Denise Richards is on the cover of April's Shape and she tells the magazine that one of her most important roles is helping her daughters develop a healthy body image. "They'll never hear me say, 'Mommy's feeling fat today.' That kind of attitude just makes young girls grow up to be dissatisfied with their bodies," she says. She is okay with having her girls appear in a reality show, but that's another post...Over at FitSugar, nearly a hundred women have shared their own stories of how their mothers' body image comments have positively or negatively affected their own self-esteem. The post's author agrees that moms should keep "their 'Do I look fat?' comments" to themselves, but we're wondering something else. What if instilling positive body image in our children wasn't so much about shielding them from how bad we feel about our bodies, but showing them how much we appreciate what our bodies can do for us and how comfortable we feel in our own skin? Of course in order to that, we've got to stop beating ourselves up and start getting our body image issues in check before we become moms. And yes, that will be an uphill battle in this "get your pre-baby body back quick" culture.
Curbing negative body talk in front of children is undoubtedly an important first step. But let's not lose sight of the utopian prize (we like to think big over here)--a day when moms can pass along a healthy body image because they truly feel good about themselves, and they're not just pretending or holding back because it's the right thing to do. [Fit Sugar]
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1 comment:
This is so important. My mother constantly fretted about her weight, which taught me from a very young age that this is something I should worry about. I try not to follow her footsteps, for the sake of my daughters.
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