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Yesterday I posted a link on my facebook page to an article on CNN.com called “Fat is the New Ugly on the Playground,” which featured a few nice quotes by yours truly. In response to the post were comments including the following:
Excuse me in my experience fat has always equalled ugly on the playground, ain’t nuthin new here, take it from a former fat kid.
‘Fat’ has always been ugly on the playground, or any where else for that matter!
I’m not sure why this is all of a sudden breaking news.
Absolutely true. Fat kids—boys as well as girls—have long been tormented, demonized and excluded by their schoolmates. In CAMD I talk about the history of American attitudes towards fat—the reasons it came to be seen as a moral issue, a character flaw; how it became particularly taboo for women whose avoirdupois was once considered sexy. Check out an exotic dancer in the 1800s:
I struggle openly in CAMD and elsewhere over how to imbue a daughter with a healthy body image. In fact, I’ve been writing about women and weight since the late 1980s, so it’s not like any of this is a surprise.
What’s new, however, is the ever-earlier age at which children—girls particularly– become conscious of weight. In Schoolgirls I cited a study revealing that 50% of 9-year-old girls were dieting (check this Wall Street Journal article by a reporter who, to see for himself, interviewed a group of girls when that study came out; he talked to them again recently as adults). But now, it appears, by age three girls equate thinness with beauty, sweetness, niceness and popularity; they associate “fat” meanwhile with laziness, stupidity and friendlessness.
Yes, I said three. In a 2010 study researchers engaged 3-5 year old girls in games of Candyland and Chutes & Ladders asking them to choose among three game pieces–a thin one, an average-sized one and a fat one–to represent themselves. While in the past children that age showed little ability to distinguish between average and thin weights, today’s wee ones grabbed thin pieces at higher rates not only than fat ones but than those of “normal” weight. When asked by researchers to swap a thin figure for a fat one, the girls not only recoiled but some refused to even touch the chubbier game piece making comments such as, “I hate her, she has a fat stomach,” or “She is fat. I don’t want to be that one.”
Again: preschoolers.
As I’ve written before on this blog, toy manufacturers have lately classic toys on a diet, claiming (apparently rightly) that “Girls won’t play with childlike dolls any more.” So take a look:
Our friends at Pigtail Pals, in a recent blog about this baby-fear-of-fat phenomenon posted a photo of how Barbie–whose figure has reflected the idealized female physique for decades–has also whittled her waist and hiked her heinie. Meanwhile, the doll’s demographic has dropped: she’s now marketed at 3-6 year olds (her original audience was 8-12).
There’s no more grace period. From the get-go girls are bombarded with images of women whose bodies range from unattainable to implausible (Disney Princesses, anyone?). Even G-rated films and educational TV present thinness not as healthier (which it may or not be, depending on how you get there) but morally superior.
Given the mental health vulnerabilities an ever-narrowing standard of beauty creates in our girls–not to mention the negative impact fat-shaming has on overweight kids–are we really okay with letting this slide?
I can vouch for this – my 3 year old last year told us that she had to stop eating so much so her tummy would be flat. We stopped that kind of talk immediately, and are very careful about the messages she gets (but it will inevitably get to her too, I am sure)
Thankfully my three and a half year old daughter only commented my friends’ weight by asking if she was having a baby. She’s a sweet little plump thing and I wouldn’t have it any other way.
This enrages and depresses me. It makes me feel I can’t send my child to school because fat-shame is so prevalent. I want to scream.
[...] Cinderella Ate My Daughter author Peggy Orenstein posted on her blog “Fat is a Preschool Issue.” She writes: What’s new, however, is the ever-earlier age at which children—girls [...]
It is so sad, especially the comments on the above mentioned article for CNN. People think that this article somehow defends obesity. Being healthy also includes our mentality and some americans seem very unhealthy in that manner. I have never been skinny,but I was always active and ate a decent diet and none of my family members are obese in fact mymo,sister,and dad all have naturally skinny body frames,I just didn’t. On my 14th birthday I was diagnosed with nephrotic syndrome and for 11 years I have taken prednisone off and on. That is a horrible drug that causes weight gain,and a moon face appearance plus a whole bunch of other awful side effects. Now I was never bullied but I worry about many of the young children that I know who deal with this because of the prednisone side effects. This is a disease that is not very well known and people think we are just “normal,” I just know the fat shaming will effect these kids and they all are activeand have pretty strict diets due to the disease. I wish people could change their ways of thinking.
