Tips to help your kid feel confident in their body
Ellie Brewer
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Diet culture, and the subliminal messaging accompanying it, preaches thinness and leanness over all else in so many parts of our society and the media we consume every day. The pressure to be thin has a negative toll on the minds and bodies of children, especially those who see their parents or role models always trying to lose a few pounds or hit the next tier of weight loss. For those of you who have a goal to lose weight, that is excellent. Having a weight loss goal is a valid reason for joining a gym and working to build a healthy lifestyle. I would also encourage you to dig deep and reconnect with why you want to lose weight. Is it recommended by a physician to reduce the risk of heart disease and high blood pressure? Are you trying to shrink yourself to a level society thinks is acceptable? Whatever your reason is, how you talk to the kids in your life about your goal can influence how they view themselves and their body.
As parents, you want the best for your kids. You want to help them grow into the strong, capable, confident people you know they can be. Here are a few small adjustments you can make in how you talk about your body to help them learn the confidence you want them to develop.
Pause negative self talk cycles
Think about how you talk about yourself in front of your child. Are you always finding something wrong with your appearance? Do you struggle to find something positive to say about how you look? I think it’s safe to say that all of us have thoughts like this from time to time, and many of us feel insecure in our bodies currently or have in the past. Negative thoughts about our appearance have been conditioned into us from a culture and economy built on making you feel like you are not enough, so companies can sell you more products. But you can do something to stop this cycle. Teaching a child to learn their own self worth and instilling the belief that their appearance is the least interesting thing about them can start with you.
First, start noticing how often you pick yourself apart in front of your kid. Are there patterns when you don’t feel confident in your body and feel the need to share it out loud? We can’t change something we do not have data on, so start keeping track of how often you do this. It may be pretty eye opening for you!
Then, practice pausing and catching yourself when you start to say something negative about your body. Identify that little voice inside of you that tells you you’re not good enough, attractive enough, worthy, or whatever else it may be. Find that voice and tell it to scram. It won’t be as easy as just doing that one time, but over time, as you continue to practice identifying those negative thoughts, you will begin to truly believe that you are so much more than just a body. You are a parent, friend, partner, coworker, sibling, child, and many more roles that have nothing to do with what you look like.
Model body neutral language
One way you can continue to identify the negative voice in your head is to notice when you are having a bad body image day. Everyone has days where nothing seems to fit right, you feel insecure in your body, and going out into the world feels daunting. It may seem counterintuitive, but I encourage you to share that feeling with your child. This will present a great opportunity to talk through strategies they can use when they inevitably have a bad body image day. A conversation could go something like this:
Mom: “Wow, I am having a bad body image day.”
Kid: “What does that mean, Mom?”
Mom: “That’s a good question. I can’t find an outfit I feel confident in. A little voice in my head is telling me I don’t deserve to wear certain things today, and that’s okay. Everyone has a little voice in their head, and sometimes they can be pretty mean. I hear that voice, but I am not going to let it tell me what I should wear. I deserve to feel comfortable and confident in my clothes, so today I am going to choose an outfit I know makes me feel confident and is nice and cozy. Do you ever have a little voice that can be a little mean?”
Kid: “Yeah, sometimes it can be pretty mean and tells me I shouldn’t wear what I am wearing or raise my hand in class. How do you talk to your little voice?”
Mom: “It can be really hard sometimes. I know that little voice thinks it is protecting me, but in reality it is hurting my confidence. When my little voice gets really loud, I try to remember that I have felt like this before and have come out on the other side and felt confident in my body again. There will be ups and downs with how I feel about myself and my appearance, but I know I am worth so much more than how I look on the outside. How does that make you feel?”
Kid: “I feel like I can start telling that little voice to go away when it gets really loud.”
Instead of telling her kid she felt fat or had nothing to wear, this mom shared the internal dialogue she had with her own “little voice” and some strategies her child could use when they had similar insecurities show up in their life. Empowering your child to learn to identify how they are talking to themselves can help them develop positive self-talk and strategies to use when they feel insecure.
Talk about what your body can do
Sometimes despite our best efforts, the bad body image days win and negative self-talk overpowers even your best attempts at positive self-talk. When this happens, it can be helpful to remember all the wonderful things your body allows you to do that have nothing to do with how you look. Here are a few examples:
Your arms allow you to hug your family members.
Your hands let you pet your cat or your dog.
Your stomach protects and cushions your organs.
Your face allows you to smile and show your loved ones how much they mean to you.
Your legs carry you to so many places. They have been there through thick and thin, and will be there for all the adventures to come.
Focusing on the amazing things your body can do does not leave enough room for the negative thoughts to crowd in and overwhelm you.
Additional resources
This is a deep topic that we can talk about all day long. If this blog resonated with you and you would like more strategies to develop positive self-talk and model it for your children, here are social media accounts that have great ideas:
Kelsey Brennan | Embrace Coaching - changing how you talk to yourself during your fitness journey
Sean Casey | scaseyfitness - lifestyle change approach to weight loss
Kathy O’Bryan | theminimedietitian - feeding and caring for young kids
Sohee Carpenter | soheefit - body image, nutrition, and lifting weights
As always, we are more than happy to sit down and chat with you about any questions you have! Get started with Rise today.