Pizza’s here! The girls all shuffled into the room and formed a line in front of the 3 boxes of pizza. Each girl grabbed a slice or two and a bottled water and headed to the dining room to take a seat. The sound of chitter chatter was loud as the girls mindlessly munched on cheese pizza and talked about the latest things their dog or silly brother had been up to. After eating my own 2 slices, I began to head to the kitchen to set out a trash bag for empty plates and bottles. But something stopped me before I could do so.
“Yea I better quit eating, I’m going to get fat.” “Yea I know, I need to eat healthy for the rest of the night.” Was this really coming out of the mouth of a nine year old? I turned around to look at the girls talking amongst themselves. For months, the younger girls of our church had been begging me to have them over for a girls only sleepover. I had finally cleared my schedule and set the date. This sleepover was going to be specifically for girls ages 7-12. I had previously told the girls to get ready for a night of fun with pizza, decorating mini cakes, fashion shows, and a movie. Yet, 30 minutes into the night, I couldn’t help but be distracted.
Remembering that a few girls walked in the door saying that they were starving, I asked the girls if anyone wanted another slice. “Nope, not me,” one replied quickly. She then sucked in her stomach and said, “I’ve had all I need tonight.” Was I just imagining things? Or was this a way of these younger girls saying that they needed to lose weight? I shook my head, and decided to move forward with the night’s activities, but would keep an ear out for anything else related to the topic.
The rest of the night was a blast, we laughed until we almost cried talking about things that got on their nerves and how one girl’s mom made her get a pink arm cast in order to match her clothes, when she would have rather had Florida Gator colors. At about 10 p.m. we decided to roll out our sleeping bags and pop in a movie. I walked out of the room to turn out the kitchen lights when I came back to the group of girls doing sit-ups. “This is how you do a sit-up,” one said adamantly. “No, it’s like this, you’ve got to squeeze your stomach to make it look smaller.” After all of this fat talk and sit-ups coming out of the mouths of 8 and 9 year olds, I finally had to interrupt.
Whoa, whoa, whoa, I said. Where is all this talk about not getting fat, sucking in your stomach, and proper sit-ups coming from? Where did you learn this? They all had the same answer: Mommy. I all started to make sense. It’s not like these girls go to a fitness class in order to learn these things. Yes, they could possibly see it on T.V. but most exercise infomercials come on at 2Am and most of them are or should be asleep by then. So it only makes sense that they learned the idea of fat talk from none other than their own Mommy.
But before we go any further on the influence of a mother, this is more addressing the influence of any woman who is a role model to a younger girl whether she be her mother, older sister, friend etc. August 2-7 is Change The Way You See, Not The Way You Look week, which is in honor of Caitlin from healthytippingpoint and operationbeautiful and the release of her new book .
What a powerful message we can promote by addressing all the body image issues that face women today. That is why listening to a bunch of tiny 8 and 9 year olds talk about getting fat and arguing over the proper sit-up pushes me to relate this issue with the idea of changing the way we see and not the way we look. Because listen ladies, there are countless women that roam the earth on a daily basis feeling that something is wrong with them because they do not look a certain way. We may have a loving spouse, beautiful children, supportive parents, and a fulfilling job, yet still, we cut ourselves down while looking in the mirror on a regular basis. Which leads me to this, our “fat talk” as Caitlin calls it, is seeping down to our next generation and it’s only going to get worse. Rather than 8 and 9 year olds talking about losing weight, it will lower to 6 and 7 year olds.
Whether we realize it or not, when we compare ourselves to the outside world and it’s idea of “perfection” and we begin the negative war on ourselves, know this, someone is listening. Whether it is a young teen passing you by in the mall while you hold up a dress to your body and look in disgust, or even freaking out to your younger sister or child about missing a workout, someone, somewhere, is listening and watching you and taking notice of how you are treating yourself.
If you’re like me, sometimes this negative talk can just slip out. For instance, I baby-sit two precious girls once a week. While changing my clothes in the bathroom one morning, the almost 4 year old was standing next to me. I slipped on a skirt and then smoothed it down my hips. “Why does this make my hips look so wide?” Without even thinking, I tore my own self down in front of a 4 year old without even realizing it. I did however recognize what I had done once she immediately asked me, “Do my hips look too big?” We might sometimes brush it off that saying small things about ourselves in front of younger girls won’t make a difference. But it does. That is why eating disorders are beginning at a younger age because girls are having to listen to fat talk more and more often whether it be at school, at home, or on television.
Therefore, the next time you want to talk negative about yourself and degrade your body, don’t. First start with finding your beauty that comes from within. And if however, you are so unsatisfied with your body, if you cannot keep down the negative talk for your own sake, do it for the sake of the young girl that might be listening. Because as much as you do not like your feelings of not being good enough for this world, you would never want to be responsible for putting those feelings on someone else who didn’t share them in the first place.