It seems difficult for us to see a “middle way” between extremes. For several decades the media and politics have take that adversarial approach–two sides “duking it out.” Deborah Tannen’s book, The Argument Culture, analyzes that style. She concludes it’s an obstacle to resolving both public and inter-personal problems.
If in fact unhealthy body-image bigotry is now a problem in the kid population (and I do not dispute that claim, or its importance), why has this occurred at exactly the same time that the incidence of juvenile diabetes and childhood obesity have increased dramatically? I realize that you can’t address all issues comprehensivel in a short blog post (even posts as well reasoned and well written as yours always are). But I do think the obsession with skinniness as an ideal form has complex causes. The mental and physical health problems threatening kids today are many, and to deal with any of them effectively, I think we need to deal with them all.
What is “unhealthy-body image bigotry?”
I do think it’s significant that the fetishizing of thinness coincides with the rise of obesity. And in combating both it’s important not to demonize either (my closest childhood friend was naturally super thin–still is–and was incredibly self-conscious about it and actually had a terrible body image).
[...] in all of this is just how early in life the fat-phobia is setting in. Peggy Orenstein noted in a recent blog post that many girls as young as three years old are showing serious warning signs of future body image [...]
The balance needs to be the health of the child. Playground teasing will always happen. I took the brunt of it from elementary school through high school. We can’t protect our children from every negative thing said. The world is not always a positive place and to try to shield them from every negative comment is unrealistic. This is especially true in the time of Facebook. Children, at all ages, should be encouraged to be healthy in their eating habits and how they should handle discouraging words.
It is easy to blame the advertising targeted at children and children’s toys for the unrealistic body images but I really feel the biggest part of the problems lies with adults. Advertisements towards adults are so photoshopped and manipulated they hardly represent the human form. Mascara ads are shown with false lashes and there are plenty of online “models” that are actually computer-generated bodies with real heads pasted on. I feel like the unrealistic advertisement geared towards adults is consumed and taken as realistic by our children which is then reinforced by their toys.
If we really want our children to have healthy body images it starts by taking control over how the human body is advertised in any form, and by forming healthy sustainable eating habits from the beginning. Targeting children’s toys and advertising is not enough.
I’m right there with you Elaine! We often discuss the possibilities of homeschooling for this as well as the bullying issue. On the one hand I want to protect them from this ugliness, but at the same time, I know we must prepare them to live in this world…it’s frustrating and appauling!
I think before I start what is going to be a criticism of both this post and the study by Professor Harriger, I should make a personal note that I take body image issues *very* seriously. I’m the single parent of an 11 year old girl with craniofacial issues (corrected bi-lateral cleft lip and palate). I think that research in to early development of body image and it’s sources is an extremely important field and that, especially here in the US, we truly need to examine the messages we send our young women.
But it’s exactly because of that that I have to write a criticism. These issue are far too important to be handled with such shoddy research.
My primary criticism are with the study, for sure.
First off, 53 kids between the ages of 3 and 5 is an *extremely* weak sample. Even just due to the small number of participants it would be difficult to get a truly representative sample of various socio-economic and ethnic groups. Further, the group was geographically limited to Albuquerque, NM. Not exactly a hotbed of diversity.
As far as I can tell, the study was never actually published in any peer reviewed journal. The only information I have about it is from the linked story and a Fox News post. So, it may be that the representation of it from the media is way off (which wouldn’t surprise me as science reporting seems to be a lost art), but… because the study isn’t publicly accessible, that’s all I have to go on.
And from what I can tell, even the design of the study is very poor. In this type of study there is no ability to have a control. Also, the images (just like body image) are liable to be interpreted in a subjective way. Further, we have no information on whether the images used particular characters. Could the children have been subjected more to one of the characters and chose it over the others (and it happened to be the one the researches felt was skinnier)? Or could the actual style of illustrations have been a factor, apparent age of the character? There are far to many things that could have been influencing factors that were apparently not controlled for.
Also, the strongest behavioral development studies tend to attempt to avoid researches asking the participants direct questions. This one, obviously did not. And it apparently didn’t even attempt to collect any kind of standardized data from the questions: “A lot of the 3-year-olds said to me…” is not a scientific observation.
My main criticism with this post is that you wrote, “While in the past children that age showed little ability to distinguish between average and thin weights…” without any citation of source, and to be honest, I’m a bit incredulous that it’s true.
My second criticism of this post is one that I levy at a lot of people writing about these issues, and it’s the confabulation of correlation and causation. Picking out several characters who have recently been redesigned and equating them to negative body image is *far* from anything resembling evidence that any of those characters even contribute to body image. And, to be honest, with the exception of the Care Bears and Barbie images, I think that saying that the redesigns are “thinner” is a bit of a stretch. The illustration styles are, indeed, *drastically* different, but that actually makes the ability to judge whether they are thinner or not open to even more subjective opinion.
