We are a developmental psychologist and a social psychologist who together wrote a forthcoming book, “Beyond Body Positive: A Mother’s Evidence-Based Guide for Helping Girls Build a Healthy Body Image.”
In the book, we address topics such as the effects of maternal dieting behaviors on daughters’ health and well-being. We provide information on how to build a foundation for healthy body image beginning in girlhood.
Culturally defined body ideals
Given the strong influence of social media and other cultural influences on body ideals, it’s understandable that so many people pursue diets aimed at weight loss. TikTok, YouTube, Instagram and celebrity websites feature slim influencers and “how-tos” for achieving those same results in no time.
For example, women and teens are engaging in rigid and extreme forms of exercise such as 54D, a program to achieve body transformation in 54 days, or the 75 Hard Challenge, which is to follow five strict rules for 75 days.
For teens, these pursuits are likely fueled by trendy body preoccupations such as the desire for “legging legs.”
Women and teens have also been been inundated with recent messaging around quick-fix weight loss drugs, which come with a lot of caveats.
Dieting and weight loss goals are highly individual, and when people are intensely self-focused, it is possible to lose sight of the bigger picture. Although women might wonder what the harm is in trying the latest diet, science shows that dieting behavior doesn’t just affect the dieter. In particular, for women who are mothers or who have other girls in their lives, these behaviors affect girls’ emerging body image and their health and well-being.
Mothers may feel that they are being discreet about their dieting behavior, but little girls are watching and listening, and they are far more observant of us than many might think.
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At least four people are dead, 61 injured and more than 40 feared trapped after a massive billboard fell during a rainstorm in India's financial capital of Mumbai on Monday, local