mommy, I'm fat... I want a six pack (abs, not beer)

These words should have never rolled over the lips of my little girl. ( She is a healthy, very fit, very atheletic, funny lovely, bright (you get the point) nine-year old girl. She is tall for her age and is often mistaken for someone even as old as eleven or twelve, and this is quite an age spread for kids. It isn't the same as mistaking someone who is 35 for 38 (not really) both are adults--approaching middle age.

She has lived in a house where the only magazines feature architecture, home improvement, literature or skateboarding. This kind of sums up our lives. We don't own a scale, and only a month ago did we sucumb to installing 'channels' on or television (previously we only had dvd's and vhs for viewing). There is no one in her household who obsesses over weight, fat, body image, or the like. I have done my best to focus on healthy eating rather than even using the term 'diet'. But none of this seems to matter to her right now.

She wants ripped abs like her two girl cousins who are a year and two years older than her, and with whom we've just returned from vacation which included hot-tubs and skiing. My darling gal was as fit and lovely as the other two, just not 'cut'. Why should she be, she is a little girl. It is uncommon for girls to have defined abdominal muscles anyway, but these are the girls she sees in bikinis.

I explained that her aunt, the gals' mother, is also naturally slim and muscular, where as I am rather hippy and soft in the middle by nature, though I have 'nice pipes' according to my sons, when we check our bicep flexes. It is a boy thing that I refuse to be left our of. (we have three sons and one daughter, she is third in line). She too naturally compares herself to her brothers, 'but he has a six-pack, and I don't even have a four pack! It's not fair.'

So, she was busy breaking my heart yesterday with her antics, and feeling sorry for herself, when I told her that her concern is nothing to do with the reality of her body and it all has to do with her mind. It is up to her to change how she thinks and feels about herself, and maintaining an unhealthy perspective can lead to obsession about food and dieting, and feeling generally poorly about oneself. We both know women who are like this, and she agreed that this would not be a good way to live.

I have never told her about my own struggles with anorexia and bulimia when I was a teen and a young adult. When stressed, upset, or depressed I starve, not intentionally, but I can’t eat, my stomach rejects food, and this only makes matters worse. Fortunately she's never seen me like this—it has been about twenty years since the food/fat demon haunted me. I vowed to not raise self-conscious children. My kids would be fit, active, and confident and not give a second thought to the ‘f’ word—that being fat.
But in a society where so many children are inactive and obese and as a result struggle with health conditions that formerly only plagued adults, the public awareness around childhood obesity is high, it shouldn’t surprise me so much that she too would be worried about her weight. But she is not the child that has a weight issue, but she doesn’t seem to think so.

I am trying to balance between supporting her growing self-esteem, and giving too much attention to an unwarranted obsession with her ‘fat.’ Sure she has a little soft layer over her belly, as she should, she needs this to grow. This is not from junk food, nor from inactivity, but from her body’s natural arrangement. I am trying to encourage her to love herself, as I found I had to do as well—and this was not an easy thing for me to do, and I certainly wasn’t able to do it as a teen, but I grew up and left the things that were beating me down. I just want to be the best mom for her as she blossoms into a lovely gal so that she won’t end up struggling through her teens as I did.

Maybe I should switch grocery store where the check-out line has a dreadful array of glossy hate-yourself and Kristie Alley, you-could-do-better, lose-weight, eat-great magazines. I dismiss and deride them to myself every time I go through the checkout, but they do play on my insecurities; so I shouldn’t overlook the affect that these images may have on her as well. Mostly, I have asked that she try to not compare herself to other girls or women, but to focus on the positive things she has, rather than the not having what they have... easy to say....

I could go on much more on this topic, but I won’t for now... thanks for reading.