Latest / Dr Justin Coulson's Happy Families / #836 Body Image Blowouts

Transcript

#836 Body Image Blowouts · Dr Justin Coulson's Happy Families

0:03
Speaker 1: It's the Happy Families Podcast. It's the podcast for the
0:07
Speaker 1: time poor parent who just answers.
0:10
Speaker 2: Now, society places demands on our kids, and on our
0:14
Speaker 2: teenagers and on our adult women, who now believe that
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Speaker 2: this is how I have to look, and I've got
0:20
Speaker 2: to put in whatever effort is required to be there,
0:22
Speaker 2: and I'm going to be perpetually satisfied with my body
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Speaker 2: because nature drives my body in precisely the opposite direction
0:28
Speaker 2: to society's ideal.
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Speaker 1: And now here's the stars of our show, my mum
0:33
Speaker 1: and dad.
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Speaker 2: Most tuesdays on the Happy Families Podcast, we answer listener
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Speaker 2: questions and today one that's very close to our heart.
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Speaker 3: We have six daughters.
0:40
Speaker 2: And while boys do struggle with this particular challenge, it
0:44
Speaker 2: very much in our society is a girl issue.
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Speaker 4: Well, you highlighted your struggles with your.
0:50
Speaker 2: With my pectoral says, so you're going to bring that
0:52
Speaker 2: up again. I can't believe that for those of you
0:54
Speaker 2: who are new to the podcast and have no idea
0:56
Speaker 2: what Kylie's talking about. When I was a teenager, I
0:58
Speaker 2: was looking.
0:58
Speaker 3: In the mirror one day.
0:59
Speaker 2: I was doing some flexing, as teenage boys tend to do,
1:02
Speaker 2: and I noticed that my right peck was a different
1:03
Speaker 2: shape and size to my left peck. I got so
1:05
Speaker 2: worried about it, and I made an appointment to go
1:07
Speaker 2: and see the doctor. The doctor laughed, thought I was
1:08
Speaker 2: very funny and told me that was totally normal and
1:10
Speaker 2: not to worry about it, and just to do more
1:12
Speaker 2: push ups and both sides will catch up to each other.
1:14
Speaker 2: That's not the question, though. The question is about girls
1:17
Speaker 2: and how they see themselves.
1:19
Speaker 3: Kylie. This one comes through from Kate.
1:21
Speaker 4: She said, any advice on instilling body positivity and young girls.
1:25
Speaker 4: I have a five year old daughter and she already
1:28
Speaker 4: talks about fat tummies and not wanting to be fat.
1:30
Speaker 4: I worry what this could lead to in years to come.
1:33
Speaker 3: So there's a book called Beauty Sick.
1:35
Speaker 2: It's by a wonderful researcher at Northwestern University in the
1:38
Speaker 2: United States. It's got a great reputation at university. Her
1:41
Speaker 2: research is brilliant. It's called Beauty Sick. Her name is
1:43
Speaker 2: Renee Engeln. I recommend everyone read that book. I just
1:46
Speaker 2: think it's the best book on body image stuff of
1:49
Speaker 2: any book that I've ever seen. And in that book
1:51
Speaker 2: she highlights that there is really just an abundance of
1:54
Speaker 2: research showing that even five year old girls, well over
1:57
Speaker 2: thirty percent of them are struggling with some aspect of
2:01
Speaker 2: their body. They already feel insecure about their body at five.
2:04
Speaker 2: What Kate's saying in this in this email to us
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Speaker 2: via podcast at Happy Families dot com, do I you
2:10
Speaker 2: is not altogether unusual, as sad as it is. I
2:13
Speaker 2: also found some Aussie research. This research comes from Latrobe University,
2:17
Speaker 2: the Child Body Image Development Study and Atlantroube University. They
2:21
Speaker 2: found that thirty eight percent thirty eight percent of four
2:26
Speaker 2: year old girls in Australia a dissatisfied with their body.
2:30
Speaker 3: Why is it so high?
