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" Summer bliss is watching a pair of 6-year-olds cavorting\u2014really, there&amp;#039;s no better word\u2014under a sprinkler, buck naked and utterly unself-conscious. My daughter and her best friend are one with their bodies. But in a few years, they&amp;#039;ll think twice about ripping off wet play clothes in the backyard. They&amp;#039;ll view their bodies as a thing separate from themselves. Bellies, thighs and beginner breasts will quit being neutral territory, like hands or eyes.   I know, because I&amp;#039;ve seen it happen. There&amp;#039;s a very fine line between modesty and shame, and I hope to keep my three girls on the right side of it.   Like most moms, I want them to grow up appreciating their bodies, content with the skin they&amp;#039;re in. More than anything, I want to spare them a skewed body image that dominates their moods and twists their confidence (a state in which, I confess, I wasted too much of my own life from age 15 on).   Nowadays, body dissatisfaction begins way earlier than 15. &amp;quot;We&amp;#039;re seeing more and more 8- and 9-year-olds not in that &amp;#039;body-innocent&amp;#039; stage,&amp;quot; says psychologist Stacey Rosenfeld, who specializes in eating disorders and addictions at Columbia University Medical Center in New York. &amp;quot;Four-year-olds are asking, &amp;#039;Do I look fat?&amp;#039;&amp;quot;   Our celeb-focused, body-baring, appearance-obsessed culture usually gets the blame. In West Virginia earlier this year, a bill was even introduced to ban Barbie because her improbable topography &amp;quot;influences girls to place an undue importance on physical beauty.&amp;quot; Barbie is beautiful (if you&amp;#039;re into that type). But she&amp;#039;s just lying there in the toy box. The bigger influence on how girls think about themselves is the adults in their lives. It&amp;#039;s up to us to help them counter all that body-conscious imagery, because it&amp;#039;s not going away.   Harping on obesity, that cause du jour, isn&amp;#039;t going to do the trick, either. In fact, I think that message is backfiring. Girls are hearing, &amp;quot;Don&amp;#039;t get fat!&amp;quot; rather than &amp;quot;Be healthy.&amp;quot; Ironically, families already attentive to nutrition and exercise seem the most panicked. Parents magazine quoted President Obama as saying that when his oldest daughter was &amp;quot;getting a little chubby&amp;quot; a couple of years ago (she was 8 or 9), her doctor advised cutting out juice boxes, sweets and processed food. Don&amp;#039;t know which makes me sadder: an elementary-age child deprived of all prefab snacks or a dad who calls you &amp;quot;chubby&amp;quot; in front of the whole world.   That&amp;#039;s why, as my girls grow up, there are some messages I care deeply about them absorbing\u2014frankly, far more than I care about good grades or tidy rooms:   Happiness is the root of all beauty. Nobody yearns for a &amp;quot;perfect&amp;quot; body in order to look like her old plastic doll, of course. The desire comes from wanting to be perfect in every way. But nobody can be perfect in anything, much less everything. So a far smarter aim is to find sources of satisfaction that have absolutely nothing to do with your looks. Feeding your self-esteem, feeling great physically and emotionally, is the sure way to be beautiful. Trust me; it&amp;#039;s taken me a whole lifetime to realize this most basic truth.   If you&amp;#039;re healthy, count your blessings and move on. Ask not what you can do to your body (Botox? Starvation?) but what your body can do for you (Walking! Digesting! Fighting germs! Birthing gorgeous babies\u2014down the road!). And no, darling, your nose is not too big (as I recently said to one child after a TV show full of rhinoplasty references).   Beware backhanded compliments. When I was a teenager, a relative used to routinely ask, &amp;quot;Have you lost weight?&amp;quot; The way I heard it was, Uh-oh, should I have? Beware of these and other negative judgments dressed as flattery: &amp;quot;You look so thin today!&amp;quot; &amp;quot;Those pants make you look skinny.&amp;quot; &amp;quot;You&amp;#039;d look so great if you lost just 5 pounds.&amp;quot; When you hear comments that make you second-guess your body, second-guess the purpose of the comment instead. Ask (in your head, or out loud if you dare): &amp;quot;What difference does it make?&amp;quot;   Candy is dandy. Hang on, moms. I didn&amp;#039;t say stuff your cupboards with chocolates and chips. Although to be perfectly honest, that&amp;#039;s what&amp;#039;s usually in mine, and nobody&amp;#039;s busting out of her T-shirt and shorts. The point is that having a full range of foods in the house un-demonizes them. It&amp;#039;s not &amp;quot;good food&amp;quot; and &amp;quot;bad food,&amp;quot; or even &amp;quot;everyday food&amp;quot; and &amp;quot;special food.&amp;quot; It&amp;#039;s all just\u2026food. I believe in eating rules (not before dinner; no, you may not eat an entire sleeve of cookies) but not outlawed foods.   Fat is. &amp;quot;My legs are so fat!&amp;quot; my lanky tween moaned at a checkup. The doctor, bless her, noted that even Olympic runners have thighs that wiggle. Some body fat is normal and necessary to store energy, keep skin and nerves functioning, and make pregnancy possible. Also essential: meaty muscles, too often mistaken for fat. (And I love the new research indicating a bit of overweight may be healthier than being underweight.)   Sorry, there&amp;#039;s no single human shape. I know you&amp;#039;ve noticed that come middle school, kids suddenly morph from all looking pretty much the same (boys and girls alike) to an astonishing variety of heights and curves and angles. Crummy developmental timing, because all you want to do is fit in. Blame genetics: Sue is tall and lean, like her parents; Mary has broad shoulders and Kate is curvy. You can all wear the same clothes, but no amount of diet or exercise will make you all look the same, because of the builds you were born with.   Never say diet. A diet is what we consume every day, not an unsustainable weird thing you &amp;quot;go on.&amp;quot;   Scales don&amp;#039;t matter. When Dr. Rosenfeld told me a scale can be a bad thing to have in the house, the flicker of leftover terror in me (but what if I gain 10 pounds and don&amp;#039;t know it?!) convinced me she&amp;#039;s right. The number is meaningless. For years, I gave that daily number the power to set my mood for the day\u2014not something I want my girls to emulate. And guess what? When I stopped weighing, I lost weight. Hmmm.   Walk around like a 6-year-old. Moms, let your daughters see you move from the shower to a towel without clutching your cellulite in shame. Go into changing rooms together without turning your back. No fair frowning as you pass mirrors, either. Your bum is neutral territory, just like your hands, your brain, your heart.   Get your parenting questions answered by Momfidence columnist Paula Spencer when you email her at momfidence@gmail.com. "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.womansday.com/health-fitness/a3665/momfidence-banish-body-issues-75654/>