So I was reading online late one night and I stumbled onto an article talking about body image and self-esteem and teens and with a preteen I wanted to read this. I wanted to see what they have to say and if there was any advice or tips. I have a daughter and she's at that age where, what people think is starting to matter to her. I've always been the type of person, got it from my mom, that I am Beautiful and I know it and I feed that to my children all the time. I tell them how gorgeous they are no matter what size they are, no matter what there hair looks like, no matter what they're wearing, because of course let's face it what you're wearing is so important to preteens now days.
"Why is self-esteem and body image important? Self-esteem is all about how much you feel you are worth and how much you feel other people value you." When there's a mother or father around that doesn't feel deserving or doesn't feel as beautiful or handsome as she/he can be, it reflects back into her family and their children pick up on that. They see that maybe that's how a woman/man is supposed to act/feel. Then they grow up with that feeling they learned as a child. It's just a never ending cycle of I'm not good enough I'm not pretty enough I'm not handsome enough.
Then you add on top of all that the media saying that this is how you're supposed to look, this is how the most famous celebrities look, why don't you look like them? Feeding that into your child's head and feeding it into your head is just reinforcing the cycle of "this is what you need to eat to look like this", "this is what you need to buy to look like this", "this is what you need to do to look like this". When all you need to know is what you need to do to look at YOUR best not what is good for some supermodel in Vogue magazine that is living in a size 0 world tons of money in the bank.
My only advice is to be the best you that you can be. We have one life and one body, don't spend this lifetime stressing over non-sense.
~Krystle Thomas
Body Image and Self-Esteem
http://kidshealth.org/en/teens/body-image.html