2:32
Speaker 2: Well, that's really what I think we should talk about
2:34
Speaker 2: for the rest of the podcast and what we can
2:35
Speaker 2: do about it. I think that it's so high for
2:36
Speaker 2: a few reasons. Number One, society's expectation. If you look
2:40
Speaker 2: at everything from Margo Robbie in the Barbie movie, if
2:44
Speaker 2: you look at any popular culture, you just don't see
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Speaker 2: normal and I'm using the word normal in inverted commas.
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Speaker 3: You don't see normal.
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Speaker 2: Body shapes represented. You turn on the news at night,
2:56
Speaker 2: you turn on the TV shows in the morning, it
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Speaker 2: doesn't matter what mean you consume. All you see is
3:03
Speaker 2: one body type for females. It's so hard to find
3:07
Speaker 2: quote unquote normal body types for females. Society is ideal.
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Speaker 2: And I wrote about this in my book Misconnection. So
3:13
Speaker 2: if anyone has a tween or a teen girl and
3:15
Speaker 2: body image issues are coming up, I was astonished. I
3:19
Speaker 2: was absolutely astonished at the overwhelming number of girls who
3:24
Speaker 2: told me in my surveys and in my interviews with them,
3:27
Speaker 2: the body image was the hardest thing in their lives,
3:30
Speaker 2: the thing that they worried about the most. So many
3:32
Speaker 2: of them were saying it. And it's not just them.
3:34
Speaker 2: You're sort of looking at me and shaking your head
3:36
Speaker 2: as I'm saying it. But when we were dating, I
3:38
Speaker 2: don't know if you remember this or not, we went
3:41
Speaker 2: on our first day. We were at Terrigle Beach and
3:43
Speaker 2: there was a charcoal chicken at Teregle Beach. I said,
3:47
Speaker 2: let's go and have a picnic. That's what I've got
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Speaker 2: planned for our first day. We're going to go and
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Speaker 2: sit over at Terygle Haven, sit on the grass, watch
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Speaker 2: the water, watch the waves.
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Speaker 3: Beautiful place.
3:55
Speaker 2: Let's go and get some charcoal chicken. So we've walked
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Speaker 2: in and do you remember what I ordered?
4:00
Speaker 4: You ordered a whole chicken and some chips, yes, which.
4:03
Speaker 3: I thought was for both of us.
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Speaker 2: Correct, And after I'd ordered the chicken, and these were
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Speaker 2: big chickens like these were size twenty chickens. They're not
4:09
Speaker 2: like the little ones that you buy from Walworths these
4:10
Speaker 2: days that cost twelve bucks.
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Speaker 3: See bachelor's handbag.
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Speaker 2: This was a full sized chicken. You then looked at
4:17
Speaker 2: me as I said, what would you like? And you said,
4:20
Speaker 2: I'll just have a little bit of what you're having,
4:22
Speaker 2: and I said, no, you won't, that's my lunch. And
4:26
Speaker 2: so you had to order your own. And I don't
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Speaker 2: know if you remember this conversation or not, but when
4:30
Speaker 2: we discussed it a little bit down the track, maybe
4:33
Speaker 2: we were even married and in our first year or
4:35
Speaker 2: two of marriage, and we were talking about that first
4:37
Speaker 2: date and you told me that on previous dates you
4:41
Speaker 2: just didn't eat. And you're not a superficial kind of
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Speaker 2: I need to make sure that I always look good
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Speaker 2: kind of person. You always look wonderful, but you're not
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Speaker 2: always sort of worrying about how you look. You look beautiful,
4:53
Speaker 2: you look presentable, and you go and get on with
4:55
Speaker 2: your day. My recollection of the conversation was that you
4:59
Speaker 2: said that when you went on dates, you didn't eat
5:01
Speaker 2: in front of your dates because you felt uncomfortable eating
5:06
Speaker 2: and you didn't want to look like you ate a
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Speaker 2: lot of food, whereas I'm eating a whole chicken and
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Speaker 2: a bag of chips, and you were like, I can
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Speaker 2: eat whatever I want with this guy, and he's.
