6 Ways to Raise a Child Who’s Prejudice Against Fat People
6 Ways to Raise a Child Who’s Prejudice Against Fat People
It happens everyday. People point, stare, tease, or demoralize others who are larger than the western body ideal. Children do it too, don’t they?
How do children get that way? Here are 6 ways children can become sizeist in a sizeist culture:
(1) You show them in your physical reactions: Imagine that every time a parent is approached by a fat man or woman, s/he is rude, belittling or snotty but every time a parent is approached by a thin person s/he is positive, courteous, and relaxed. You might think that a child won’t pick up on your body language—but they do. The message is clear; “Fat people make my parents feel uncomfortable, therefore they must be bad.”
(2) You say it in your words: Little ears hear everything! That means that what you shout at the TV, the comments you make when leafing through a magazine, or what you whisper to a friend at coffee when a fat person walks by may just be embedded in a young child’s lexicon forever.
(3) Your reactions towards them teaches them: The way you react when your child says something rude about a plus-sized person will speak volumes. If a parent laughs, agrees, or adds on to the joke, it will tell your child that it’s OK to say demeaning things about people of size. When you say nothing at all, it can have the same effect.
(4) You show it in your choices: If you allow thinner children to do things that you don’t allow heavier children to do, you are feeding into a sizeist culture. If you only take pictures of your thin child or allow your thin children to do special things while your fat children must watch from the sidelines, you are not only showing sizeist behavior yourself, but also teaching others to do them same.
(5) You show it in the way you accept yourself: Do you joke with your family over the holiday table about needing to lipo your “huge gut?” Do you look in the mirror and bash your “fat thighs” [fat=bad] or curse at your “skinny” jeans that don’t fit anymore? Your children hear this—they see it—and they process it. If we don’t accept who we are exactly as we are, how can we expect our children to accept themselves? In this case, parents are teaching children to reject these features in themselves as well as in others.
(6) You show it the way you surround yourself: When it comes to our children, they tend to absorb what they see and hear from those who are around them most of the time—it’s
Pages: 1 2