Reply to Overweight kids - how to help my child understand that fine line between bullying and the truth

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Ouch.

OK.  I get it.  OP totally lost me the second she started bringing "beauty" into it.  At that point, we've lost the important lesson:  I.e. - be healthy, and moved into some judgmental territory about beauty.

But I think there is a legitimate question buried in here that is worth discussing.

We DO have an obesity epidemic.
We also have a whole lot of girls who equate their self-value with their weight.

What are the right words to use with YOUNG kids (say, 3-7 year old range), that encourage some sense of enpowerment about health and eating choices (because for 95 percent of people who are obese, its a matter of making better choices), and yet not castigating of judging people who either make bad choices, or who really have some medical condition (or bad genes) that are going to make them pear-shaped no matter WHAT they do?

For a long while I avoided the word "fat", because I didn't want my 3-year-old (who had no filter to call someone fat.  But now that he's 7, what do I say?  Obese?  Do I correct him when he accurately says "that person is fat" out of earshot?  I usually say, "yes, that's true, but we would never want that person to hear us saying that.  It's OK to say it to me, but remember that we would,'t say that to someone who was overweight."

Is that the right answer?  I know I struggle to have this conversation in a way that 1) keeps it "real"; 2) encourages some measure of self-responsibility; and 3) is sympathetic to the fact that its not so easy for everyone, and it doesn't change a person's value.

It's easy to jump on the OP's back (she stepped in it), but does anyone want to have the real conversation?[/quote]

I don't talk to my young child about being fat or skinny at all.  We talk about healthy food and which foods you can only eat sometimes because they are not as healthy.  If she were ever to call someone "fat" , I would tell her that it's not a kind or polite thing to say, and that people come in all shapes and sizes.  Why would you tell him it's okay to say to you, but not to the person directly?  So basically you're sending the message that it's okay to comment on someone's appearance behind his back?

Young kids don't have a filter, I get that.  But you correct them and move on.  I don't see where the confusion lies.

Is it really that hard? [/quote]

People DO come in all shapes and sizes, and there is a range of what is healthy. Some of the women on this board brag about how anyone over size 2 is fat and disgusting and that they eat a cup of coffee, celery, and an egg white per day to stay "naturally thin." So I think there are a few dangers of discussing fat vs. thin:

1. Thin is not automatically healthy. Plenty of thin people eat like crap and don't exercise, or like I mentioned before, some thin people starve themselves to be thin.

2. Some people are on the big end of normal (like a BMI of 25 or 26) and may appear "fat" or at least "fatter" but are perfectly healthy with healthy habits.

3. Teaching your kid that being fat is a character flaw is going to cause him more problems when it comes to social interaction than solutions to the obesity epidemic.

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