5:12
Speaker 3: Not going to judge me at all.
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Speaker 2: So there's this societal expectation the girls are going to
5:17
Speaker 2: look a certain way, eat a certain way. When I
5:19
Speaker 2: was doing parental guidance, I remember Ali Langdon would get
5:22
Speaker 2: into the studio at least an hour before me for
5:25
Speaker 2: hair and makeup, because that's how.
5:27
Speaker 3: Long it took.
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Speaker 2: And I'm thinking, what a waste of a life. How
5:30
Speaker 2: many other things could you do with that hour, Like
5:32
Speaker 2: how many books could you read? How much exercise could
5:34
Speaker 2: you do? How much connection with other people who matter
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Speaker 2: in your life could you be involved in? But oh no,
5:39
Speaker 2: we have to look a certain way. So that's a
5:41
Speaker 2: long way of saying society places demands on our kids
5:45
Speaker 2: and on our teenagers and on our adult women who
5:49
Speaker 2: now believe that this is how I have to look,
5:51
Speaker 2: and I've got to put in whatever effort is required
5:53
Speaker 2: to be there. And I'm going to be perpetually satisfied
5:55
Speaker 2: with my body because nature drives my body in precisely
5:58
Speaker 2: the opposite direction to society's ideal.
6:01
Speaker 4: But I'm an eighteen year old having those thought processes.
6:04
Speaker 2: This is a five year old old. I remember when
6:07
Speaker 2: we were kids, my little sisters. I've got twin sisters,
6:11
Speaker 2: they're four years younger than me, and I remember. I mean,
6:14
Speaker 2: I've still got the photos. They would run around the
6:16
Speaker 2: backyard just wearing their swimming shorts or their bikini bottom
6:20
Speaker 2: kind of things, but with no tops. Because you know,
6:22
Speaker 2: little kids, you don't worry about dressing them fullyck just.
6:25
Speaker 3: It's a hassle.
6:26
Speaker 2: I don't know why they did. They just didn't wear it.
6:28
Speaker 2: They were four years old, three years old in the backyard.
6:30
Speaker 2: They were in the backyard, but they had these it
6:32
Speaker 2: I call it a sticky addy tummy. Do you remember, Like,
6:35
Speaker 2: little kids are not worried about this stuff. But the
6:38
Speaker 2: research shows that by the time they're four or five,
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Speaker 2: about a third of them are maybe even up to
6:43
Speaker 2: a half of them. By the time they're five, six, seven,
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Speaker 2: and it's happening because of society expectations. And it's also
6:49
Speaker 2: happening because this is something else that I discovered when
6:52
Speaker 2: I was writing misconnection. There's a relationship between how you
6:56
Speaker 2: look and how popular you are at school five, not
7:01
Speaker 2: so much at five, but certainly as we move into
7:03
Speaker 2: the tween and teams.
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Speaker 4: Really and I expect that, but there is a clause
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Speaker 4: of what society does.
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Speaker 3: There is a pushdown.
7:09
Speaker 4: I just I'm really reeling in the fact that a
7:12
Speaker 4: five year old's even conscious.
7:14
Speaker 2: I'm going to tell you a couple of other reasons.
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Speaker 2: You said, why is this happening? Number one, I'm saying society.
7:18
Speaker 2: Number two, I'm actually going to say it comes back
7:21
Speaker 2: to us as parents, and it's a really hard thing
7:24
Speaker 2: to say. I'm not blaming and shaming parents. We often
7:27
Speaker 2: do this without being aware of it, but we make
7:29
Speaker 2: a big deal, Oh you look so pretty in that.
