It is difficult to pick up a magazine these days that does not focus on losing weight and staying young. Beauty is a multi-billion dollar industry that often promises the impossible. Teenage magazines do the same thing and your tween or teenage grandchild is internalizing much of what is promised in a very detrimental way.
Before you voice your New Years resolution to lose another fifteen pounds or to get back into a pair of jeans you wore when you were 45, consider the affect that these comments have on your impressionable young grandchild. Negative body image is one of the most prevalent issues with teens these days. Girls often feel they are too big and boys often feel they are too small. Either way, such strong negative views on ones body image can greatly affect your grandchild’s self esteem and without realizing it, you might be contributing to this problem.
Baby Boomers grew up in a time when focusing on body image was changing. Audrey D. Brashich, author of All Made Up: A Girl’s Guide to Seeing Through Celebrity Hype and Celebrating Real Beauty says, “a lot of things intensified in the end of the 80’s. Supermodels became household names and all of the sudden women were idolizing other women for nothing other than their looks”. 
Brashich says this media influence led to “a collapse of differentiating what used to be entertainment to what real life should look like”. In this post-Gloria Steinem world, there was actually a “tightening of expectations on women” who began worrying about how they could stay fit and look young at whatever cost. These women were the first to live through fad diets like the Cabbage Soup Diet and many led the way to today’s “yummy mummy”. Baby Boomers extreme focus on weight and outer beauty can have a profound effect on the message that they send to their grandchildren.
How would you rate your body image?
It would be difficult to find anyone who does not have some complaints about a part of their body. Very few of us were born looking like Barbie. But if you wished to look like her, consider this. If Barbie were a real person, she would be 5 ft 9 with measurements of 36-18-33 and she would probably have had a few complaints of her own.
If you are one of the many who wish your thighs were smaller or your behind was a bit rounder, how often have you vocalized this around your grandchildren? Dara Chadwick, author of, You’d be so pretty if…:Teaching our Daughters to love their Bodies- Even When We Don’t Love our Own, says, “if you’re constantly critical of your own body, rest assured that it won’t be long before your daughters (or granddaughters) starts to criticize their own body, too”. Chadwick explains, “as the little girl morphs into a young woman, she passes a mirror where she notices – for the first time – that her thighs are shaped just like her mom’s. In that single instant, she hears years of her mom’s self-criticism and decides that she hates her own heavy thighs”. 
This goes for grandmothers as well. Your influence is greater than you know.
Adult’s model behaviour and children pick up on that immediately. If you have a negative body image and you are critical of yourself, your grandchildren will be critical of themselves. If you think you are going to say something negative, try and censor yourself around your grandchildren. Chadwick stresses that, “helping your granddaughter to feel loved and accepted for who she is starts with loving and accepting yourself.” So, if your plan is to lose 15 pounds by Valentine’s Day, share that with your friends, but find something else to talk to your grandchild about.
Remember the Boys
Parents and grandparents need to understand that the same comments, nicknames and attitudes that negatively affect their young granddaughters, affect their grandsons in the exact same way. When most of us think of body image, we automatically think of girls, however, Dr. Will Courtenay, author of Dying to Be Men, wants us to open our eyes to the fact that boys, “incorrectly perceive their weight”. He says that, “one in four normal weight men thinks he’s underweight and nearly half of overweight men think their weight is normal.” Men who are smaller in stature and weight feel as negatively about their body image as women who are bigger in stature and weight.
If you have spent most of your life plagued by weight issues or weight obsession, ask yourself if you want the same burden for your grandchildren. Media pressure, societal pressure and personal expectations weigh heavily on your growing grandchild. Think before you share stories of your own personal weight loss or weight gain or pull out fashion magazines that highlight air-brushed perfection. Pause before you comment on how much weight your grandchild may have gained or lost since the last time you saw them. Just hug them closely, love them unconditionally and if you are the least bit concerned bite your tongue and head outside for a brisk walk together.
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