How mothers can improve their daughter’s Body Image

The problem and the reality is: As Mothers we care how our daughters look

We care a lot about the way our daughter’s look. Often it comes from a good place. We know how cruel the world is, and we want the best for our child. We know from personal experience, either as a spectator, a teaser or as the one being teased; If your body is not like everyone else's, it will be ripe for scrutiny and scorn. Also, we feel the world judges us through our children and especially our daughters, who are a reflection of us. For these reasons a mother often has a lot invested in the way her daughter looks. To further complicate this scenario, your daughter’s appearance will often genetically mimic your own, so if you were teased for being “bigger,” by today’s calculations, she will be teased even more, as Western society has gotten bigger, and the projection of Western Society, which is portrayed in the media, has gotten smaller. (Tylka & Sabik, 2010; Lew et al., 2007).

Improve your own body image: Don’t talk negatively about your body & accept yourself and your body

Our daughters watch us very closely and notice how we treat ourselves. The best way a mother can improve her daughter’s poor body image is to improve her own. We are all created differently. Among the 7.6 billion people who live on this Earth, no two people look the same (discounting identical twins). That means we are meant to look different and there is not one ideal of beauty. We need to learn to love ourselves and accept our bodies as they are, and disregard the media’s unhealthy beauty standards. Mothers who internalize the media’s message about the importance of being thin are more likely to have daughters with eating problems (Cooley,2008).

Model positive body image behavior:

Fake if you have to. If my daughter is in the room when I am trying on clothes and I don’t like how something looks on me, I take extra care in changing so as not to disparage how I look, or I don’t change at all. This is because mothers influence their daughters' perceptions about body weight and appearances through modeling, whether done purposefully or not, especially when it comes to dieting. And furthermore, studies have found that girls have higher self-esteem and better body image if they have a strong relationship with their mother (Armstrong & Janickle, 2012).

Watch this Dove ad which beautifully shows how our daughter’s self-image is an echo of our own: Dove beauty ad

Do not criticize how our daughters look, at all!

Studies have found that the less a parent talks about their daughter’s weight, the better her body image will be as an adult, and the lower her BMI (Hillard et al, 2016). So not talking about weight and what she is eating will be the most effective way to get to your goal if your hope is that she doesn’t become overweight. Studies have found that maternal criticism or even neutral commenting was correlated with greater eating problems for the daughters (Neumark-Sztainer, 2010; Francis & Birch, 2005a), and found that over-weight mothers who try to restrict their daughter’s eating, were more likely to have daughters who ate when they weren’t hungry (Francis & Birch, 2005b), so excessive attention to what your daughter eats can cause disordered eating pathology. Studies found the most significant influence from mother’s was direct feedback, leading to disordered eating behavior (Armstrong & Janickle, 2012; Golan & Walter, 2015).

Don’t try crazy diets

Studies have shown that statistically speaking, dieting doesn’t work and that the only effective way to lose weight is to change your lifestyle. While this may seem more challenging in the short term, it is more likely to have long term effects and therefore healthier for your body and mind. What does this mean? It means adding more physical activity to your family life. Take up hiking, family walks after dinner, bike riding. Find something that is fun and enjoyable and that you would actually stick with. Think back to when you were a kid- what made you happy? Make changes slowly, one at a time, because they are more likely to stick that way. And if you want to change one child’s diet, you must change everyone’s diet. Offer only healthy options, for everyone but leave children alone about how much they eat. Never turn the dinner table into a battle ground. Eating together as a family is correlated with high self esteem and healthy kids so try to do this in a peaceful and enjoyable way.

Love your daughter and her body, but focus on her inner beauty and not just her outer appearance. Teach her to love all parts of herself.

Our modern world puts a tremendous emphasis on outer appearance, with the proliferation of selfies, and the enormous machine that is social media. But as parents our influence is still paramount. Our job is to emphasize what wonderful people our children are, improve the strength of their character and show them that the effort they put into things will pay off. Help them build other parts of themselves and gain pride in their accomplishments. Find what they are good at and help them continue to improve. Help them love themselves for what is inside. And show them that as they get to know others their inner beauty will be reflected outward.