want to educate, we want to see this as a really helpful moment in that we can begin to learn about bodies and think about what they are seeing around them, whether it's in tv, on books or movies, or even with their toys, as I was talking about before. And the key here is to try and shape your children's ideas of what fat means. And you can begin to do this by opening up the conversation and sharing a new or perhaps different perspective from the one that is the strongest narrative in our society, which is that beauty means thinness and fat is bad. And you can do this every day just by bringing greater awareness to the things that you say and do where you're focusing your attention. And part of this is to talk about fat. So rather than avoid the conversation or avoid saying the word fat or talking about fat in others, it's actually really helpful to acknowledge that some, some people carry more fat in their body. This isn't good or bad, it is just a fact. We don't need to shame these people, we don't need to shame ourselves. If we have fat in our bodies that we carry in different regions in a different way, we can just accept that all bodies are different. And this is the kind of acceptance that you want to teach your child. And that isn't taught by not talking, that is taught by explicitly naming certain things when you see them and opening up these conversations. Now if this feels really uncomfortable to you, because most of us adults are also carrying this kind of ideology that fat is bad and that fat is shameful, then some of this work has to start with you. You need to look a little bit deeper at do you think you're fat? Do you think parts of your body are worthy of shame? Does it happen to you sometimes? If your answer is yes, I want to tell you that you're just a normal human. Okay? We all have a self critical voice. Whether we are saying it out loud or not. We want to try and remember that these messages that we're telling ourselves are also a code word for more important emotions, often unmet needs that are lying beneath. So if this is true for you, I do also want you before I go into ideas of how to have this Conversation with your child. I want you to take some time to focus on what is happening for you. When you start to shame your body or call parts of your body fat in a way that is negative and that makes you feel bad. Because if what you're saying is, yeah, my tummy's fat, but hey, I quite like it. Like I was saying before, it's a lovely resting place for my child and it's comforting, I have no problem with it. Keep going. There's absolutely nothing wrong with the way that you're talking about your body. But if you're saying, ugh, my tummy is so fat and this is bringing you negative feelings or making you feel low in your mood, then you need to focus on what is actually happening to you. Do you need rest? Do you need emotional nourishment? Do you need time and space to connect with your body, to feel grateful and value what it offers you every single day? Can you look at your body from a position of worthiness and value given the function that it does every single day, which is carry you places, potentially carry your child places, every time you pick them up, you know, what do your thighs do every day? What do your arms do? What does your stomach do? Our bodies are vehicles for us. We should be grateful that they are working and that they are giving us these opportunities every day to live life. So we need to really focus on this and remember that thinking on fat, using, dieting and exercise as punishments are not going to help you in the long term. They're not going to make you feel good about yourself, because both eating healthy and exercise are important for our well being, but they should be things that we do out of pleasure, not out of punishment. Exercising should be something that you enjoy. It should be something that moving your body is giving you pleasure and enjoyment and it feels good or you feel strong or like it does. For me, it clears your mind and it makes you feel like it's part of your mental health care. So if you're doing it that way and you're eating healthily because you're thinking about the nutrients in your diet and what they bring your body that is positive and good, then that's going to come out in a very different way from focusing on eating healthy and exercise as ways of punishing your body because they're fat. And when we just focus on fat as something we need to fix, it just feeds the false idea that there's a type of beauty that you need to align with and your child will learn that from you. Because children see what we do a lot more than the things that we say. So if what they see is that you're really focusing on your body as an object rather than valuing its function, they begin to learn that as well. So try really hard not to use fat as a weapon to shame yourself with. Even if you're doing it quietly in your head, that is still having an impact on you. And some of the ideas I'm going to share now, which are like creative ideas as well as real life ideas, can be really helpful for both you practicing this, the notion that fat is not bad, and supporting your child in having some critical thinking around this idea of fatness as bad, and society's belief that thinness is what we should be trying to achieve for our bodies. So I'm going to share a couple of creative ideas that I've used in therapy with children and that you can use yourself with your children. You don't need a psychologist to do this with them, but it can be a really powerful exercise and I want you to stay open to what might emerge. So a creative idea, if your child is into crafts or, you know, drawing or anything like that, but it's really helpful regardless, is to use drawing magazines pictures to explore what fat means. So hold onto the idea that no body is fat. People are just different and look at pictures, maybe cut out some pictures from magazines or look at preferred books that they might have with little people in them and