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Speaker 2: Oh what are you wearing that for? That doesn't look
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Speaker 2: very nice at all. Or we look in the mirror
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Speaker 2: and we say, oh, my goodness, my thighs. I can't
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Speaker 2: believe what's happening to me. I'm getting so old. Look
7:40
Speaker 2: at these wrinkles. Or we catch up with friends, And
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Speaker 2: what's the first thing we say when we see friends
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Speaker 2: that we haven't seen in a while?
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Speaker 3: You look great, or Wow, you've lost weight, or.
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Speaker 2: Like, we've got to stop talking about people's physical appearance
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Speaker 2: when we meet them. When we see them, just say,
7:54
Speaker 2: it's so good to see you. I've missed you. Tell
7:57
Speaker 2: me what you've been up to leave the physical comments
7:59
Speaker 2: out of the conversation, because our kids hear every single
8:02
Speaker 2: physical comment that we make about ourselves, about them, or
8:06
Speaker 2: about our friends, and they internalize that. They get this
8:09
Speaker 2: message that how I look matters. So the first thing
8:13
Speaker 2: is societal expectation media. Second thing, it comes from their friends,
8:18
Speaker 2: their peer groups, even at younger ages. And third, it
8:20
Speaker 2: comes from us and what we're saying even though we
8:22
Speaker 2: don't mean it, even though we're well intentioned, even though
8:25
Speaker 2: we have no idea that we're doing it. And I
8:27
Speaker 2: would also add when we make comments about what they're
8:30
Speaker 2: eating and how it's going to affect them if we
8:32
Speaker 2: are not very very careful. Research shows really clearly that
8:35
Speaker 2: kids who are told at the age of sort of seven,
8:37
Speaker 2: eight nine that they're looking a little bit chubby, they
8:41
Speaker 2: are significantly more likely to have an eating challenge and
8:44
Speaker 2: a weight problem, to be overweight and or obese by
8:47
Speaker 2: the time they're in their late teens early twenties. Like,
8:49
Speaker 2: the research on this topic is robust and there is
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Speaker 2: a lot of it.
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Speaker 4: So Kate really wants some answers yet on how she
9:00
Speaker 4: can help her five year old, because any parent who's
9:03
Speaker 4: dealing with this with a young child inevitably as looking
9:07
Speaker 4: to the future and thinking this is not going to
9:10
Speaker 4: go well if I don't kind of curb this now.
9:13
Speaker 2: I want to very gently ask you to share an
9:16
Speaker 2: experience that one of our kids had a little while ago.
9:19
Speaker 2: She was a little bit older than this five year old,
9:21
Speaker 2: but I think that it very much applies.
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Speaker 4: So some time ago, one of our daughters came home
9:26
Speaker 4: from school and she literally fell into my arms, sobbing. Yeah,
9:31
Speaker 4: and her big sister picked her up, and she looked
9:33
Speaker 4: at me and she was like, I don't know, what
9:35
Speaker 4: does happen? So I took her aside and I spent
9:37
Speaker 4: some time with her, and I kind of said, it
9:39
Speaker 4: looks like you had a really, really hard day, and
9:41
Speaker 4: she said yeah. She said there was a boy at
9:43
Speaker 4: school and she used the word fat shamed me. And
9:47
Speaker 4: I said, what do you mean? And so she proceeded
9:50
Speaker 4: to tell me what he had said about her, and
9:54
Speaker 4: she was just heartbroken. I wanted to know who this
9:58
Speaker 4: boy was, whether he was a friend of hers, whether
10:01
Speaker 4: or not she associated with him normally, would she go
10:03
Speaker 4: to him for advice? Would she spend time with him
10:06
Speaker 4: in any other setting? And she acknowledged that Number one,
10:09
Speaker 4: he was in a different grade. He wasn't a friend,
10:12
Speaker 4: He wasn't somebody that she would talk to ever. And
10:15
Speaker 4: I just acknowledged to her, then, if he's not a
10:17
Speaker 4: person that you would go to if you needed advice
10:20
Speaker 4: or you needed, you know, kind of help with something,
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Speaker 4: why would you be concerned by what he thinks about you?
