How to Promote a Positive Body Image for Overall Health of your Child
If you thought positive body image is promoted at school, you might want to re-think your responsibility again as a parent. At home, parents are expected to teach manners and instill values that would help a child build the self-confidence they will need when they grow up. Living at an era where there is so much pressure to meet specific standards that the society has put in place, promoting a healthy body image is imperative in imparting lifetime skills and virtues in kids.
This becomes worse when they start interacting with their peers, and the pressure becomes too much to look a certain way to fit societal standards. Probably you are beating yourself up thinking of how to work this around and have a self-confident kid who becomes a responsible adult, right? For starters, how about you engage your child in all the plans you are making? Gone are the days you will shove a green smoothie down the throat of your teenage daughter or force them to eat vegetables and fruits and dish the Mc. Donald’s.
You will, however, succeed when you set easily achievable goals and ensure you celebrate each milestone your child makes to achieve the set goals. At the very least, you can rest assured to create a bond and connect with your kid as you go through healthy life choices together. Change begins with you and how you speak; if you keep on criticizing how you look or how other people look, you can bet your children will mirror the same thinking. It is important to ensure you are promoting positivity by talking positively especially when around your child.
You would rather have the child utilize all food items in moderation instead of creating a forbidden list of foods. By engaging your child in topics that revolve around body weight, body types, body sizes, etc. you are creating a safe forum through which your child can freely air their feelings and thoughts about their body image. You might also want to take exercise as a family responsibility and not lay the entire weight on your child who has body image issues.
When all is said and done, when you are concerned about your child’s perception of how they look, it would be advisable to talk to a professional. The earlier such issues are addressed, the better the chances of averting any permanent body image issues that may arise along the way. This is because issues that are addressed on time will always end up resolved much faster.