So as the campaign is to Change The Way You See, Not The Way You Look, let us also first change the way we think. And as many people have realized before, let us think before we speak. Because you never know who is listening.
“Yea I better quit eating, I’m going to get fat.” “Yea I know, I need to eat healthy for the rest of the night.” Was this really coming out of the mouth of a nine year old? I turned around to look at the girls talking amongst themselves. For months, the younger girls of our church had been begging me to have them over for a girls only sleepover. I had finally cleared my schedule and set the date. This sleepover was going to be specifically for girls ages 7-12. I had previously told the girls to get ready for a night of fun with pizza, decorating mini cakes, fashion shows, and a movie. Yet, 30 minutes into the night, I couldn’t help but be distracted.
Remembering that a few girls walked in the door saying that they were starving, I asked the girls if anyone wanted another slice. “Nope, not me,” one replied quickly. She then sucked in her stomach and said, “I’ve had all I need tonight.” Was I just imagining things? Or was this a way of these younger girls saying that they needed to lose weight? I shook my head, and decided to move forward with the night’s activities, but would keep an ear out for anything else related to the topic.
The rest of the night was a blast, we laughed until we almost cried talking about things that got on their nerves and how one girl’s mom made her get a pink arm cast in order to match her clothes, when she would have rather had Florida Gator colors. At about 10 p.m. we decided to roll out our sleeping bags and pop in a movie. I walked out of the room to turn out the kitchen lights when I came back to the group of girls doing sit-ups. “This is how you do a sit-up,” one said adamantly. “No, it’s like this, you’ve got to squeeze your stomach to make it look smaller.” After all of this fat talk and sit-ups coming out of the mouths of 8 and 9 year olds, I finally had to interrupt.
Whoa, whoa, whoa, I said. Where is all this talk about not getting fat, sucking in your stomach, and proper sit-ups coming from? Where did you learn this? They all had the same answer: Mommy. I all started to make sense. It’s not like these girls go to a fitness class in order to learn these things. Yes, they could possibly see it on T.V. but most exercise infomercials come on at 2Am and most of them are or should be asleep by then. So it only makes sense that they learned the idea of fat talk from none other than their own Mommy.
But before we go any further on the influence of a mother, this is more addressing the influence of any woman who is a role model to a younger girl whether she be her mother, older sister, friend etc. August 2-7 is Change The Way You See, Not The Way You Look week, which is in honor of Caitlin from healthytippingpoint and operationbeautiful and the release of her new book .
What a powerful message we can promote by addressing all the body image issues that face women today. That is why listening to a bunch of tiny 8 and 9 year olds talk about getting fat and arguing over the proper sit-up pushes me to relate this issue with the idea of changing the way we see and not the way we look. Because listen ladies, there are countless women that roam the earth on a daily basis feeling that something is wrong with them because they do not look a certain way. We may have a loving spouse, beautiful children, supportive parents, and a fulfilling job, yet still, we cut ourselves down while looking in the mirror on a regular basis. Which leads me to this, our “fat talk” as Caitlin calls it, is seeping down to our next generation and it’s only going to get worse. Rather than 8 and 9 year olds talking about losing weight, it will lower to 6 and 7 year olds.
Whether we realize it or not, when we compare ourselves to the outside world and it’s idea of “perfection” and we begin the negative war on ourselves, know this, someone is listening. Whether it is a young teen passing you by in the mall while you hold up a dress to your body and look in disgust, or even freaking out to your younger sister or child about missing a workout, someone, somewhere, is listening and watching you and taking notice of how you are treating yourself.
If you’re like me, sometimes this negative talk can just slip out. For instance, I baby-sit two precious girls once a week. While changing my clothes in the bathroom one morning, the almost 4 year old was standing next to me. I slipped on a skirt and then smoothed it down my hips. “Why does this make my hips look so wide?” Without even thinking, I tore my own self down in front of a 4 year old without even realizing it. I did however recognize what I had done once she immediately asked me, “Do my hips look too big?” We might sometimes brush it off that saying small things about ourselves in front of younger girls won’t make a difference. But it does. That is why eating disorders are beginning at a younger age because girls are having to listen to fat talk more and more often whether it be at school, at home, or on television.
Therefore, the next time you want to talk negative about yourself and degrade your body, don’t. First start with finding your beauty that comes from within. And if however, you are so unsatisfied with your body, if you cannot keep down the negative talk for your own sake, do it for the sake of the young girl that might be listening. Because as much as you do not like your feelings of not being good enough for this world, you would never want to be responsible for putting those feelings on someone else who didn’t share them in the first place.
So as the campaign is to Change The Way You See, Not The Way You Look, let us also first change the way we think. And as many people have realized before, let us think before we speak. Because you never know who is listening.