We live in a body-shaming society, and unfortunately, shame often starts at home when parents criticize their kids’ weight. In my conversations with parents, fat shaming is almost always accidental and well-intended, but it has some terrible consequences. Also, it doesn’t always include the word “fat” or seem like a criticism to the parent.
Fat shaming is when you make comments and suggestions about your child’s weight. Kids, by nature, jump to conclusions, particularly when information comes from the people they trust most: parents. Their unfortunate interpretation of fat-shaming comments is that they must lose weight and stay thin to be accepted, worthy, and loved.
Since we live in a body-shaming society in which weight is criticized and ridiculed, any comments you make about weight will likely be received by your child (whether you intended it or not) as fat shaming.
You can explain the meaning and purpose behind weight-based comments all you want, but what matters is how your child received your comment. It’s a parent’s responsibility to pay attention not to what you meant, but how your child feels when you make comments. If it makes them feel bad about their bodies, it’s fat shaming.
Why parents should avoid fat shame with kids
We have plenty of research showing that when parents fat shame their kids they create the ideal environment for disordered eating and parental alienation. If you’re making comments about your child’s weight in an attempt to make them healthy, please know that fat shaming is 100% the worst way to improve kids’ health.
Many people who have eating disorders can remember feeling shame about their weight and fat based on comments from their parents. Parents’ comments about weight contribute to our dangerous society in which body hate, disordered eating, and eating disorders thrive.
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The impact of parents who fat shame kids
Weight-shaming by parents is linked to various negative outcomes, including anxiety, depression, and low self-esteem. Furthermore, there is a higher probability of weight gain and an increased risk of developing eating disorders.
Most parents who fat shame their kids are hoping it will support their kids in achieving/maintaining a thin body and health. But there’s a surprising side effect of fat shaming: weight gain. Surprisingly, attempting to help your child lose weight often backfires.
Research reveals that children whose parents perceived them as overweight experienced more weight gain compared to children considered to be of normal weight. Additionally, the children who were labeled as overweight were more prone to developing a negative self-image and eating disorders.
How parents can avoid fat shaming their kids
Based on interviews with hundreds of people who have eating disorders, I implore parents to never fat shame their kids. That means:
- Never talk to your child about their body size, shape, and weight in a tone that is not completely neutral
- Don’t talk negatively about your child’s body size, shape, and weight to someone else
- Never talk negatively about another person’s body size, shape, and weight (i.e. yourself, your friends, family members, celebrities, or any other person)
Examples of parental fat shaming
Sadly, there are plenty of examples of parental body shaming. Just a single hashtag (#theysaid) that trended on Twitter in May 2017 exposes hundreds of damaging comments:
Fat Shaming Moms
“Honey you need to take these, don’t you want to be pretty?” my mom giving me diet pills when I was 11 @char_cut
“You need to be careful. You’re getting a spare tire. You’ll end up fat” – my Mum. I was 11 years old. @thesophbot
“You have such a pretty face. It’s a pity you’re so fat. No man will ever marry you.” My mother to me circa age 12 @geekspertise
“You should stop eating,” Being slim is the best body type,” “No one likes fat girls” – my mom and my grandma @iqueenwinters
“Boys don’t date fat girls.” My mom to 10 year old me @lysslynne
“Are you sure you’re not pregnant? You look 6 months pregnant.” My mom @thebaronessM
Fat Shaming Dads
“Keep eating like that and you’re going to be a butterball.” My Dad when I was 12. @oiselle_sally
Father looks at pre-teen daughter as she eats an Oreo and says, “Are you sure you want that?” @amyblaszyk
You have a such a pretty face just think if you lost weight. My dad’s favorite shaming thing to say @mellissadufesne
You don’t want to be a fat teenager. – my dad when I was 12 @jesserin87
“Why can’t you be skinny like your friend? You don’t want to end up like your mother.” Thanks, dad. @stephmillbetty
“You don’t need that, you’re going to be as big as a house!” My dad when I was 6 @whit_brianne
My dad told me that a 16 inch waist was healthy and that I should try to slim down towards it. AKA the circumference of a cd. @dearjuless
My struggles with food started when I was 8 or 10 (and thin) and my dad said my nickname would be lardass @terrybeigie
Fat Shaming Grandparents
“You’re getting really chunky” – my grandmother, when I hit puberty. @thingjen
“Well well Chubby Checker, someone’s put on some weight” – my grandpa after seeing me in a sleeveless top @mmrach82
My grandmother told my mom, in front of me, if Jen wasn’t so fat, I could buy the same size for her and her cousin. I was 4! @jennydbaker
Fat Shaming Coaches and Teachers
“You’ve worked harder than anyone here but you’re just too fat to dance in this production.” My dance studio’s creative director @audaciouslyalex
“If you keep eating pretzels like that you’re going to be as big as a house one day” – 7th grade history teacher @mariamichta
“This is a great exercise for when your thighs start to rub together, emily.” 5th grade gym teacher in front of my class @emmickhue
Why parents should not use fat shaming to motivate kids
I understand there is a pervasive belief in our society that weight gain is inherently bad and that all people must pursue diets and weight loss to be healthy. This is not true. In fact, weight loss does not result in better health and almost always leads to weight cycling, which is less healthy than maintaining a steady weight.
