I found the following on Mamamia I think this is so sad. Girls as young as seven thinking they need to be on a diet. Sure, they should be eating healthy (as should we all), but they shouldn't feel the need to document it all. Eating disorder in the making, anyone?
The article:
Help: My daughter is seven. And I found this in her room.
By AMY CHENEY
I found this today in my daughter’s room. My daughter is seven. It
was innocently sitting on the floor amongst the Polly Pockets,
friendship bracelets and a variety of other crap seven-year-olds love to
hoard.
Diyet. Jesus.
Where did she learn the word diet? How does she even know what a freaking diet is?
Whose fault is this? Is it mine because I let her play with Barbies?
Because sometimes she’s allowed to watch Total Drama Action? Is it
because when I draw with her I can only draw stick figures? Seventeen Poosh-ups two times a day.
I felt sick. Physically ill. Like someone had knocked the air from my chest.
I could feel myself getting increasingly anxious the more words I was able to interpret from her seven-year-old spelling. Three Appals, One Per, Two Keewee Froots.
How did this happen?
I am smart about this stuff. I have a degree in early childhood studies. Our family focuses on and promotes healthy eating and healthy bodies. Our attitudes are reasonable and balanced. Weight has never been an issue in our home – it is, for the most part, irrelevant.
I have never stood before my husband and queried ‘does my arse look big in this’. Ever. Is media to blame for this?Rid my bike three time a day.
And then I got angry. Really, really angry.
F*ck you society. F*ck you and your and stupid obsession with women and the way they look.
How dare you sneak into my home with your ridiculous standards and
embed them in my little girls head, polluting her innocence with your
pathetic ideals. Jog/run up and down the driv way three times.
Your unrealistic expectations will not win in my house.
I am tired of the beauty and body obsessed arena we live in. I am
tired of women being portrayed as objects to be saluted and admired or
shunned and shamed depending on whether they measure up to societies
idealistic standards. I am tired of the conformist attitudes. And then,
because I was so tired (and sad, so sad) that I cried.
When Miss Seven arrived home from school I talked to her about her diet note.
Turns out she learned about diets from one of her seven-year-old friends who was on one.
So together we chatted about diets and beautiful healthy bodies and the gift that they are.
I am not naive. I know this will not be the last time I talk about
food and weight and bodies with my daughter. I am just ultra pissed that
it had to start when she was seven.