I want, very much, for my daughter to grow up with a positive image of herself and her body. I want for her to transcend the petty horribleness that some people can deal out. I also want this for all the girls of the world.
I’m just not sure that doing weak studies and not attempting to avoid our own cognitive biases is the way to go about getting to that goal.
It strikes me as too closely resembling moral panics, and I fear that we’re barking up the wrong tree when we attempt to blame negative images from mass media exclusively.
So, please understand… I’m in your corner, and at my core I feel that these things *are* true. That mass media message *do* influence body image (as well as societal roles) and have an undue influence on *all* of us. I just want to see… you know… actual evidence to back that up.
I’ll shut after one little anecdote.
Up until she was seven, I refused to let my daughter play with Barbie. She never really asked to, or anything, but occasionally, people would buy her gifts and I would either tell them “no Barbie” or I would hide them if someone bought them for her.
Then, one day, we were visting one of her doctors. This doctor happened to be a woman and someone who I held in very high regard. She is exceptionally bright, dedicated, energetic, and caring. She got her MD from Stanford and graduated with honors (and, yes… I am impressed by such things). You honestly could not ask for a better a doctor, and you’d be hard pressed to find anybody so genuinely kind.
So…
At the end of the appointment, my daughter went out to pick out her stickers, and the Doctor was there with her, and very excitedly said “Ooooh… what about this Barbie one?” referring to a sticker that was bright pink and had a photo of Barbie with her stiff plastic arm raised in the air and saying “I’m Barbie! Let’s have fun!!!”
I kind of breathed through my teeth and gave the doctor a subtle shake of my head. She said, “Oh. No Barbie?”
I told her how I was really worried about the negative messages I felt things like Barbie and Brats gave to young girls.
“I get that,” she said. “Still… I *adored* Barbie when I was little.”
She wasn’t trying to be pointed. And I doubt she’s a shill for Matell. But Suddenly realized that *most* American women I know *did* play with Barbie. And many of them obsessively so. Even all the women I so respect… the ones who went on to be Doctors, astronauts, educators, and even the ones who *do* have a healthy body image.
I guess my point is… Barbie and her gang certainly can help influence girls in a negative way. But I think that’s it. The *help* influence. I think every parent, mentor, and friend has far *more* influence, and we need to be diligent in letting our girls know how incredibly beautiful, powerful, and amazing they are whether they look like Barbie or not.
Man. Sorry for the novel, and don’t let my criticism stop you from fighting the good fight. Because you are. I just want to see you have better weapons
Appreciate all of that. Though I think even if you disagree with this post or poke holes in this particular study there is ample evidence that body-consciousness has aged down among girls. The APA report on sexualization has many studies on this and you wouldn’t have to go far to find many more. Beyond my scope (and time level) to cite them all here.
Nor would I ever say–because it would be both ridiculous and simplistic–that playing with ONE toy, such as Barbie, would “cause” body image issues. I hope it does not appear I’m saying that. However, when girls from the youngest ages are bombarded with one specific body type as being representative of women and the ideal for women over and over and over (in their toys, in their movies, in their books, everywhere they look) and that one specific type is unattainable for nearly everyone (unless they can afford a lot of plastic surgery) it would be equally ridiculous to dismiss that as a factor. So the “I played with Barbie and I’m okay” defense basically makes me tired.
Do you really know a lot of women with healthy body images? Who have never struggled? That would be unusual and worth a study in its own right….
My younger son was born with a double-cleft lip (no problem with his palette, although his teeth, before the orthodontia, were all over the place). I’ve always been very sensitive to how other kids see him, treat him. I think, so far, the momentum of his scholastic and athletic achievements have helped him deal with problems related to the difference of his appearance. I am sure that less athletic boys, and, in this society, just about any girl, won’t be so lucky.
Along the same lines, a beefy little boy won’t get teased, or bullied, the way a chubby girl will. As they grow older, some of the beefy little boys will become physical heroes (hitting home runs, knocking out quarterbacks, or, even being bullies); very very few girls labelled “fat” will experience equivalent later physical triumph. (Many such girls will triumph in many other ways, of course.)
Obviously we need to nurture our kids. We do. But I think we also need to object to, and resist, the hegemony that works constantly to twist the kids’ desires to own its amoral, commercial, profitable interests. Diving into the pre-school girl culture where “fat” has become an insult is a step. Peer-reviewed studies should follow.