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Speaker 2: Yeah, if you're not going to go to them for advice,
10:30
Speaker 2: why would you go to them for criticism that.
10:32
Speaker 3: Kind of idea?
10:32
Speaker 4: Why would you?
10:33
Speaker 1: Yeah?
10:34
Speaker 4: Why would you put so much power on what he thinks?
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Speaker 3: And yet it still affects our kids?
10:39
Speaker 4: Oh? Doesn't it just devastating.
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Speaker 3: I remember having a conversation with her. I mean, she's
10:43
Speaker 3: went to bed and cried for hours and hours. It
10:45
Speaker 3: really really.
10:46
Speaker 4: Affects She didn't want to go back to school.
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Speaker 3: You never want to go back to that school again.
10:49
Speaker 3: I feel awful.
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Speaker 2: And I still remember sitting with her and saying it
10:52
Speaker 2: was a comment about her thighs. Let's just think about
10:55
Speaker 2: your thighs for a second. What did they say about
10:57
Speaker 2: you as a person? And she said that I'm fat
10:59
Speaker 2: And I said, well, that may or may not be true,
11:01
Speaker 2: but even if it said that, what does that say
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Speaker 2: about you as a person? And she said, I don't
11:07
Speaker 2: know what you mean. I said, well, what does it
11:08
Speaker 2: say about who you are?
11:09
Speaker 3: Like?
11:09
Speaker 2: What does it say about what kind of friend you are?
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Speaker 2: And she looked at me strange, and I said, what
11:15
Speaker 2: do your thighs say about what kind of friend you
11:16
Speaker 2: are or what kind of friend you can be? And
11:18
Speaker 2: she kind of pulled a funny face and said nothing.
11:21
Speaker 3: And I said, that's right.
11:22
Speaker 2: And what does it say about your academic potential? What
11:25
Speaker 2: do your thighs tell you about your academic potential? And
11:27
Speaker 2: she was like nothing. I said, what do they say
11:30
Speaker 2: about And I sort of rattled off a range of
11:32
Speaker 2: different things where the quality or size of her thighs
11:36
Speaker 2: mean nothing at all to the rest of her life.
11:39
Speaker 2: I said, okay, so what do they say about your
11:42
Speaker 2: value as a person? What do your thighs say about
11:45
Speaker 2: how much I love you? And she just burst into tears.
11:48
Speaker 2: She's like nothing, And I said, I love you. I
11:49
Speaker 2: don't care how big your thighs are right how little
11:51
Speaker 2: your thighs are, it's irrelevant. And then I brought you
11:53
Speaker 2: into the conversation. I said, do you think that I
11:56
Speaker 2: would love Mum more if her thighs were different to
11:58
Speaker 2: what they are right now?
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Speaker 3: And she looked at me strangely and she's like, ah.
12:02
Speaker 2: No, No, I wouldn't I love Mom because she's Mum.
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Speaker 2: Didn't marry Mom for her thighs, like one way or
12:09
Speaker 2: the other. I married you for you, not for your thighs.
12:12
Speaker 2: And we had this conversation, and I think that between
12:15
Speaker 2: your conversation and my conversation, she sort of started to
12:17
Speaker 2: work through it and process it and.
12:18
Speaker 3: Realize the stuff that matters.
12:20
Speaker 2: If you've got a four year old, a five year old,
12:22
Speaker 2: a six year old, a teenager who's struggling with body
12:24
Speaker 2: image number one, if you wouldn't go to the person
12:27
Speaker 2: who's made a critical comment about you for advice, why
12:30
Speaker 2: would you go to them for criticism? But even if
12:31
Speaker 2: it's the if you're carrying a mirror with you everywhere
12:35
Speaker 2: you go on your inside. That is, everywhere you go,
12:38
Speaker 2: you're seeing yourself that way. Our kids need to know
12:41
Speaker 2: that they've got to stop taking criticism from themselves. They
12:45
Speaker 2: wouldn't speak like that about their friends. They shouldn't speak
12:48
Speaker 2: like that about themselves and their thighs or their belly,
12:52
Speaker 2: say nothing about their value as a person or their
12:56
Speaker 2: potential as a person. I think those couple of conversations
13:00
Speaker 2: are just so important for our kids.
