Promoting a healthy body image is an important part of raising happy, confident children. With constant exposure to unrealistic beauty standards and appearance-based bullying, it can be challenging for children to appreciate their bodies. However, parents and carers can take steps to build positive body image in children from a young age. Keep reading to learn some practical ways to help children develop a healthy relationship with their bodies as they grow up.
The Impact of Media and Peers
Children today are saturated with media images displaying unrealistic, highly edited representations of faces and bodies. Social media adds to this pressure, as peers regularly post carefully curated photos. This constant stream of fake imagery teaches children to critique their own and others’ looks. Monitoring and limiting screen time can help reduce this impact. Discussing digitally altered photos also brings media literacy into the conversation.
Promoting Health Over Appearance
Place more focus on what bodies can do over how they look. Celebrate children’s energy, speed, flexibility, and strength. Shift conversations to well-being topics like nutrition, activity, rest and mental health. Lead by example, avoiding talk about diets, weight loss and your own perceived flaws. Take care to avoid even subtle body shaming of any child.
Curbing Appearance Based Teasing
Squash cruel teasing over appearance immediately and consistently. Explain that our bodies come in all shapes and sizes. We must never make mean comments about how others look. Make sure children know that they can speak to you if they are teased or bullied. Avoid conveying your own prejudice about weight, attractiveness, or comparing children’s looks.
The Power of Positive Language
Use positive, respectful language when talking about bodies and appearance. Compliment children’s efforts and character, not their physical attributes. Boost their self-esteem for generosity, perseverance, creativity, etc. Emphasise that nobody looks perfect, and true beauty comes from within. Say children look “strong and healthy”, not “thin” or “fat”.
Embracing Body Diversity
Expose children to diversity in advertising, toys, books and media. Look for podcasts, TV shows and social media accounts celebrating people of all sizes, abilities, gender expressions and ethnicities. Check that books, films, and products reinforce positive, empowering messages about bodies. Call out the lack of diversity and counter messages that certain groups’ bodies are “wrong”.
Celebrating Every Child
Children should feel secure exactly as they are. Use body-neutral language, avoiding loaded words like pretty, ugly, skinny or chubby. Ensure school uniforms accommodate different body types. Object to staff making comments on children’s weight or development. Reinforce the fact that there is no one “perfect” body type. Each of us moves through different shapes and sizes growing up.
Children in foster care may face additional challenges in developing positive body image and dealing with questions about their origins and family medical history. Foster carers fostering in the UK should be sensitive to this, emphasising that character and kindness matter far more than appearance.
With conscious effort, parents and carers can nurture healthy body image in children growing up in the UK. By modelling self-acceptance, monitoring media impacts and using inclusive language, we help shape a generation that values character over appearance. Focusing on diversity, ability, and well-being prevents appearance-based teasing. Most importantly, ensure every child knows they are valued, enough, and worthy of love at any shape or size.
