The Curvy Nerd

The Today Show did a segment on how parents should talk to their children about their weight. In all, it’s not a bad segment, with the chief recommendations being:

• frame discussions of health/weight in terms of fueling the body & the child feeling good
• show your kids good eating habits, from the top down (ie: parents have to buy in)
• don’t single out a single child for a weight problem
• understand that it may not be the foods your child eats but a number of factors (ie: may not be worth talking about)

Here is the segment:

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Personally, while I agree with the sentiments, I know that the above clip and its recommendations aren’t a fix-all solution. I grew up in a home with good, home-cooked food; we ate together as a family and junk food was limited. My mother never told me I was fat, though I know that, regardless, I got that message — from school, TV, and even just from hearing my mom’s stories of her own weight struggles as a child. All the good examples and positive reinforcement didn’t stop me from developing odd food behaviors and a skewed self-image — what great society says to our kids about weight (directly and indirectly) matters, too.

What do you think? Do you remember The Talk? Are you a parent afraid of giving The Talk?

[Trigger warning: includes body shaming images, fat stigma, etc.]

You know what’s missing in contemporary society? Media aimed towards young girls that makes them feel ashamed of their body and tells them how to diet.

Just kidding! We have SHIT TONS OF THAT. But that didn’t stop Some Dude from writing a children’s book called Maggie Goes On A Diet, which comes out in October. It’s about a 14-year-old girl who goes from being a Fatty Mcfatterson to star of the soccer team! Wow, guys! She’s so amazing! And she gets skinny!

Here is the full book description:

This book is about a 14 year old girl who goes on a diet and is transformed from being extremely overweight and insecure to a normal sized girl who becomes the school soccer star. Through time, exercise and hard work, Maggie becomes more and more confident and develops a positive self image.

To wit:

• it’s a book about a teenage girl who goes on a diet, but it’s targeted to ages 6 and up.
• the cover features fat!Maggie gazing in a mirror, holding up a sexy pink dress, and seeing thin!Maggie with same dress.
• fat!Maggie is “extremely overweight and insecure.” Because fat girls feel so confident, so we’re going to try something NEW here.
• Maggie WORKS HARD, guys! SHEER WILLPOWER, Y’ALL.
• Maggie develops a positive self-image when she loses weight, because there’s no WAY you can have that when you’re fat!

Needless to say: ANGRY FACE. Can you imagine a 6-year-old reading this? She doesn’t want to get fat like Maggie, so she’d better WORK HARD and EXERCISE! Though, hell, she doesn’t even need to read a book. I met a woman at a business lunch the other week whose FIVE-YEAR-OLD is taunted at school for being “fat” and she is worried about her weight. Best part: she’s NOT FAT. She has a 100% normal body weight for her age.

You know what would be nice? A children’s book about a fat girl who LIKES HERSELF and people are NICE TO HER. And she can EAT HEALTHY and, hell!, still be STAR OF THE SOCCER TEAM, but doesn’t lose any weight. Because she’s healthy and happy wherever her body decides to sit, weight and size-wise. THAT WOULD BE NICE.

The Some Dude who wrote this book I presume is concerned with the “obesity epidemic” in children. OK. Fine. Here’s what I want to hear from anyone reading this who was a fat kid or fat teenager:

What would YOU have liked your parents and/or the media to have told you when you were a kid? Would it have been a positive kid’s book, a pep talk, fat girl fashion mag — what?

Personally? I would have liked to hear honest “numbers” from full grown women, so back when I was 145, then 160, then 180 I wouldn’t have thought I was freakishly fat, and instead might have been happy with myself and calmed the eff down on the dieting.

In my guest post on All The Weigh last week (The Invisible [Horrible, Lazy, Unattractive] Fat Person), I talked about how pervasive fat hate — and self hate — is, and that it starts young. In one study, 9-year-old girls ascribed patently negative words to pictures of fat people, and positive words to pictures of thin people.

Now, go younger. Good Morning America featured the story of a six-year-old girl who thinks she is fat. They also assembled a group of young girls to talk about fat, diets and then evaluate pictures of children — thin and chubby. The results? Terrible:

I had a major flashback watching that panel. Some of those girls literally look just like girls I went to elementary school with. I *am* the “chubby wubby” in the blue shirt (omgggggg puberty hitting at 8 and my “tater tots” coming in).

Children get self-hating/fat hating messages everywhere — on TV, in movies, magazines, adverts and their own parents and teachers. They internalize these messages, and turn around and bully each other — a girl in the bathroom asked this six-year-old why she had a fat tummy! What does this say about the adults in these girls’ lives? One girl observes that her mom goes to the gym because she thinks she is overweight — but the daughter doesn’t think so. Another says their teacher is on a diet and “can’t eat cake,” and they ask her when she will be done and she says “not yet.” (even six-year-olds know you can’t keep up a restriction diet, eh?) Can I just say: why the HELL did a teacher tell her students that she’s on a diet? Totally inappropriate.

Listen to these girls and what they’re saying — “my teacher told me,” “my mommy told me”… that I need to be healthy so I don’t get fat.

This is what the health-obsessive awareness campaigns & culture are getting us: not children who are properly healthy minded, but those who fear and stigmatize fat & obesity, and believe you can’t be healthy and “fat.” Problem is, their concept of “fat” is ridiculously skewed, as well.

If the children are our future… the future is bleak.