In fifth grade, my teacher told the girls in my class that someday we would think we were fat. “But you’re not,” she declared. “No matter what you think, you’re not.”
A truth easy to say. Hard to remember. Harder to believe.
The past four summers I’ve worked primarily with kids, whether babysitting, at my church’s VBS program, or as an aid at a day adventure camp. While there’s always a lot of laughter, a lot of camp songs about red wagons and polar bears, lots of glue sticks with missing caps and a million pushes on the swings, there are also a lot of broken kids with broken stories.
For some that comes in the form of family issues: Both parents divorced and remarried, one parent is dead or one is in rehab. Others have been abused. In far too many, I see young hearts and minds that have been fed the lie that they aren’t good enough, and they have bought into what the world is telling them about what it means to be beautiful and worthy.
We want kids to believe they’re beautiful, both on the inside and the outside, but it’s their hearts that matter the most. We want to encourage them in their weaknesses and challenge and spur them on in their strengths. We want to teach them kindness, to chase after their dreams and be thirsty to learn.
Then we sit them down in front of televisions that tell them to lose weight whether through the newest miracle pill or stair stepper or meal plan. Billboards tower bronzed and waxed “ideal bodies” above us. Lotion and anti-aging cream will keep you smooth and desirable. Little do they know that actor is really using plastic surgery. We try to mold our bodies into what the models can only attain with Photoshop.
Women buy gym memberships and try out the newest diet fads. We cut carbs and blend kale into our smoothies and complain about the size of our thighs when we sit and we really shouldn’t eat that brownie but we went on a run this morning so it all evens out in the end, right? We give up sugar for lent and count calories on the way to work and school. We just want to lose one more pound, fit into that old pair of jeans, slim down one more dress size.
We pick ourselves apart in front of bathroom mirrors and our reflections in restaurant windows and we groan when we finish that burger because it’s “so fattening but it tastes so good,” and as we express the guilt of eating we wonder why our children have such a warped concept of beauty.
Our society is in a lose-weight-at-any-cost mentality. What does that say to a girl who is growing up, maturing and changing in ways that are normal and healthy?
“I just want to suck all of the fat out of my body,” I overheard one ten year old say at VBS. She was tall and thin; she clutched at her stomach.
A 7-or-8-year-old at summer camp, more put together than any of the staff in her skirt and ankle boots and pink blouse, threw a tantrum when she thought the scab the size of a freckle on her leg was an injury from tripping in the grass while playing tag. The prick on her shin made her ugly. The microscopic blemish had ruined her, and she would hear nothing else but the voice in her head that told her so. She was ugly, and nothing I could say would stop her from protesting and putting her fingers in her ears and pounding her fists into the ground.
I have no idea if any of my words about inner beauty ever clicked. They probably didn’t, and it infuriates me.
It infuriates me because it is my struggle and desire to understand and promote a beauty that transcends physical standards, and I too so often fall short. Because I know women who are scarred and wrinkled and bruised and who I know are absolutely beautiful. Because I know what it is to look at yourself in the mirror and pinch your stomach and measure your wrists with your fingers and count the ways from every angle that you could be better, prettier and thinner. Because I know how that kind of thinking empties you of yourself and consumes you with the barely disguised goal of self destruction, and I would never wish any kind of thinking on these girls other than that they are beautiful daughters of the living God who specially crafted them and loves them more than they can imagine.
I want these kiddos to understand that they are created in the image of God. And that is beautiful.
But kids are extremely perceptive, and you don’t have to be observant to see what the world wants them to think beauty and desirability are. The world is screaming at them.
6-year-olds brag about having boyfriends. 9-year-olds twerk.
I am terrified at the possibility of having children someday because they will have to live in a world that will subconsciously and explicitly dissect them. It will write all over them a long list of how they aren’t and never will be good enough and tell them that being desired is more important than being wise. That being sexy is more important than being kind. That it’s great to be smart but you’re only a real woman if you’re liked and loved and wanted.
I am terrified of not setting the example that I should for any of the younger generations. The same girl who said she wanted to suck all the fat from her body in the same week pulled at my t-shirt and awed at how skinny I was.
We need to affirm these younger generations in any way we can. Not just with our words, but with our actions and the way we treat our own bodies. Kids emulate behavior. What if treating our own hearts and minds and bodies with care and respect is the key to teaching them to do the same?
This is one of the reasons I try never to wear makeup to work at camp. It’s not just because I don’t have the time or the energy in the morning. I don’t want these girls to see or think I can only go anywhere and be confident with a cover-up. I want them to see the love of Christ, not my eyelashes.
It’s not easy, though. Body positivity and confidence are not mentalities that come naturally to me, or, I would imagine, to most women. It’s hard because we’ve been ingrained with culture’s ideals for a lot longer than they have, and they’ve already become a part of our normal behavior and daily patterns.
We need to work hard to identify the ways in which we have believed the lies of our culture, work to be examples of healthy self care and self esteem, but also, most importantly, demonstrate what it means to follow God and have a beautiful heart transformed by him. We need to shift our own focus from the outward appearance. If we want to take care of our future generations, we need to start taking care of ourselves: body, mind, heart, and soul.
