For Children, "Fat" is the new "Ugly"<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"CNN has an excellent series on perceptions of beauty in contemporary US culture. This week's was on how the age for body anxiety to set in is getting\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/rachelmariestone\/2012\/03\/20\/for-children-fat-is-the-new-ugly\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"For Children, "Fat" is the new "Ugly"\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"CNN has an excellent series on perceptions of beauty in contemporary US culture. 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{"id":2255,"date":"2012-03-20T06:00:16","date_gmt":"2012-03-20T10:00:16","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/eatwithjoy.org\/?p=2255"},"modified":"2012-03-20T06:00:16","modified_gmt":"2012-03-20T10:00:16","slug":"for-children-fat-is-the-new-ugly","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/rachelmariestone\/2012\/03\/20\/for-children-fat-is-the-new-ugly\/","title":{"rendered":"For Children, “Fat” is the new “Ugly”"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

CNN has an excellent series on perceptions of beauty in contemporary US culture. This week\u2019s<\/a> was on how the age for body anxiety to set in is getting younger and younger:<\/p>\n

\u201cFat is the new ugly on the school playground. Children as young as 3 worry about being fat. Four- and 5-year-olds know \u201cskinny\u201d is good and \u201cfat\u201d is bad. Children in elementary school are calling each other fat as a put-down.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

The message that \u201cthin\u201d = good and \u201cfat\u201d = bad is everywhere, and kids are pretty good at picking up on it. Children hear their parents talking trash about their bodies, obsessing over exercise, moaning about the pants that no longer fit, and chatting about whether they\u2019ve been \u201cgood\u201d and had a salad or whether they\u2019ve been \u201cbad\u201d and had some cake.<\/p>\n

And they hear adults saying unkind things about other people\u2019s bodies. They learn from TV, from movies, from toys, from T-shirts, and from God-only-knows what else, too. I don\u2019t exactly know what the answer is. I just know it has to stop.<\/p>\n

The stakes are high\u2013very, very high:<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u201cPeople who diet a lot \u2014 and therefore regularly spend a lot of attention and self-control on what they eat \u2014 often don\u2019t have enough focus for math problems or other exercises, says Jennifer Thomas, a psychology professor at Harvard Medical School.\u00a0 <\/em><\/p>\n

Even worse, Dr. Thomas goes on to say, is that people who severely limit their food intake for prolonged periods actually SHRINK THEIR BRAINS. <\/a><\/p>\n

$\"\"$ <\/a><\/p>\n

But hey, in a culture that worships the external appearance, maybe that\u2019s a small price to pay for being skinny?<\/em><\/p>\n

Seriously, though\u2013and I\u2019ll keep beating on this drum as long as it needs to be beaten\u2013we\u2019ve got to fight back.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s an insult to the Creator God to speak of anybody\u2019s body with anything less than respect. <\/em><\/p>\n

It\u2019s an insult to a human being to be judged as if he or she were only a body.<\/em><\/p>\n

I have cried actual tears over the time I wasted worrying about my body. No one goes to their deathbed thinking that things would\u2019ve been better if they\u2019d just made time to work out more and lose those last 10 pounds.<\/p>\n

We just don\u2019t have time for this nonsense.<\/em><\/p>\n

What can we do?<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"