Because people believe that weight is inherently unhealthy (it’s not), they believe that they must save fat people from being fat, and shame is a common “motivational” approach. However, according to researchers at Harvard, “Shaming may make children feel like they cannot change. Rather than motivating them, it may make them feel like they aren’t capable.” This ends up demotivating kids to adopt healthy habits like getting enough sleep, avoiding loneliness, eating well, and moving their bodies.
When it comes to parents who fat-shame their children, perhaps the parents are trying to help their children be healthier. But even if you believe your intentions are good, fat-shaming behavior is hurtful and leads to poor health. Fat shaming is directly linked to weight gain and eating disorders.
Using shame as a parenting technique is consistently shown to result in very negative outcomes for children. Children whose parents use shame often suffer from low self-esteem and exhibit mental disorders including anxiety, depression, Obsessive Compulsive Disorder, and eating disorders.
Parents who use shame believe they are motivating their children to be better. It is a form of behavior modification, but it has proven ineffective and destructive. This is because most people, especially children, cannot distinguish between their impulses, their actions, their bodies, and themselves as human beings. Shaming condemns the child, making them feel unworthy of love, dignity, and acceptance as they are.
It’s more than what you say about your child
Beyond what you say about your child’s weight, your beliefs about weight trickle into everyday conversations. While fat-based comments may be common among your peers, they are known to increase weight stigma and shame in children. Here are some ways that parents accidentally increase weight stigma in kids:
- Making jokes and rude comments about and to larger people
- Talking about their bodies and weight disparagingly
- Commenting on actors’, models’, influencers’ and celebrities’ weight
- Talking about other people’s weight gain as shameful and within their control
- Saying that dieting is the solution to weight gain (the No. 1 outcome of dieting is weight gain)
- Suggesting that weight regain after weight loss is the person’s fault (weight regain happens in 95% of cases)
- Making comments that suggest larger people are choosing their weight (weight is mostly genetic)
Non-Diet/Health At Every Size® Fact Sheets, Guidelines, and Scripts
- Fact Sheets About Weight Stigma, Diet Culture, Kids and Diets, and More
- Non-Diet Parent Guidelines
- Non-Diet Parent Scripts About Responding to Fat Talk, Diet Talk, and More
- What to Say/Not Say When Talking About Bodies and Food
Fat shaming doesn’t improve health for anyone
The American Psychological Association presented evidence in 2017 showing that fat shaming is not an effective health treatment. “Fat shaming is not an effective approach to reducing obesity or improving health,” said Joan Chrisler, Ph.D., a professor of psychology at Connecticut College, during a symposium titled “Weapons of Mass Distraction — Confronting Sizeism.”
“Stigmatization of obese individuals poses serious risks to their psychological health,” she continued. “Research demonstrates that weight stigma leads to psychological stress, which can lead to poor physical and psychological health outcomes for obese people.”
McHugh concluded that treatments should focus on mental and physical health as the desired outcomes for therapy, not on weight.
What to do if you have fat shamed your kids
If you have been fat-shaming your kids, then send yourself some self-compassion. Yes, what you did was unhelpful, but you didn’t know that then. The only way you can move forward gracefully and truly help your child is to have compassion for yourself as you own up to your mistakes.
Once you realize you’ve been fat-shaming your kids and you understand that it was hurtful, have a conversation in which you openly admit that what you did was wrong and that you are working to change.
Before you begin, here are a few ground rules:
- Acknowledge that fat shaming was a mistake on your part
- Say that you are going to work on your behavior
- Ask your child to tell you in the future if they believe you are fat-shaming
- Do not get defensive when your child responds. You made a mistake, and you must own that mistake. Don’t defend yourself. Just say you will try to do better.
