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A few days ago, my 4-year-old lifted up her shirt, pointed to her belly, and said, “Mommy, why is my tummy so big?” My heart skipped a beat, and I thought, This can’t be happening already. A moment later it occurred to me that she was probably (hopefully?) asking an innocent question about why the size of her stomach changes throughout the day, but I was nevertheless mortified. Recently my daughter has been asking me more and more whether she’s pretty and if she looks like a princess. She’s clearly getting the message from our society that looks and body size matter—even at the age of 4.
She’s not alone. Research suggests that preschool- and elementary-age children are more dissatisfied with their bodies now than ever before, that girls as young as 3 already perceive heaviness as “bad” and thinness as “good,” and that more than one-third of 5-year-old girls restrict their eating in order to stay thin.
If the pressure to be thin doesn’t seem like a big deal in itself, consider that kids who are dissatisfied with their bodies are more likely than others to become depressed and develop eating disorders or other dangerous habits. We constantly discuss the need to tackle the crisis of childhood obesity, and rightfully so—but we need to remember that more kids today have eating disorders than Type 2 diabetes. Nearly 1 in 3 high school girls, and nearly 1 in 6 high school boys, have disordered eating patterns serious enough to warrant medical help; one study found that 1 in 8 girls have made herself vomit at least once in the past three months.
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Illustration by Natalie Matthews-Ramo.
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