Five Strategies To Teach A Healthy Body Image to Your Child

You may think you’re teaching your child about a healthy body image. And maybe you are, which would be wonderful.

But many parents unknowingly… are not.

Several years ago a Dove commercial caught my attention, as it highlighted body image messages that mothers might unintentionally give daughters.

And…it shocked me.

The video (which you can watch below) shows moms talking about what they liked and disliked about their bodies, while stating with assurance that they’d only taught their daughters positive messages about their own. The daughters, interviewed separately, were asked the same questions. The result? The daughters mirrored their mothers’ criticism of their bodies by critiquing their own in almost exactly the same way.

The mothers’ surprise and sadness was palpable; while they’d tried to prevent passing along their own self-consciousness and even self-loathing to their daughters, they had, in fact, done just that.

 

What I learned from my own eating-disordered mom…

This video has stuck with me over the years and I’ve mentioned it to patients who are struggling with their own image; and on a more personal level, this video brought back some of my own memories. Before I had children, I was petrified that I’d have a daughter and unintentionally send the same messages to her that had been passed down to me from my own mother. She suffered from severe anxiety and an eating disorder herself and the body image messages I got from her were damaging.

“Ladies never eat everything on their plate,” she’d remind me. I left many meals still hungry. 

“You’ve never looked better!” she once exclaimed. I was twenty-one and weighed 101 pounds, which was twenty-five pounds less than I normally do; I’d lost weight because I’d had double pneumonia. Twice. At least, that’s what I told myself. What was actually true was that I’d developed anorexia. 

A few years later, her admonishing words were, “You really need to do something about yourself.” What was reality? I’d gained eight pounds after being married for a year, up to a whopping 118.   

What effect did all this have?

Full-blown anorexia in college and years of eating disordered thinking and body hate afterward. If I’d gained three pounds, I turned down visits from friends. I hyped myself up on diet pills. I starved myself before trips home, knowing my body would be quietly and critically assessed.

Yet I tried to act like none of this got to me.

Passing on the message of gaining self-esteem through starvation…

My mom was caught in the same trapped thinking and without a doubt, she didn’t mean to hurt me. She wanted me to feel attractive, have wonderful self-esteem, and “catch a man.” That was the culture in which she was raised, and she knew nothing else. 

After she died, many people said, “Your mother was so beautiful. Always so well-dressed.” Unfortunately, she didn’t value herself; she attempted to hide this by presenting the most perfect version of herself she could attain. And perfect…. was thin.  

The interesting thing… you can no longer be governed by the practice of not eating. But the thinking underneath the behavior… the beliefs about what is “thin enough” or “a good weight for me” can remain disordered. This is called “eating-disordered thinking.”

Anorexia is all about control, yet the irony is that the number on the scale is totally controlling you.

Now I confront those voices. I actively replace those thoughts. I am winning this eating-disordered-thinking battle. One meal, one picture, one compliment at a time.

Many do not.  You can remain miserable and obsessive about your body. No thin is too thin for you. And your anorexia is governing you. 

So, how do you help your child build a healthy body image?  

Here are five strategies of how you can help your child build a good body image.

1) Don’t discuss weight, calorie intake, “clothes getting too tight” or the like in front of your child.  This goes for things you might consider to be positives, “I just dropped a jean size!”

2) Praise their dedication to athleticism or dexterity in playing the piano. Casually point out their strengths related to their body as you perceive them.  It can be as simple as asking her to get an item from a shelf too high for you to reach, “It must be nice to be so tall!”

3) Closely monitor what TikTok or other social media influencers your child could be following. More recent research has shown that especially teenagers can be severely negatively influenced by accounts who guide followers to adopt ever-increasing restriction practices.

4) Model how one has a healthy relationship to their body. Prioritize healthy food choices when possible; she’ll notice that mom’s diet is varied and follow suit. Exercise in a healthy way and invite her to join you!

5) If you have an eating disorder or “eating-disordered thinking,” please seek treatment. This includes behaviors such as obsessive working out, or intense, inflexible beliefs around “eating healthy.” Confront your own justifications and acknowledge where you likely learned that your body and your appetite were things to be rigidly controlled.

Note: I’ve used a mother/daughter scenario in this article. Please know that all children can be negatively affected if either one or both parents suffer with an eating disorder.

Other offerings from Dr. Margaret…

You can hear more about mental health and many other topics by listening to my podcast, SelfWork with Dr. Margaret Rutherford. Subscribe to my website and receive one weekly newsletter including my weekly blog post and podcast! If you’d like to join my FaceBook closed group, then click here and answer the membership questions! Welcome!

My book entitled Perfectly Hidden Depression has arrived and you can order here! Its message is specifically for those with a struggle with strong perfectionism which acts to mask underlying emotional pain. But the many self-help techniques described can be used by everyone who chooses to begin to address emotions long hidden away that are clouding and sabotaging your current life.

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This was originally published on October 3, 2015 and was updated on June 22, 2025.