Teaching Kids Healthy Attitudes About Their Bodies

I'm learning a lot about how a person's attitude toward food affects how he/she eats.  But I've also realized that there is a step before that.  It is how one views one's body. (see here) 

This is quite funny, because just the other day I had a little conversation with myself in the mirror.  I happened to catch myself on a bad day, and looking at myself in the mirror, lets just say my feeling was bordering somewhere between horror, dismay, and disgust.  Saggy, wrinkly, pasty white, wiry thinning hair, and an unflattering paunch around my middle.  I tried to fight the negative thoughts with positive ones-- remembering all the good things my body has done, like nourish five healthy little miracles inside it.  I tried to write a lighthearted poem about my showdown with the mirror-- it's not finished, when it is, maybe I'll share.

Here is what I've been thinking about bodily attitudes :), as I prepare to help my kiddos have healthy attitudes about their bodies:

1)  My value does not lie in the way I look.  I'm valuable insofar as I try to be a good person, kind, loving.  That makes real beauty-- pretty is is pretty does.

2)  My body is a gift. 

This has become even more apparent to me after having aforesaid healthy babies.  I'm always amazed that my body can perform such an amazing feat!  Starting with cells smaller than I can see, I grow a little life inside me, with a tiny beating heart and little fingers and toes and functioning organs and even a little personality.

3)  There is no universal optimum size.  Healthy bodies come in all different shapes and sizes.  Thin doesn't necessarily mean healthy.

I remember from a very young age learning from peers that some people believed there were a set of perfect measurements and they roughly mirrored the dimensions of a Barbie (ouch!).  A few years ago, I read this talk (start 7 paragraphs from bottom), about how there is no universal optimum size (written by a man, no less), and it revolutionized the way I look at my body.

4)  God looks on the heart.  So should I. (sam 16:7--  ...Lord said unto Samuel, Look not on his countenance, or on the height of his stature; because I have refused him: for the Lord ^aseeth not as ^bman seeth; for man looketh on the outward ^cappearance, but the ^dLord looketh on the ^eheart.)

When I see my stretchmarks or varicose veins, I need to make a conscious effort to remember they are signs of one of my greatest blessings and triumphs!  The fact that I'm willing to sacrifice for someone else should make me more beautiful, not less so.  I need to look on my own heart, too.

5)  Society is increasingly objectifying women, through music, magazines, and TV, and it starts young (think princess!).

I am not an object.  Give myself positive messages: I am a smart, giving, worthwhile individual, not a collection of body parts to be gawked at (or not!).  Men and women suffer when women are portrayed as objects-- it hurts men's self esteem too, to be told they are nothing more than a collection of uncontrolled hormones (of course the reverse is also true, think werewolf).

I've noticed a correlation between how many movies I watch and how I feel about myself-- when I'm watching less I have more realistic expectations about my body and feel much better about myself. 

6)  I can show respect for my body by how I treat it-- what I take into it, put on it, subject it to. 

I used to be an unapologetic tanning machine, but seeing my kid's gorgeous creamy skin and realizing I don't want to look like a handbag when I'm 40 nor deal with skin cancer has made me a sunscreen user (I'm a Nazi with my kids and sunscreen!  I want to keep their beautiful skin nice.  And I cover their ears to protect their hearing in loud places, too.)



7)  My body is the other half of my soul.  If I degrade my body (um....half of a cake yesterday?) it dulls my ability to feel and think clearly.  Also, if I get too extreme in this sense, it inhibits my ability to give to others.

8)  Remember who I am!  I am this.  Not a set of arms and legs and abs (flabby ones).  When was the last time I thought of Mother Theresa's measurements?  Or how she looked in a swimsuit? 

I need to have proper attitudes about my body in order to be a healthy eater.  I have to model this for my kids and teach them, so they will believe in their true potential and value themselves for the right things. 

I'm beautiful because of my stretchmarks and falling out hair and vein-y legs.  Because they show I loved someone else more than myself.  And that is beautiful.