- Don’t get into debates or arguments about body size, weight, diet, etc.
- Conduct more research about weight and diets.
An apology script
Here is a starting script for apologizing if you have been fat-shaming your kids:
“Sweetie, I’m so sorry. I realize that I’ve made some negative comments about your weight, and also my own. I understand now that what I was doing is wrong, and I’m going to work really hard not to do it anymore. I want you to know that I’m paying attention to it, and also I’m open to talking about it anytime.”
This is eating disorder prevention
As a society and as individual parents, we must recognize that when parents fat shame kids, it puts them at risk for eating disorders. Eating disorders are a multi-layered problem, but this is one factor that is entirely within parents’ control.
Ginny Jones is the founder of More-Love.org, and a Parent Coach who helps parents who have kids with disordered eating and eating disorders. Combining science, compassion, and experience coaching hundreds of families, she helps parents understand what’s going on with their kids’ eating behaviors and teaches them the science-backed skills to heal kids’ relationship with food, improve their body image, and feel better about themselves, their relationships, and life in general.
Ginny has been researching and writing about eating disorders since 2016. She incorporates the principles of neurobiology and attachment parenting with a non-diet, Health At Every Size® approach to health and recovery.
I had my period at 11 yrs old and puberty started. I was a normal sized kid but a bit hippy. Grade 7 arriving home from school and bending over to take my shoes off at the side door. My mother loudly saying ” Oh here comes lard ass”. EVERY SINGLE DAY. And laughing hysterically.
I am 55 years old now and her comments have never stopped. No matter how many times I have politely tried to talk to her about it over the years. Body shaming your child is cruel and will cause long lasting physiological problems. I am riddled with such low self esteem because of this. It had effected every aspect of my life. I push everyone away and have a very lonely assistance, I feel ugly, misshapen and unworthy.
Thanks Mom.
I’m so sorry to hear about your pain. I hope that parents stop doing this so that we can raise healthy children who don’t have to heal from the parenting they received. Sending you so much love and healing!
I have a pretty good relationship with my parents, especially with my dad. Despite being best friends, there’s something that has always driven a huge wedge between us and that is body image/food. Ever since I was a child it became a running joke in our family and among family friends that my dad would heavily control and comment on my food intake, to the point that friends and family members would give me free reign of their kitchen/pantries when I came over without my dad there. I was never fat or even overweight. My dad is very thin and eats very very little, hardly consuming any food until dinner and, even then, he hardly eats. He has impossible standards for food/eating and these standards caused me to begin a cycle of disordered eating that then progressed into a pretty severe binge eating disorder by age 10 which was finally diagnosed by a team of doctors at age 20. Because of these things, I have very skewed standards for what is considered eating normally, on either side of the spectrum. I feel like a failure if I eat more than him. At 21 I am a bit overweight but no doctors have EVER mentioned my weight even in passing as being concerning. Despite several heart to hearts, my dad still shames me a lot for eating just about anything or for not exercising a certain way. It really really hurts and I am exhausted of feeling like he’ll never truly be proud of me until I become skinny.
I’m so sorry to hear this. I wonder if it would feel safe to have a direct conversation with your dad and set a boundary about this. Something like “Dad, I love you so much and want to enjoy our time together. I’d like you to stop talking about what I eat, how I exercise, and my weight. If you bring up these topics, then I will remind you that I don’t want to talk about them with you. I assure you that I’m healthy and taking good care of myself, but these topics are becoming hurtful and I want it to stop.” Learning to set boundaries like this with our parents is so important, and so difficult! I wish you all the best!
Hi I’m maddie and im 12 , I know im young to be here but currently im in 8th grade and i study online, i was diagnosed with having Polycystic ovaries and the doctor said i need to lose weight , ever since that day my family used to fat shame me saying something like ” your too fat ” or ” lose some weight sweetie.” my mom even said ” boys don’t want fat and chubby girls.” i became insecure about my body and i now stopped eating things like chocolate and stopped drinking soda and stuff i get body shamed at school as well its been months and i lost a little weight and they still fat shame so all i can say is parents need to stop fat shaming I have been starving myself and i still do and i don’t want someone younger to do that same , but till now they still fat shame so yeah.
Hi Maddie, I’m so sorry to hear that this is happening to you. I want you to know that weight loss is a common recommendation for people who have PCOS, but it is a deeply harmful recommendation. It is a known fact that intentional weight loss efforts result in weight regain in 95% of people, and the act of intentionally losing weight creates numerous stress responses in the body. These stress responses have significant side effects, including additional weight gain in 65% of cases. And dieting increases the risk of developing an eating disorder by 4x.
