Helping your child develop a positive body image

Body image is what we think and feel about our bodies, and how we feel other people see us.

Having a positive body image comes from feeling good about what your body can do, and how it feels. It doesn’t come from having a perfect body – no one does.

Having a negative body image shows up in all sorts of different ways. Your child could worry about:

• Their size, their skin colour, the condition of their skin (freckles, scars, eczema, acne and birthmarks)
• Individual parts of their body - are they “right”?
• How good they are at sports and physical activities especially compared with other children
• If clothes fit or suit them
• If they look like the images they see on TV, in movies, magazines or online.

Most children have some of these worries from time to time. But if they are thinking about them all the time it can affect their mental health and lead to feelings of anxiety, depression and low self-esteem. If it grows into deep worry or shame, it can start to affect how they join in with things or how they eat.

Supporting your child to make sure they develop positive body image is not easy!

We all have very different bodies – but our society doesn’t respect that very well. The media feeds us a ‘norm’ of what a perfect body looks like – it's really hard to get away from. And with social media it’s harder for our children than for any generation before.

The story the media tells gets carried into our homes, family gatherings and playgrounds before we know it. Children as young as four years old can start to have worries about body image.

Many children – and many of us as parents – judge themselves and others against these fictional standards – and the pressure to fit in grows.

Start to change the way you talk about bodies – yours, your children’s and other people’s.

Don’t worry if you slip up to start with – but try and check yourself if you catch yourself saying anything like these things near your children:

• “I’m so fat and really need to go on a diet"
• "Look at her... she used to be pretty but looks huge now"
• "Hey freckles!"
• “Oh! There’s your friend, doesn’t she look pretty”

If your children hear these type of comments from you, they learn that judging people by their body is normal.

Instead – when talking about bodies – try and focus on health.

“Don’t forget to clean your teeth, you want them to stay healthy and strong”

Celebrate what your child’s body can do – and how interesting it can feel

Stop and think about how amazing the human body is. How it breathes without us having to think about, how it grows in our sleep, how it heals wounds, and how our skin feels things that touch it. Share that wonder with your child.

Help your child to think about all the different things their body can do. It can do some things on its own and others when using tools like glasses, wheelchairs or computers. What activities do they enjoy that their body can do well? Don’t forget to include the brain as part of the body!

Encourage your child to see differences in bodies as something to respect and celebrate.

This isn’t easy – you'll need to be constantly challenging images that come from the media, and lessons that come from the playground.

• Start by looking at your own negative attitudes and rebuilding them.
• Help your child learn that comparing ourselves to others isn’t helpful. Encourage them to celebrate the things that make them unique.
• Challenge digital images – explain that they can be changed and air-brushed and that often they don’t show what people look like
• Make sure you leave space for them to share their feelings – let them know that it’s ok if feeling positive about your body is hard. You want them to trust you and talk to you about worries they have.