Yesterday, I was sitting in my office and I couldn’t help but overhear a conversation going on in the office right next door. A lady and her teenage daughter were both having a fitness assessment with one of our personal trainers…weight, body composition, strength, flexibility, and aerobic capacity.
The mom made several comments loudly and repeatedly, “This is horrible”, “I am disgusting”, and “I’ve gained so much weight”. The daughter was trying to encourage her mom, but it wasn’t working.
Earlier the same day, I also had a nutrition consult with a lady, 45 years old, whose mother regularly tells her, “You’re fat; You need to lose weight.” She stated that she has heard these comments from her mom her entire life.
Both of these conversations made me think about the effect that parents (moms and dads) can have, specifically, on their daughters’ self esteem. I feel blessed, my parents have always been positive, encouraging, and reassuring. I never once remember them saying anything that made me question my appearance or weight. However, the impact of parents’ comments come up fairly regularly in my work in weight management. They impact young women, especially, more than we probably realize. And, those effects often last far beyond childhood and adolescence.
One of my biggest pet peeves is hearing a woman, often a fit and healthy woman, comment negatively about her body. Especially in front of her young daughter. How is the young daughter supposed to process that information? Unfortunately, she usually feels that if her mom, who is fit and healthy, isn’t good enough….how can she ever measure up?
Have you ever overheard a conversation like that?
Did your parents do or say anything that contributed to your body image and self-esteem, positively or negatively?
What can we do as a society to help end these negative conversations?
I love Operation Beautiful, with the mission of Ending Fat Talk. What else can we do? I’d love to hear your thoughts.
Thanks for reading!
I Love this post!! So many of my clients have so much pent up frustration about how their mother’s “fat talked” them. It was awful!! I remember my own mother criticizing her body in front of me. My daughter will NEVER hear me do that.
Great, great topic!
I’m not a mother yet, so I can’t speak to that side of things but I can talk as a daughter.
In high school, I was a three sport athlete (volleyball, basketball, and track) and needless to say, I was in shape. For a high schooler, I ate pretty healthy, exercised at least 6 days a week, if you factor in games, and took weight lifting as a class. Subsequently, I was quite muscular. However, I wasn’t very tiny. I had the body of an athlete…and as hurtful as it is to still admit, my mom wanted me to have the body of a ballet dancer. I wore a size 8…and she wanted me to wear the same size as my sister, a 4. It was hard to have her “pinch an inch” on me, even playfully, because it made me feel like I just wasn’t good enough.
My senior year of high school, I was still playing sports…but I didn’t eat healthy anymore. I was on a “diet” and eating about 1000 calories a day. As a growing athlete, I know I needed a lot more. I did lose the weight (which I gained right back, and then some, in college when I was away from my mom – I basically went on a binge for a year!) and got into a 6 and then a 4…but my athletic performance suffered. A lot. I ended up not being able to complete my senior year of track, a regret I still have.
Obviously, I can’t blame my mom for all of my food and body issues. I heard “fat talk” everywhere and it was often in my mind! But…I will just say this – my mom’s comments always hurt the most and stayed with me the longest.
Wow…didn’t mean to write you a novel! Your post just inspired me!
Thanks, Estela!! Your daughter is a lucky girl!
Angie- thanks for your well-written comments! I appreciate your willingness to share your experience. I’ve heard from others with experiences like yours before and it is sad to me how long those comments stay with you. And, my guess is that most moms who say things like that don’t have bad intentions- they just don’t realize the power of their words. Who knows, you may inspire one mom to be a little more careful with the words she chooses.
this is SUCH a great post girl!! my mom once told me “i could lose a few pounds” when i asked her..she had NO bad intentions but now that i look back on it, it really affected me. so crazy how that happens
As a gymnastics coach, I hear negative comments quite frequently. One time, one of the girls I coach told me her mom wouldn’t give her breakfast because she said she was too fat. It’s so hard for me to watch because I’m not sure what I can do. I wish there was an easy way to help. Fortunately, I have the best parents ever and my mom is extremely positive. She always says the right thing. I think accepting and loving who you are (and others for who they are) is very important. Teaching kids how to create a positive body image is vital to their health.
Funny you should write this today….Over the weekend I saw a picture of myself that I really hated & it actually made me lose sleep last night. – so strange for me
It (healthy body image) has to begin with ourselves…then hope it becomes contagious!
