Seven Year Olds and Thin

I recently came across a statistic which stated three-fourths of all seven year olds want to be thinner.

Age seven. It’s that young. Check out some disturbing information: “Highlights: Real Girls, Real Pressure National Study Girls and Insecurities • 7 in 10 Girls believe they are not good enough or do not measure up in some way including their looks, performance in school and relationship with friends and family members. • 62% Girls are insecure about themselves Low Self Esteem and Bad Behavior • 75% of girls with low self-esteem report engaging in negative activities such as eating disorders, cutting, smoking, drinking when feeling bad about themselves. • 25% of teen girls with low self-esteem purposefully injure or cut themselves • 25% of teen girls with low self-esteem have eating disorders (starving, refusing to eat, overeating, throwing up, bulimia) Parental Influence Good and Bad • Girls with low self-esteem less likely to receive praise from parents but more criticism • 34% of girls with low self- esteem feel they are not good enough of a daughter. • 57% of girls have mothers who criticizes her looks • 57% of girls don’t tell mothers things about them because of they don’t want them to think bad of them One of their primary focuses is the fact that parents have great influence in the way their daughters view beauty, their body, and their self-esteem. There is a push to make parents aware that their comments about eating habits, about clothes and looks, about body images all molds a child’s thinking. Moms are role models, and when moms are constantly talking about how some dress makes them look (‘This dress makes me look so pretty’ ‘this dress makes me look fat’) or how they feel about their body (‘I am getting fat!’) or how their daughter needs to eat a certain way not to get fat (‘Don’t eat that or you’ll get fat’), these off hand comments that most people make molds the way the child views themselves, the way they view what is beauty and their own self-esteem.” http://www.cleancutmedia.com/articles/girl-self-esteem-image-issues-parents Most of us think of adolescence when we think of the onset of eating disorder behaviors. Angst, body image issues, peer, media and cultural pressures often create an environment for all manner of eating disorders to flourish in that bed of young insecurity. But seven years old? Surely, it doesn’t start that young? Unfortunately, however, there’s more emphasis on image and yes, it’s reaching young children. After all, it reached me. I speak about it in my book, “Thin Enough: My Spiritual Journey Through the Living Death of an Eating Disorder.” “…I was seven years old. I remember mom coaxing me into my first diet. All I ate for days straight was pineapple. Al-o-o-ha! It took me at least a good ten to fifteen years before I could enjoy the fruit again. But I trusted Mom. She knew best. After all, I’d seen her go on many diets before. I thought, ‘If I do this, then I’ll be okay. If I do this, then I’ll make things better.’ A diet was the answer… …My first diet ended almost when it started, beginning an endless dieting rollercoaster. Diet after diet would start with this angelic-choir Hallelujah moment, followed by this new revelation that ‘This is the diet. Diet ye in it.’ Oftentimes, Mom and I would treat dieting as a buddy project. Mom and I would always start on what day? Monday! Yes, Monday was always the day of the fresh start, the answer. Whenever Mom and I were inspired to go on a diet, we’d have one last Sunday blowout, eating all of the ‘bad food’ to get it out of our systems. We were ready to begin our new lives! …On Monday, there would be commitment and enthusiasm! We’d throw out all the junk food and swear it off forever. We’d institute an exercise program, complete with graph paper and gold stars. Together, we would begin arm circle exercises, bicycle kicks and sit-ups. Looking back, I find it fitting that these exercises were all movement and no destination. We were moving alright, we just weren’t going anywhere. There would also be the measurement, weighing, and counting of ingredients and calories. Mom and I even had our own little notepads, recording our daily menus. We could usually keep it up for two or three days. Monday was a great start, but every day after it led to our downfall… …Our buzz phrase was, “When we get down to our right weight…” Of course, that must mean we were at our wrong weight… …I was becoming so very aware of exactly how unacceptable I was. It was frequently pointed out to me. Diets were first. Then came the insults, the jokes, the strategies… ‘Fatty, Fatty, two by four, can’t get through her own front door!’ “She doesn’t have to be on our team, does she?’ The old saying is true: ‘Kids can be cruel.’ Getting picked last for games, snickering, name-calling, and the shunning were all part of my daily routine. I once heard about a study of young children. They were asked a question: ‘If you could choose either an overweight person to be your friend or a person who’s missing an arm or a leg, which would you choose?’ The kids in the study all chose the missing limbed candidate. Fat, according to the kids then, was unacceptable to be around and befriend… …Insults and jokes from adults were different though. Weren’t they supposed to know better? Comments like, ‘You’re looking a little pudgy lately,’ and ‘Be careful, honey, you don’t want to get much fatter now’ came from my family and neighbors... …I hated one comment most of all. It mainly came from family. In a patronizing, sickly sweet voice, someone would say to me, ‘You have such a pretty face, if you’d just lose some weight…’ There! So my body was what was wrong with me after all! It hurt even more because this comment dangled the hope of beauty, and yet placed the blame on me, a little girl, for not achieving it. It was my fault. Dressing joined dieting as a new strategy to ‘fix me.’ I never really paid much attention to clothes until it was pointed out at seven years old that I needed to “cover up.” I remember my first attempts at dressing in a ‘slimming’ way. I’d wear tight clothes, in dark colors, (slimming you know), and suck in my stomach. I’d wriggle into tight jeans and try to keep fat rolls from spilling over the waistband... I couldn’t breathe very well, but I was successfully ‘held in.’ I was also successfully acquiring kidney and bladder infections, due to the restrictive clothes’ pressure on my organs…” Young children are not called “impressionable” for no reason. We need to remember that. What’s being impressed upon them? Is Psalm 139:14 anywhere to be found? “I will praise You, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made…” The harmful messages sent to young children don’t just have a physical or emotional impact; it’s a spiritual effect as well. And, at its core is the distortion of each human being’s intrinsic worth. Don’t children deserve to learn that Truth by the time they’re seven? So, what can we do? Here are a few things to be mindful of: 1) Watch how your own self-perception is expressed, especially through negative body image talk directed at you, others or your child. You are modeling what is seen as acceptable when it comes to the power of image and worth. 2) Never diet with your child. You have separate needs. If your child’s health is at risk and/or there is a physical urgency for weight loss, seek the professional guidance from your physician, as well as providing a safe outlet for emotions and spiritual needs to be addressed and treated. The better the support network, the better the safety and overall sense of wellbeing your child and family will experience. 3) Avoid making image the focal point about you, your child or other people. Affirm your child’s positive character traits, including intellect, kindness, talent and personal uniqueness. 4) Discuss the reality of manipulated image and the media/culture’s unhealthy obsessions, including the proliferation of eating disorders, cosmetic surgery and airbrushing techniques for magazines and advertisements. 5) Emphasis your child’s inherent worth through scripture. Here are a few examples: “Since you were precious in my sight… I have loved you…” Isaiah 43:4 “I will praise You, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made…” Psalm 139:14 “I have chosen you and have not cast you away.” Isaiah 41:9 “For You formed my inward parts; You covered me in my mother’s womb.” Psalm 139:13 “O my dove…let me see your form…for your form is lovely.” Song of Solomon 2:14 We can change/improve the self- concept of our children. But it takes conscious effort. It is an uphill battle, but let’s never give children-or ourselves, for that matter- over to one predominant, lying and harmful thought of inherent worthless, ugliness and rejection. That is not who we are; that is Not who God created us to be! Copyright © 2013 by Sheryle Cruse