My six year old asked me, "Do I look fat?".

“Do I look fat?”. My daughter asked me this out of the blue on Monday morning. She is 6, soon to be 7. I was so taken aback because I had never even heard the word “fat” come out of her mouth and it's not a word that I tend to use either. From the moment she popped out as a baby and the doctor declared “it’s a girl!”, the first commitment I made to myself as a mother was that I would protect her from feeling shame around her body. 

It plagued me as a child - I received criticism about my body from the women in my family who loved me most before I could even read. I know their intentions were good, I think they didn’t want me to be picked on because of my body or shape from kids at school perhaps? But what I don’t think they realized, is that it was far more hurtful to feel like something was wrong with me because of the well-intentioned insults hurled at me about my body, specifically that I was "fat" or "should lose 5 pounds" at home, in my safe place, with the people who should love and accept me no matter what.

My high school life was shaped by an eating disorder - I was kicked out of the prep school I loved my junior year because I was severely bulimic. I then went to an eating disorder treatment program in Tulsa, Oklahoma where I ended up graduating from a local high school. But I didn’t actually kick my bulimia until 4 years later. The summer before my junior year of college, I took a cold hard look at myself in the mirror one day and said to myself “I love you and I don’t want to do this to you anymore”. 

And although I ceased from “purging” almost entirely after this moment, my self-criticism over my body to the extent that I question my self-worth relative to my weight, has remained present. As recently as this week I considered that I may have gained a few pounds and so perhaps I wouldn’t look as good at an almost exclusively women’s event I was attending, and would that effect how I was able to connect with or be perceived by other women? 

When my daughter asked that question, “do I look fat?”, I stopped in my tracks. I was in total shock. “What?! Where did you hear this word?!!”. She told me some weird story about a drawing and her favorite teacher at aftercare that didn’t even make sense. And clearly, in the moment, I didn’t know how to respond. But I have been processing it since, trying to figure out the way I want to approach this with her. 

Thinking about this word, which is really a concept, plaguing her psyche makes me so sad, because I think of what it has been for me. What I want to stress to her is that obsessing over the appearance of our bodies steals our power. Instead of making big plans for our dreams, and building things, and connecting with people, our energy is spent on obsessing over and criticizing our incredible bodies, doubting ourselves and misplacing where our worth lies.

I do believe there are generational forces at play. Many millennials (and older) had experiences similar to mine, well-intentioned mothers and grandmothers putting our weight and therefore eating habits under a microscope. But it seems like, on the whole, we now know better. We instruct our mothers to never discuss the shape of our children’s bodies, or even their own. And I recently learned that those who are in the know are owning the word Fat! It's no longer a mean or bad word! We accept it and find power in embracing who we are - fat or not fat! Does this mean that the younger generations of women will have more power because they aren’t held back by weight insecurity inflicted upon them at the most foundational level? I certainly freaking hope so! My hope is that by simply refusing to focus on her body shape as having any relevance in my eyes, I validate her worth outside of it.

And if there is a silver lining to this new parenting conundrum I've faced (and may continue to face), it is that in processing this through the lens of my daughter, I realized that No! It doesn’t matter one single freaking bit if I carry a few extra LBs to my fabulous women’s event (which is about honoring women who speak truth to power as it happens!). I will not let this destructive societal concept of body-shaming women steal my power! 

This is a part of the mantra on the back of every ANDI label so that it can be a constantly evolving reminder of what it means to Be Good To Yourself!!!

Thank you for listening and processing this with me. What are your thoughts and experiences around the concept weight/body-shape and self-worth? I would love to hear and discuss!