I was reminded of the value of body positivity after a friend called my toddler's legs chunky

• Recent research suggested kids as young as 3 associated fat bodies with negative traits.
• A comment from a friend made me realize adults shouldn't comment on children's bodies — fat or thin.

One summer day, when my daughters were 5 and not yet 2, we went out for ice cream and ran into Barbara, an old family friend who hadn't seen either of them since they were both much tinier. When adults see children, we have a seemingly uncontrollable urge to comment on how they've grown and changed; to mark the passage of time, yes, but also to scrutinize their bodies for clues about the people they are becoming or might someday be.

So, a part of me wasn't surprised when Barbara looked my girls up and down. "Oh, I love Violet's long ballerina legs," she said. Then Barbara looked down at her own body. "Hmm, let's see, do I have ballerina legs? I think I have Beatrix legs! Short and chunky!"

"I think … they both have great legs?" I offered. It felt awkward. The girls sprawled in the grass, dripping chocolate ice cream everywhere, their legs stretched out in front of us. Violet's, indeed, long and delicate. Beatrix's, much shorter and rounder, with deliciously squishy toddler thighs. We started talking about vacation plans and nobody said anything further about my kids' bodies or their own. But I wondered: How much had that one comment sunk in?

Having the 'right' kind of body

Since Beatrix was just starting to put sentences together, I wasn't too worried that she'd pick up on Barbara's despair about chunky legs. This time. But I wasn't at all sure about Violet. Studies dating back to the 1950s have shown that when children are presented with pictures of various body types, they rate the fat body as the one they like the least.

More recent research suggests that kids as young as three years old already associate fat bodies — including fat legs — with negative traits. At "5 and a half," as she would emphasize, Violet was old enough to understand this.

Of course, Violet was also the kid receiving the compliment. So, what's the harm? She had the "right" kind of legs, in the eyes of this friend, and the world. But I was a thin kid once, too. I remember reveling in the knowledge that adults in my life envied my body, which, until college, I felt mostly good about. And then my body changed.

In the diet culture of the '90s, I believed my changing body was bad

It was the late '90s, heyday of Britney Spears's exposed torso, of the "Delia's" catalog, of Kate Moss and heroin chic, of halter crop tops, and low-rise jeans. I remember standing in an Abercrombie & Fitch changing room trying to understand why my waist curved out over the waistband where other girls' seemed to curve in. Suddenly, this body part I'd taken for granted for so long looked wrong.

This happens with waists. And arms. And collarbones. And all parts of legs. Bodies, by definition, are ever-changing. But our culture, dominated as it is by whiteness and patriarchy, slices bodies — especially girl bodies — apart into a series of discrete, idealized shapes — all smooth, taut, hairless, and, most of all, thin. We are taught to have clear expectations for how each of these body parts should look, and for the fact that they should always look this way.

Children are taught to equate worth with body size

We teach our children to equate their worth with their body size, ignoring how we know, from our own firsthand experience of growing up, that body size is mercurial. And so, growing up to have a different shape from our childhood body becomes a personal failing. It makes our bodies alien, unruly, the enemy.

Complimenting a thin child also reinforces the idea that thin bodies are better than fat bodies. And this was what kept me from saying more in the moment to Barbara — because that belief is planted deep in our collective psyche.

Teaching body positivity is not as easy as it seems

We want our children to love their bodies. We don't want them to diet or develop eating disorders. And yet, once they're past toddlerhood — or sometimes, even before — we also want them to be thin. I could probably explain to Barbara why it wasn't good for Violet to receive excessive praise about her appearance, why it might reduce her understanding of her worth to how she looked. I could articulate why

I want my child to think bigger and live larger than that. But it would be much harder to explain why I just as fervently want Beatrix to love her thighs, should they stay squishy past early childhood. Or how damaging it is for kids of all sizes to know that grown-ups think this way about bodies. Or why Barbara shouldn't have to hate her own legs.

Unlearning this core belief about the importance of thinness means deciding that thin bodies and fat bodies have equal value. To do this, you have to know that humans have always come in a variety of sizes; that body diversity is both beautiful and necessary. You have to believe that being fat isn't a bad thing. And that means you have to challenge a lot of what you thought you knew about health, beauty, and morality.

Excerpted from "Fat Talk: Parenting in the Age of Diet Culture" (Macmillan Publishers, April 25, 2023). Reprinted with permission from Macmillan Publishers.

CAUTION: Users are warned that the Work appearing herein is protected under copyright laws and reproduction of the text, in any form for distribution is strictly prohibited. The right to reproduce or transfer the Work via any medium must be secured with the copyright owner.