What bothers me is that most children NEED to go on a diet. It’s disgusting how some children are so incredibly fat now! And when they’re that young you have to look at the parents because younger kids can’t make good decisions such as eating healthy. It makes me sick.
This article from the CDC gives information about the increase of obesity in children in the past few years and it’s BAD: http://www.cdc.gov/healthyyouth/obesity/facts.htm
Sarah, for the 30% of kids who are overweight or obese it’s pretty clear that “going on a diet” is not the most effective strategy, especially since they’re growing so losing weight per se is not always the goal. Nor is fat-shaming effective. The Times recently did a piece on some promising strategies. And here’s a page from Google that includes a number of reports by public and private institutions on best practices.
Well said! I had to battle this daily with my young daughters. Raising a young girl with a healthy body image is so difficult in the culture of fast food and super skinny airbrushed reality stars. It’s all so confusing for our kids! I feel terrible for my little granddaughter as you photos show in your blog it is only getting worse and now toddlers and tiara and dance moms!
I could not said it better. It is so important to start from an early age to eat most of all natural food. And drink water instead of Coke etc. Minimase the sugar from the start, even during pregnency.
Thanks– something I’ve thought about a lot, with 2 daughters. I remember the younger one (now 7) saying in kindergarten she was, “the cutest girl in the world,” and by 1st grade saying she was fat in her tummy(she’s not, she is actually on the thin side of the median and just had that childhood pooch). Thus I’ve concluded that even if you limit media and you talk about how beautiful your daughters are, this behavior will be learned on the playground– so basically you need everybody they come into contact with to limit their media, or need the media industry to change.
But I don’t think this is a new phenomenon. I distinctly remember, at age 7, asking my dad if I could get plastic surgery on my knees because they were ugly to me. That was in the early 80s. But I remember my dad watching Benny Hill and Hee Haw and seeing pics of Farrah Fawcett etc and thinking those types of women were the ideal. At least I suppose that’s where I got it. I was a thin kid, parents didn’t allow much sugar, and I played outside all the time.
I think the way to combat this is to have girls play sports (which I did not). I know that since my older daughter’s been playing water polo, her body image is much better– she’s all about POWER now! That way they focus on their bodies as well-fueled machines, and less about how the bodies look.My younger daughter swims and plays soccer and hasn’t mentioned her looks in at least a year (though I might have been so horrified that she keeps those thoughts to herself). Anyway, much food for thought!
Yes, sports can definitely make a difference. Lots of research on that. I’d amend to “ENCOURAGE” girls to play sports rather than “let…”
My Little Pony, also. Gangly long legs and long slit eyes with eye makeup. Littlest Pet Shop toys havent been around very long and theyve recently started to change, huge eyes with glittery eye makeup. *sigh*
I am so happy to have read this. I sometimes feel like no one else is seeing this.
Well then you have stumbled on the right blog! Lots of people are. Also check out pigtailpals.com.
Thankfully, my 4-yr-old twin girls haven’t started talking about their weight. All they do is fat-shame me when they catch me eating sweets. Their exposure to TV is minimal and we’re pretty scrupulous about not exposing them to inappropriate material or unhealthy body image messages. But some of those toys they get from relatives (and my wife, who is more of a pushover than me)—sheesh. I blush when I stumble upon their naked Tinkerbell. She looks like she’s about to give a lap dance.
Lap-dancing Tinkerbell makes me laugh.
It’s really important for kids (of both sexes) to realize that people come in a lot of healthy body sizes and shapes and even if someone is bigger or smaller than is healthy that is a health issue, not a moral issue. It’s also important for girls in particular to see their parents, especially moms, enjoy sweets etc in moderation without commenting on what they might or might not do to their figures……
[...] alarming.) The Disney Princesses have grown gradually more skinny and coy over time. And, check out Strawberry Shortcake, Rainbow Brite, Trolls (now called “Trollz”). Even Care Bears and [...]
This is totally irrelevant, and I hope I don’t offend anyone because I love this article, but did anyone else chuckle seeing 90s Barbie with no head? I was going through my old Barbie trunk to see what I could salvage for my nieces and I was surprised to see how many of them were headless. I’m not sure if my brothers snuck in there or if Mattel designed them to fall off so we’d all be forced to buy new ones.
Tamara, dismembering Barbies is a long and noble tradition. I think I wrote about it in CAMD or maybe in the original piece. Or maybe some other article. I know I wrote about it somewhere. Anyway, there was a study about it.