13:02
Speaker 4: I remember being in a class when I was a
13:04
Speaker 4: teenager and the teacher pulled out a twenty dollar bill,
13:09
Speaker 4: brand new, clean, beautiful, crisp before plastic.
13:13
Speaker 3: Oh, it has a beautiful smell.
13:15
Speaker 4: It was a paper note.
13:16
Speaker 2: So people who are young you may not know this,
13:19
Speaker 2: but money used to actually be paper before it became
13:21
Speaker 2: the plastic stuff we've got. My mum used to say
13:23
Speaker 2: back in those days. My mum has always had a
13:26
Speaker 2: thing for money, and she used to say, if I
13:28
Speaker 2: ever die, just get a couple of one hundred.
13:30
Speaker 4: Dollar notes and stick them over myey.
13:32
Speaker 3: Stick them over my notes, and I'll come back to
13:34
Speaker 3: life for sure.
13:35
Speaker 2: And the smell of money back in the eighties, Yeah,
13:38
Speaker 2: it had such a good smell anyway.
13:40
Speaker 4: Anyway, there's a beautiful, clean note. And he asked us
13:43
Speaker 4: how much this note was worth, and we all said
13:45
Speaker 4: twenty dollars, and he then proceeded to completely smush it
13:51
Speaker 4: into a ball. It was completely gone, like I couldn't see.
13:54
Speaker 4: It was hidden in.
13:55
Speaker 3: His fistep and all scrunched up, all.
13:57
Speaker 4: Scrunched up, and then he even dropped it on the
13:59
Speaker 4: floor and he gave it a good stomp to make
14:01
Speaker 4: sure it was really really crunched, and he pulled it
14:04
Speaker 4: up and he showed the class and he unraveled it
14:08
Speaker 4: so we could see it again. It's no longer nice
14:10
Speaker 4: and clean, is it. It's all like completely creased. And
14:13
Speaker 4: he asked us how much it was worth, right, and
14:18
Speaker 4: we kind of said twenty dollars, But it's completely different
14:24
Speaker 4: to what we first saw, and yet its value hasn't changed.
14:27
Speaker 4: And it was such a powerful kind of visual just
14:32
Speaker 4: as teenageers to see that regardless of what we look like,
14:37
Speaker 4: our physical being doesn't change our innate worth. And if
14:41
Speaker 4: we can instill that in our children, wow, And.
14:44
Speaker 2: We've got to do it intentionally and explicitly. They've got
14:47
Speaker 2: to know we love you no matter what and your
14:49
Speaker 2: thighs are your belly or your face or whatever it is,
14:51
Speaker 2: got nothing to do, nothing to do with your value.
14:54
Speaker 4: I think the other thing is if all we ever
14:56
Speaker 4: focus on is what everybody sees, then we're actually quite
15:01
Speaker 4: shallow on what we can accomplish, because what we actually
15:05
Speaker 4: need to be teaching our kids is to understand and
15:08
Speaker 4: give thanks for what their bodies can do.
15:11
Speaker 2: We're out of time, but I want to share two
15:13
Speaker 2: more quick ideas, maybe three more quick ideas. Now I'm
15:15
Speaker 2: going to summarize everything we've talked about into a really
15:17
Speaker 2: quick snapshot. Number one, who is this person to you?
15:21
Speaker 2: Would you go to them for advice? If not, don't
15:24
Speaker 2: take criticism. Number two, stop walking around with the mirror
15:27
Speaker 2: inside you. Number three. As parents, we've got to watch
15:30
Speaker 2: our words to our children, to ourselves and to our friends.
15:35
Speaker 2: Number four, you just said it. Focus with your kids
15:39
Speaker 2: not on how they look, but what they can do.