Great, thought-provoking post!
Great post!
My whole family used to always tell me that I was fat, ugly and overweight. They repeatedly told me that I had to lose weight, change my eating habit, exercise and eat less. Every time my brother saw me eat, he would always comment that I was fat, fat and FAT! Guess what? At the age of 15, I developed anorexia and am still struggling with it. I have a HUGE fear of gaining weight now and am fighting with my disorder everyday. I wish I had a family who was more positive because they basically ruined my life.
Great topic, Angie! It’s definitely something I’ve been thinking about. One of my goals during this pregnancy is to become more aware of the things I say: not just about myself (which I’ve got more or less under control, the odd ‘fat day’ still needs smoothing out), but also about others. I don’t want my child to become a judgmental person, at least if I can help it. And it is amazing how often I/we say mean/harsh/supposedly funny things about other people’s appearances. Everyone knows you have to try and get the swear words out of your system & habits, at least before your child starts to imitate you. But I think there should also be a trend to do so with judgmental comments, about yourself and about others. Awareness is key: saying mean stuff about yourself or about your partner in front of your kid is in fact saying mean things about them: they are made up of your DNA!
Great post! This topic is so relevant right now. I can’t tell you how many stories I’ve heard where a mother’s focus on image and weight transfers in an unhealthy manner to her daughter(s). I was lucky enough to have a mother who didn’t emphasize appearance, but who required academic success instead (which can present its own set of problems). Often, it seems that parents don’t realize the harm they are creating in their child’s self-esteem and relationship with food. I guess we’ll do all we can to reverse this trend.
I was raised by my dad and I was 236lbs in 8th grade. A lot of the time through high school my dad would say, “You’d be so beautiful if you lost weight.” My dad has/had his own weight issues while I was growing up, he’d skip at least a meal a day and would eat large portions at night because he was starving. Sometimes he’d fast for a couple days just to lose weight, I remember his weight being anywhere from 200lbs (at 6’1 and muscular) to 275lbs. I should also add he had his first heart attack at age 37, second at 39, and luckily hasn’t had one since but is also diabetic, asmathic, has COPD, gout, chronic bacterial infection in his lower back, ulcers, and now weighs about 320lbs.
I, too, was lucky enough to grow up in a household where I was NEVER once told anything about my weight in a negative manner. Where I hear the fat talk coming from is my girlfriends. Let me correct that – I heard it, as in I used to hear it. When Fat Talk Free Week rolled around last year I made them watch the video from Tri Delta and every time they’d start with the self-destructive comments, I’d throw a hand up and say “STOP THE FAT TALK.”
You will very rarely – if ever – hear me say anything like “I am too fat for this,” etc. I know I can improve my fitness and health – which is always a great challenge for myself and everyone – but I also have a lot of self-respect – too much to put myself down.
Great insight in this post!!
Pizza 3 ways // Feb 10, 2010 at 9:38 pm
[...] RSS ← Body Image in Women [...]
It is interesting that it almost cool for people to talk about their bodies negatively. I am a personal trainer and one of the first things we get people to do is start saying positive things about their bodies. People need to realize that what they say doesn’t only effect themselves it hurt those around them.
My parents never said anything to me about my body too which is a good thing. Except there was one time a couple years ago when my mom made a casual comment that I gained a lot of weight which did me more good then bad because it kick-started my healthy lifestyle.
Positive Self Talk // Feb 11, 2010 at 11:25 pm
[...] Thanks again for your wonderfully articulate and well-written comments on my Body Image in Women post. [...]
My parents always criticized my weight and the way i look-which was completely ridiculous as I weight 125pounds at my heaviest (I’m 5feet 7.5inches tall). As a result I developed anorexia at the age of 16 and dropped to 110pounds for about 5 year s. Now I’ve recovered for the most part (with zero support of my parents) but I still struggle with fertility issues and daily snappy comments about my supposedly FAT ass (I weight about 118pounds now). So …yeah I’m pretty sure peoples’ idea of a healthy body is pretty fucked up.
Positive Self Talk // Mar 22, 2010 at 2:59 pm
[...] morning, I re-read my Body Image in Women post from back in February. It is definitely such an important topic that I wanted to give it a little [...]