Recommending weight loss for PCOS treatment is an example of doctors trying to treat the symptom (weight), not the cause (insulin resistance). Weight gain in PCOS is an indication of insulin resistance. When insulin resistance is addressed, PCOS symptoms will likely reduce and weight loss may or may not naturally occur. But the recommendation to focus on weight loss is incredibly harmful and might be part of the reason why PCOS is highly correlated with eating disorders.
I hope your parents will consider doing some more research into PCOS. This is a good article: https://mirror-mirror.org/eating-disorders-2-2/5200-2, and this website has some good information: https://juliedillonrd.com/pcos/.
Meanwhile, please know that your body is going to be the weight it’s going to be. You don’t need to go on a diet or restrict your food for weight loss. You don’t deserve to be weight-shamed by anyone, ever! xoxo
Hi, I am Aamina and I am 16, I an fat shamed since I was like 8 or 9 and yesterday stood up for my self. I told my mother that this(shaming) is hurting my feelings. instead of supporting me, she and my younger sister(who is pretty thin)started laughing about how sensitive I am. Even if I show her this article, I don’t think she will change anything. I am also diagnosed with PCOS. I am always left out at school, the only thing I have is a book to read. but my teachers are very sweet in general. I also get fat shamed by my extended family (grandmother, aunts, cousins ,etc…)too… I don’t know what to do.. many times I ignored but to be honest I think the scar will never heal. i constantly get comments like ‘you wont look good in that dress’ ‘ that dress makes your body look fat’….
I need your advice, what should I do to avoid stress due to fat shaming?
(i am not saying that i get fat shamed 24/7, but when it happens its unbearable)
I’m so sorry to hear that Aamina. Please know that your body is not a problem to be fixed, and you don’t deserve to be fat-shamed. It’s OK to tell people to stop talking about your body: “Please don’t talk about my body anymore.” They may not stop, but you can keep saying it: “I’ve asked you before not to talk about my body. Please stop.” Sometimes just knowing that you can say this, and saying it with confidence, can make things better. It can be hard to assert yourself in these situations, but it’s also empowering. Sending you much love as you navigate this difficult situation. xoxo
Dear Aamina, your family should be ashamed of what they do to you and no doubt to others. All of our bodies are unique and be proud of who you are. Never let the hard-hearted people get to your heart.
Hopefully you can forgive them, but they may never see themselves the way they truly are. So forgive them and be proud of you! We are all out here rooting for you, just know that many children and adults come from this horrible behavior….The way we stop them, is to love everything there is about our bodies! Love yourself for all that you really are, stop listening to the ones who have no love for you or themselves either!
This grandmother just had enough of her son n law fat shaming the grandboys! He does it out in public and does it in private and the boys are made to feel shame constantly! We went out to eat at a restaurant today, he was horrible and fat shamed both young boys ages 10 and 12. Their Mom excused it with just “You know your Dad” just let it go and buck up. I never want to eat out again with such a man, he needs to apologize, constantly!!! The dad has problems vomiting and dieting constantly, he is very anorexic! What does a Grandmother do? Hurts my heart to see them bow their heads in shame!
My parents kept body shaming me every year about my weight and it never stopped. I get so tired of the negative comments they make about it. My weight is really none of their business. What should I do to stop them from criticizing me about it?
Hi Jarrod, I’m so sorry to hear this. Your body is your business, and you never deserve to be shamed. You can set boundaries with your parents and say things like “please don’t talk about my body that way,” and leave the room when they body-shame you. I know this is an imperfect solution, and unfortunately you’ll likely need to repeat it. Just remind yourself that your body is absolutely fine. There is nothing wrong with you. xoxo
My 5 year old – yes, 5 year old !!- daughter cried “Daddy I am not fat” when I said to her a few times “you need to start running a bit more as you are getting fat”. I cried myself to sleep that night. Sometimes fat shaming is inbuilt into parents – its just a reflex statement. I did try and apologise to her and tell her that it was ok and she just needs to practice moderation. A few months since – she just puts her hand on her belly and says “I am fat, so I ran a lot in the school”. I have no idea how I will undo my mistakes.
You’re so right – we all grew up in a fat-shaming culture, and thus fat-shaming is almost always unconscious. There is a lot you can do to help your child, and it all starts with examining your unconscious beliefs and changing how you see and talk about bodies. Thanks for thinking about this for your daughter’s sake! xoxo