Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Parenting and Advocacy Perfectionism and body image...

DW and I talked about this a few years ago.

She saw a site like the one below and her first reaction was, "I'M A 10!I'M a 10!"

I did the same thing for a niece, and she had the same reaction.

http://freshpics.blogspot.com/2010/08/50-outstanding-celebrity-photo.html

The flip side is when you also show them the men before they are retouched. LOL



DW and I lived at a place like the above for a few years. Everyone looked good, but few were functionally fit. An Army friend who is still active duty visited me - and he had a bit of a gut and scars from war. But was also functionally very fit. And highly intelligent with interesting stories and perspectives. He was not a pretty boy. But he got a lot of attention because he was real, not fake.

A lot of people only have their looks and the time they spend getting those looks. They develop nothing else - neither from a true fitness standpoint nor experiences nor knowledge. They are pretty boring to talk to and be with when compared to their peers who are real.

Hi,
I'm a new member, but someone who has been reading this forum for quite a few years. This topic brought me out from hiding and I wrote an earlier response, but didn't see it posted.

I just want to say that this issue became a very real and serious problem for my DD at age 9. It had to be taken care of by professional help. If you notice any big change in your child's behavior, emotions, or personality OR if you see your child refusing food they once loved, take that as a sign for need of intervention.

I'm happy to say we reversed the problem in our home. As others have said, stick to team sports, avoid any conversations about weight loss or calorie counting and encourage eating by not labeling things as healthy (the reverse for a perfectionist is "unhealthy"). Also, I encourage you to talk about body changes that happen over the next few years that will need lots of food and growth.

Enjoying life with a truly healthy, growing girl...

DDalmost7 has the opposite problem. As a newborn she was a Michelin Baby, and she has sort of "stretched" each time she grew, where she becomes a bit taller and leaner, but she still has something of a belly. She's also got a LOT of muscle for her age/gender, so BMI is misleading in her case. That's why, when a particular doctor used the word "obese," my wife wanted to hit him. We're always walking the tightrope with DD, trying to help her achieve a healthy weight and body image, because as a gifted perfectionist she's a high risk for an eating disorder. Like most kids her age she's prone to eating too much junk food if we allow it, but otherwise she's doing very well... she's active, she stops eating when she's full, and she eats a MUCH healthier variety of foods than many of her peers do. Most importantly, she views her body favorably. For now.

Obviously media images are a HUGE part of the problem with kids and body image, but I think a bigger problem is the poor quality of dieting information being foisted upon these kids. The health industry and the media have grossly dumbed-down the information on what it takes to maintain a healthy weight. They went for the low-lying fruit by picking on fat. Yes, the typical diet of an obese adult contains more fat than necessary, and since it's the most concentrated form of calories, reducing fat intake will reduce caloric intake, which promotes healthier weight.

But as usual, the truth is more nuanced than that. Fat is a vital nutrient, though when the media talks about it in terms of nutritional value it uses the term "fatty acids," confusing the fact that they're basically one and the same. Also, a number of our other vital nutrients are fat soluble, and the only way our bodies can break them down and absorb them is if they were consumed with some dietary fat. As a result, someone who thinks they're doing their body a favor by drinking fat-free milk is literally flushing away most of the nutrients they thought they were ingesting... including vitamin D and calcium.

So there's an opportunity for another talking point, which gives us:

- Media images of beauty are distorted (mentioned by others earlier)
- BMI is a distorted statistic
- Information about healthy diet is distorted

Between these three things, there's no wonder so many people have a distorted view of their own bodies.

Dude, thank you for making all of those excellent points about "fat". I can't tell you the anger I felt when I saw a picture on the cover of my then ill 4th grade DD's periodical from school illustrating a healthy school lunch- fat-free milk, steamed vegetables and a baked chicken breast. There was almost no fat in that meal, not to mention complex carbs. Children are receiving many messages about food that can be frightening to a perfectionist who is always trying to be their best.

In our home we don't say "healthy food" or "junk food", but stress food variety and foods you should try to include daily.

Welcome, BeKind. I'm very happy that you managed to get help for your DD and that she's well now.

Yeah, I find that particularly outrageous. Children on the Atkins diet?


We find it particularly useful to delineate between foods with poor nutritional value and those with high nutritional value. We do allow DD to have some junk food each day, but she knows this is limited, whereas her access to foods we define as healthy is not limited. So if she's asking for a snack after dinner, and she'd been to a birthday party earlier that day, when we tell her she's had enough junk food she knows that we're not going to make s'mores, but she can have all the yogurt with blueberries she wants.

Plus, when she was four, she drew a picture of an ice cream cone, a cupcake, and a candy bar, taped it to a yardstick like it was a flagpole, and marched through the living room chanting, "I love junk food, junk food is good for you..." So there's that.

Thank you for the welcome and I am very grateful!

And, Dude, the picture of your daughter marching makes me laugh. Thank goodness for the variety in our children's personalities, even among those in my own home.

That's not Atkins (which is low-carb, so allows for quite a bit of fat). That's the Rabbit Starvation diet.

It's so nice to hear people realizing the importance of fat. We don't use "fat" as a way to describe something. We've taught our kids that everyone has fat under their skin and it is an essential part of everyone's body. We say that some people might have more fat under their skin than is healthy (like mommy:)), and some people have too little and some are just right. As for "junk" food, we usually say that food might be good for your body or good for your taste buds. We try to eat more healthy food for our bodies, but in moderation we like to have happy tongues too.