Kids Start Struggling With Body Image Issues Earlier Than You May Think

I'm not surprised. If you had been my kid I would have told you to stop, but I'm one of the odd women that don't give a fuck about my weight, refuse to own a scale and the word diet is a very dirty word in my house. That kind of teasing, and the word stupid, are one of the few things that will draw my anger. Although not with a little kid like you were, but we would have talked about it.

And it sucks that more parents don't address it and it's usually because THEY are so stressed about their own weight/body image issues.

Its not your fault. Just be careful to never shame someone for their looks and if you want to throw some good "energy" back in, call out people who do. Publicly shame them for being nasty and insulting. Its rude and if you stand up for a few people I bet you can forgive yourself. :)

Even with all of that body image philosophy about food is fun, cause it is, and we hike about 20 miles a week because crazy dogs, and my 14 year old daughter being solid on her body issues, it was my freaking 6 year old that drove this home. Over makeup. I have worn makeup probably twice in her lifetime, my 14 year old doesn't wear it, but my little one certainly thought makeup was what made you pretty.

This one was super easy, I'm a photographer and I simply loaded up Photoshop and showed her how Its done.

But It might not have been so easy as makeup, what if she had fixated on something more difficult to explain because now that it's months later I realize how much her self esteem has shot up.

That's terrifying. What if I hadn't caught It? We had been trying to help her work through her fixation on pretty and cute and I had NO CLUE that the notion of flawless skin and lips was the root of her issues.

It was a lucky catch and probably only because I'm pretty focused on brains over beauty AND am super careful to model that behaviour. If I had even a little of my own issues on body stuff (God knows I'm NUTS in other ways) I would have been helping her try to achieve that flawlessness and digging her issues deeper, instead of showing her it's marketing all the way.

/r/psychology Thread Link - thinkprogress.org