Let's Talk Body Image

In a world that’s obsessed with weight and looks it’s important to promote positive self-esteem in kids

- Lindsay De Freitas

IN A fit of temper, her four-year-old daughter lashed out with the most hurtful insult her young mind could muster. “You’re fat, Mom!” she yelled. Instead of losing her cool, US holistic health coach and self-help author Allison Kimmey used the incident as a teachable moment. She sat her daughter, Cambelle, down to discuss the implications of what she’d said.

“I asked her, ‘What did you say about me?’ and she responded, ‘I said you were fat, Mama. I’m sorry’,” Allison recalls.

She then used the moment to warn her daughter about the dangers of name calling. “The truth is I’m not fat. No one is fat. It’s not something you can be. But I do have fat. We all have fat. It protects our muscles and our bones and keeps our bodies going by providing us with energy. Some people have a lot and others don’t have much. But that doesn’t mean one person is better than the other.”

Allison recently posted the exchange on social media in the caption of a photo of her and her daughter in their swimsuits – and the response was overwhelming. At the time of going to print, her post had received more than 34 000 likes and had been shared almost 700 times.

Yet while many supported the social media influencer, plenty considered her approach reckless and felt it encouraged unhealthy eating habits at a time when childhood obesity rates are at an all time high. South Africa is one of the worst culprits in the world – one in five schoolkids is obese or overweight.