15:43
Speaker 2: Stop worrying about what your body looks like and start
15:47
Speaker 2: focusing on what it can do what it does.
15:50
Speaker 3: Next, the worthiness thing. What's it say about you?
15:54
Speaker 2: About your potential, about your capacity, about your happiness, about
15:57
Speaker 2: your academic or friendship or whatever it is. And last,
16:01
Speaker 2: but not least, I want to say a quick word
16:03
Speaker 2: about photoshop and the media literacy workshops and comments that
16:09
Speaker 2: we see quite often on this topic. People make a
16:12
Speaker 2: really big deal about it, not usually with five year olds,
16:14
Speaker 2: but certainly with older kids.
16:16
Speaker 3: I've just got to teach them to be literate media literate,
16:18
Speaker 3: so that.
16:18
Speaker 2: They know that it's photoshopped, and they know that they've
16:21
Speaker 2: got the best hair dresses and the best makeup artists,
16:23
Speaker 2: and they've got the best wardrobe designers, and everything's designed
16:25
Speaker 2: so that you look a certain way. I'm going to
16:27
Speaker 2: actually suggest that the research does not support that conversation.
16:32
Speaker 4: Because I just want the best hairdresses and the best
16:35
Speaker 4: wardrobe guys.
16:36
Speaker 2: It's still aspirational. It's still aspirational, and you're still focusing
16:39
Speaker 2: on looks. It's much better to just let it go,
16:42
Speaker 2: stop making a big deal about it, and focus on
16:44
Speaker 2: other things.
16:45
Speaker 4: One more quick thing, because I forgot yep. I have
16:48
Speaker 4: an absolutely favorite children's book that we were gifted when
16:51
Speaker 4: our children were.
16:53
Speaker 3: Very very young. Youah, probably three or four, completely dog ed.
16:55
Speaker 4: It's got some ripped pages with sellotape on them, but
16:58
Speaker 4: it is just such a beautiful book, especially for a
17:01
Speaker 4: five year old. It's called I Like Myself by Karen Beaumont,
17:05
Speaker 4: and it just is a delightful, hilarious book about all
17:09
Speaker 4: of the possibilities. We've got, you know, horns protruding from
17:13
Speaker 4: our nose. We've got purple polka dots, We've got massive
17:16
Speaker 4: blue lips, We've got you know, stripey here, we've got
17:19
Speaker 4: spikes running down our back. All of these different things
17:22
Speaker 4: which are obviously completely convoluted and not true at all,
17:25
Speaker 4: but it just helps us to recognize that we can
17:28
Speaker 4: like ourselves no matter what, because it's what our bodies
17:31
Speaker 4: can do, not what our bodies look like.
17:33
Speaker 3: Okay, we really hope that this has been a useful conversation.
17:35
Speaker 3: I've loved it. I think that it's been a really
17:37
Speaker 3: important discussion.
17:38
Speaker 2: Body image issues, a whole lot of solutions, and my
17:41
Speaker 2: book Misconnection, Why Your teenage Daughter Hates You Expects the
17:44
Speaker 2: World Needs to Talk, has an incredible chapter on all
17:47
Speaker 2: of this kind of content.
17:48
Speaker 3: It may be helpful for you. Misconnection.
17:50
Speaker 2: It's available wherever you buy your books and at Happy
17:52
Speaker 2: Families dot com dot You also check out Beauty Sick.
17:55
Speaker 2: Beauty Sick by Renee and Gelon phenomenal on one of
17:58
Speaker 2: my all time favorite books. I would put it list
18:00
Speaker 2: my top ten favorite books of all time. Just brilliant stuff.
18:04
Speaker 2: The Happy Family's podcast is produced by Justin Rowland for
18:06
Speaker 2: Bridge Media, with Craig Bruce, our executive producer. For more
18:09
Speaker 2: information about making your family happier, please visit us at
18:11
Speaker 2: happy families dot com.
18:12
Speaker 1: Do