I’m not even going to pretend I’m an expert on this topic. I’ve struggled with this concept my whole life and continue to. Because of that though, I know how extremely important a positive body image is for my children.
In large part, body image has affected every part of my life for as long as I can remember and not always positively.
What we see on TV, read online and in magazines or hear from other people impacts all of us so much. What we see is what we think we should be, even if it doesn’t look or isn’t healthy. If adults feel that way, it’s only amplified with children. They are still too young to weed out appropriate information, if they see it they think it’s right. That especially goes for what they see their parents doing as we are their number one role models!

It’s for this reason that I know I have to work on my own body image. It continues to be a work in progress. Unknowingly, I know I pass on some of my own body image issues just through the way I hold my body or try on countless outfits before being satisfied with one. It’s for these reasons that I’ve given myself rules to follow when around my children regarding body image and healthy eating.
Again, I do not pretend to know a lot on this topic, it’s just what I hope might help my children develop positive attitudes towards themselves:
With physical activity we always focus on why it’s important for our bodies to get exercise. We highlight things like, “it helps our bodies sleep when we get fresh air”, “it makes our bodies stronger when we walk, run, kick, swing…” I try not to emphasize on physical appearance and activity, like “you’ll be smaller if you get exercise”. This takes away from how good it makes our bodies feel when we exercise and focuses more on making us look different.
All people are born with a body type, density of bones, fast or slow metabolism etc. This cannot be changed and that’s okay. The goal should be that each person do what is right for their body and feel proud in their own skin.
Recently, I’ve added a daily workout to my routine. The kids know about my workout and support me by allowing me the time to do it and they often join in with me. I focus on the reason for my workout — to feel healthy, get stronger and have more energy to play with them.
With food, we focus more on healthy fuel for our body rather than saying things like “we can’t eat that because it’s fattening.”
Instead we say “this food helps make us strong, the protein in this chicken is what helps us run fast”, “this food might taste good but it doesn’t give our body the energy it needs to jump high”. We try not to ban things with sugar, instead saying they are something we can have a little bit of after we’ve had healthy food to fuel our body or we call these foods occasional foods. We also discuss how much sugar is in processed/packaged foods, like did you know that five grams of sugar is one whole teaspoon of sugar.
An interesting experiment to do with school-aged children is to show them with sugar how much is in a juice box for example. Putting into perspective what they’re eating/drinking can really help teach them moderation.
I model what I want my girls to see, getting dressed has always been a point of contention for myself. I always criticize myself in the mirror most of the time hating my reflection but I know my kids will see that. I’m not sure if many of you moms get dressed in peace, but I rarely do, so instead I choose an outfit and stick with it (it’s really hard some days, if I really have to change out of it I do it in private and when asked why I just say something like that shirt had a stain, or I’m saving it for a different day). I see my seven-year-old doing this already in her mirror and changing outfits when she doesn’t like the way things look (How has this happened already?)
We are always beautiful/handsome and not only beautiful/handsome. My daughters have picked up the fancy bug, and sometimes they allude to the fact that they are beautiful when they have headbands on or fancy dresses. We tell them they are beautiful in the bath, in their pjs, in their dirty sandy clothes, in their fancy clothes. I also try really hard to mix in other great characteristics. Not only are they beautiful but they are smart, intelligent, kind, thoughtful, patient, helpful, friendly, persistent… and the list goes on. These characteristics really do hold more weight than beauty and we often forget to highlight them and so do other people talking to our children. Often the cute dresses are what stand out the most in the checkout line. I’m trying desperately to show them that helping their little brother from falling is so much more important in life than being cute.
As mentioned a few times, I really do not pretend to know what I’m doing when it comes to passing on positive body image messages. I’m trying the best way I know how, I continue to strive to learn more on this topic and truly believe that it is never too late to help guide our children towards a healthy body image.