Last Friday afternoon, my 6-year-old daughter asked me a question that had me stop in my tracks.
Before I tell you what she said, I have to explain what we had done before she asked me her question.
I had just picked her and a school friend up from school. I dropped her school friend home and I talked to his mum, while my girls headed to the playroom.
This particular school mum friend had been training me in her gym in her garage. I casually told her at the kitchen bench that since the beginning of the year I had lost 5kgs from eating a salad at lunch and being intentional with my snack choices. I didn’t think much about what I had divulged to my friend until my daughter brought it up.
She had overheard my conversation and asked me, ‘Mum, do you think you’re fat?’
I asked her why she would think that and she said she had heard me talk to my friend about losing weight.
I explained to her that when I had her and her sisters, I had periodically put weight on and mummy was now trying to eat more vegetables and exercise more so she wouldn’t be so tired at dinner time.
In all honesty, I wasn’t exactly sure what to say to her. I felt the truth was best, and she seemed happy with my answer. And I think it’s important for our children to understand what being healthy should feel like, not look like.
But her question certainly threw me off guard and this video by Real Simple magazine couldn’t have come at a better time to remind me as a mum to be wise with my choice of words when talking about my body.
The magazine asked young girls what they hear women say about their bodies. The footage is confronting when the girls say things like,
“My diet starts tomorrow,” or
“I could never wear a dress without Spanx,” and
“I’m so bad. I ate a cupcake today.”
Research has found when a mother dislikes her own body, their daughters will imitate the same attitudes and behaviours towards their own bodies. Daughters who had a positive body influence by their mums, had happier lives overall.
The studies are essentially telling mothers, it’s time to love our bodies, whatever shape or size we are, and to stop commenting on how fat or thin we are. Instead, we should talk about well-being and how our bodies allow us to do amazing things.
While I’m not one to tell other mums what they should or shouldn’t do, I know that faking body confidence with children can be a hard thing to do. Emily from Have a Laugh on Me shared a post on how she fakes body confidence with her children and she does it so her children know all bodies are beautiful.
And that positive talk is exactly what the young girls want to tell the women who don’t love their bodies.
“You’re beautiful, even if you don’t think that you’re beautiful,” says one.
“They’re beautiful inside and out, it doesn’t matter what you look like,” says another.
“There’s no such thing as ugly or fat or anything like that. Everybody’s beautiful,” says another.
As mothers, we have to lead by example and be kinder to ourselves. Our daughters look up to us and if we want them to love their body and be confident, it has to start with us doing it for ourselves.
