Kidsumers

Modeling behaviour for my daughter #StopDietainment

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Sheri
I was a size 5 when I was 29, and I was unhappy with my body. I am in my early forties now and definitely not a size five, and I still struggle with my body image. When I was young I worried about the size of my chest and how skinny I was. Now I despair about how much weight I have gained and that I don’t have the body I once had. But then I remind myself that I have had four children. I have lived over forty years and if I want to lose weight I can do it by making healthy choices and exercising. Dieting does not have to be a part of my life.
Society puts huge pressure on us to have the perfect body. Magazines, television, social media and the internet all focus on an idea of beauty and perfection that is unattainable for most of us. For young girls, it creates expectations that they can’t live up to.
Multi-Grain Cheerios recognized this and decided to launch a campaign to drive attention and awareness around these unhealthy body images reaching kids across Canada. So far more than 16,000 Canadians have showed their support by signing our online petition to expose Dietainment. As part of the commitment to stop Dietainment and educate Canadians, Multi-Grain Cheerios has resources online to enable parents to continue the fight against this harmful content.
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The first step is to model the right behaviour to my daughter. No more comments about my weight. No fad diets, and no heavy exercise routines. I will show her that I can be active by playing with her and the other kids. I can walk the dog, go swimming, take a hike or go for a bike ride to show her how to live an active lifestyle. We can enjoy delicious food without worrying about calorie content, by just making healthy choices. There is no place for fad diets in our lives.
My daughter is very thin and probably isn’t worrying about being overweight at all, but she has had to deal with comments about how skinny she is. I want her to love herself without worrying about her waist size, so it is important that she realizes her value has nothing to do with her clothing size. Whether she remains super slim or gains weight, she is the same amazing creative and intelligent girl that she is today, and that is all that matters. I also want to make sure that she isn’t judging anyone else based on their size.
To help me get this important message across to my daughter, I took her to www.worldwithoutdieting.ca to see samples of Dietainment content and videos of children speaking about the impact it has had on them. She seemed to connect with some of the children in the videos and I think it’s important to keep the conversation going about body image. We will be discussing it a lot over the next few years, and I think starting early will help us make an impact.

 

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Comments

7 responses to “Modeling behaviour for my daughter #StopDietainment”

  1. Judy Cowan Avatar
    Judy Cowan

    Great post, body image is something that so many suffer with. We do really need to break the stereotype of what the perfect body is and focus more on accepting what our bodies do look like and what we need to do to keep them healthy.

    Reply
  2. Anne Taylor Avatar
    Anne Taylor

    I suffer from a couple of eating disorders and I attribute them, party, due to this issue! I look back at myself now and I was so skinny but I thought I was fat and never good enough.

    Reply
  3. jan Avatar
    jan

    it is all so ridiculous when you consider how much our body does for us that we have been convinced that how we look, in any format, is what is most important!

    Reply
  4. salexis Avatar
    salexis

    My daughter is 14. Yes… 14. And she is worried about all her friends who are coming to school on empty stomachs and not bringing a lunch. Yup. That’s happening. I am so glad that I started talking to my daughter about this from early on – I warned her what might happen among her friends and told her she can always talk to me if she is worried about it. I think it has helped her a lot. She is aware of it. Sadly it’s still surrounding her and even with awareness it still affects her in ways that are sometimes hard to see. I’m going to check out http://www.worldwithoutdieting.ca and maybe she will find it helpful too. One can’t be too educated!!!!!

    Reply
  5. Jamie hall Avatar
    Jamie hall

    Love this post and this is so important

    Reply
  6. loucheryl Avatar
    loucheryl

    This is so important. Body image effects so many in negative ways. I wish everyone could love their bodies for what they are, be it big, small, tall, short, etc. 🙂

    Reply
  7. Susan T. Avatar
    Susan T.

    When I was a kid I was super skinny and my family was always making negative comments about it . As soon as I became a teen I gained some curves and though I was fat, although I definitely wasn’t. It is so important to help teenagers through body image issues and talk about it!

    Reply

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