try and look at bodies. If you notice that in your like little bookshelf you don't have lots of books that have different body shapes, then it might be time for you to go out there and buy a couple. They're not expensive and I'm happy to recommend them. I will put a link in the caption of my recommended books in this area. They can be really helpful in just showing your child lots of different bodies and having an open conversation about what is fat, what is attractive, what is ugly, what are other things that you can help your child see, which might be difference and the idea that difference is not necessarily ugly, it just is different from what you are or different from what society is telling us is a beauty standard. Now this is can be a really powerful conversation because what you might learn is that your child has formed certain views or ideas that you didn't expect. And when that happens, as a parent, it can feel really hard. And again, it can take you to that place where you're pulled to fix or you're pulled to correct. When you're having these little moments with your Child, I want you to stay really open to whatever they say and meet it with acceptance and curiosity. So if they show up and they say, well, that body's really ugly because they're really fat, you can ask something like, where did you learn that? Where did you learn that? If a body looks like that, it's ugly. And what does ugly mean to you? What is ugly about this body or about this picture? You want to really dive into it and you can offer your own perspective, which might be, you're right, this body carries more weight and more fat than others. But I'm not sure it's ugly because I can see that their legs are really strong or their arms are really strong. I wonder what it helps them do. And this can open up this idea of bigger, larger bodies also having positive functions. A really great way of looking at this is to look at some athletes whose bodies are very different from ours. And there are some larger bodies and they are incredibly fit and they're incredibly strong. So most weightlifters, if you just look at their body and don't know that they're weightlifting, might look like their bodies are carrying extra fat or they're bigger, they are super strong. So we need to have a think about that, you know, strength and body size and body shape, because all those things are interlinked. And we can help our child explore this in a way that is more neutral. It's not shaming, it's not telling them what they have to think. It is allowing their brain to develop critical thinking about this difficult topic, which might be one that they have to navigate for the rest of the their lives. My second idea for you is to use everyday examples to model an appreciation of difference in the world. So for example, when you're out shopping, look around and consider buying differently shaped fruits and vegetables. This might sound really silly, but actually it is important because what we're trying to do is show our child that difference can be beautiful, it can be acceptable. You know, peppers and apples that are a little bit bumped or not perfectly formed can be just as tasty. So if you choose them with your child and then talk about what makes them stand out from the rest in a really positive way, it can be another conversation that you're having, which is still tapping into difference and acceptance, but it's offering you a little bit of a gap. There is a space because we're not talking about bodies anymore, we're talking about fruit, fruit and veg, which feels a lot less sensitive as a conversation. So if you're struggling with These conversations. This might be a good starting point, but what you're trying to do here again is help your child understand and see that difference can be positive. And the way that something looks on the outside doesn't give us any information about what it's like on the inside. So when it comes to fruits and vegetables, it'll be taste. And when it comes to people, it's about their personality, their kindness, their humour, their interests, their abilities, their talents. Looking at their bodies, just as an object, tells us nothing about who they are. And so when we name them as ugly or unacceptable within our society, we are missing a core part of what it is to be a human, which is not a body, it is a whole person. So if it feels easier, start here. Start with things like fruits and veg that look a bit different and begin these conversations and then you can expand them to talk about people. Children are smart. Always give credit to your child that they will understand these conversations and that they will understand what value judgments you're placing on beauty standards on everyday things. So notice what do you call beautiful? What is ugly in your home? Can you change the focus? So for example, a chipped mug has a story that makes it interesting compared to the one that's smooth. Really re evaluate your standards of beauty and the things that you call ugly or fat and where you are placing focus because all these things will help educate and and offer your child a new perspective on what fat means. And once they start to see fat not as such a negative thing or a bad thing, then it'll make it more likely that they won't shame their body when they're feeling bad about something.

And we're coming to an end. Thank you for joining me on another Talking Sense podcast. If you have enjoyed today, don't forget to rate or review on the app that you that you listened. And if you want to have more ideas about parenting little ones from the age of 18 months up to 5, have a look at my confident parent course. Before I end this podcast, I always like to leave you with a mantra to hold you for the rest of the week. And this week my mantra to you is I am a safe place for my children. I wish you a restful week and I so look forward to spending speaking with you again on another Talking Sense. Until then, see you soon.

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