Starting Young: A Bad Thing When It Comes to Body Images Issues

The other day, my 3 year old daughter said to me, "I'm feeling fat, so I need to go take a long walk."

Is this the start of myriad negative body image thoughts I will inevitably need to address during her life? Maybe she's just being a word sponge, but I can't believe she said this at her age. Where she learned or heard it, I have no idea. I just want to make sure I don't contribute in any way to it.

I've experienced my share of body image issues like most of us. When you have any unusual feature (in my case, it's being over 6 ft tall), your body becomes a point of commentary. And it can become part of your ego, regardless of whether that feature is considered positive or negative. Fortunately, comments made to me are usually complimentary. The other day, a woman in the gym locker room said to me, "Your legs are absolutely perfect. Amazing." Of note, this woman was herself tall, thin and beautiful. All I could do was laugh. I see my legs (and body, for that matter) as far from perfect - and that's ok.

Men vs. women... Although both sexes are prone to chasing perfection.

"Perfect" is a word we should stop using for many things. None of us can have a truly perfect body, be the perfect parent, the perfect spouse, the perfect doctor. There is no such thing as a perfect home, a perfect job, or a perfect anything. Someone's idea of perfect (in the case of my example, legs) is completely different than another person's vision. Maybe you value strength and thus enjoy the look of muscular legs, while another person desires very thin legs. You can soften the P word by saying "this is perfect for me", but I even have trouble with that. We're never done learning or improving. Why do we spend so much time comparing ourselves to other people and trying to measure up to some sort of perfection endpoint? Endpoints are for fixed mindsets.

Social media, which is a powerful tool for helping us as physicians reach a broad audience with our message, is also a huge conduit for comparison and the pursuit of perfection. And it's frighteningly problematic when it comes to our young girls, who tend to deeply value social inclusion and are very sensitive to shaming. I heard an interview with psychologist Jonathan Haidt, who recently cowrote the book The Coddling of the American Mind. He pointed out an alarming trend of increased depression and suicidality among young girls, which has suspiciously spiked with the ubiquity of social media.

I do love my own body, but I didn't always as a child. I remember wishing to look like "everyone else", to be shorter, smaller, etc. As an aging adult and physician who sees very broken bodies, I appreciate that my body's gotten me through some serious health challenges. I would never trade motherhood for a flat abdomen with no signs of a pregnancy. And I believe in striking a balance between accepting ourselves in the present moment while also trying to make improvements. However, my acceptance only came with age and life experience. I know it'll be difficult to instill these ideas into a young girl's concrete thinking.

What body image issues have you come across with your daughters, and how have you dealt with them? Do you let your girls have social media accounts? I'd love some positive solutions.

Social media

I have conflicting views on social media.

In order to describe my pro and cons of social media, it would have to reveal my age. I'm 3 weeks away from 32--meaning I was a college freshman in 2003 as I went straight through college, medical school and residency without any gaps.

Facebook was founded February of 2004. I was a college freshman. I remember signing up for it with my college roommate but back then, it was still very much in its early days. There was no photos to post. I don't even remember if there was a wall. I do remember "poking" people. Who knows what that even means?

Even though, it was still around, it really wasn't a huge part of our day to day college life. I believe by the time I started medical school come 2007 that it was when it became bigger and more promiment in our every day lives. I remember getting "friend requests," and thinking "wow, I haven't talked to that person in years!"

As I got older and became a mom, my take on social media has evolved. I do love its convenience. When I was busy with residency, I loved how accessible Facebook was for my relatives as well as my husband's relatives. We both have huge extended families as I still have a lot of family in Korea and he does in Taiwan. The last time we went to either country was before we had little C so it was a great way to share our lives with them. And of course, I would have never been a part of this wonderful MiM community without social media either!

However. as I got older, I find myself, posting less and occasionally going through my friends list and de-friending people that I really haven't spoken to in awhile.

I have a cousin who is 5 years younger than me, a sister in law who is 4 years younger than me and another cousin who is in high school. I look at their social media account and see how I got so lucky. I just missed the era of social media predominance during my childhood as well as my college experience, which I believe is the most vulnerable period in our lives. I believe, at least by grad school, you have a sense of who you are and what you want to be--in my case, I really wanted to be a physician and somehow along that path, I became a mom. It was still definitely a path of self-discovery but by that point, I think what other people posted on social media had less of an effect on me. I knew what I wanted and I was on my way of figuring that out. (Don't worry, I"m still human! It does bother at times too! Like for example, whenever I see photos of a mom postpartum looking like a runway model, it's like how does that even happen??)

However, I see the world of social media through their eyes and it kind of pains me a little. Because I have a little girl and I don't want her to feel this way. They look at Facebook, Instagram and Snapchat and don't realize that these are just snippets of people's lives. They don't realize that nobody posts a bad photo. Nobody shows their bad days. If I spent my weekend at home with my parents in middle school, nobody knew about it and I also didn't know what everyone else was doing. I didn't log onto social media and see some other girls at school doing something fun and exciting. It could have just been a photo but a photo speaks a million words and can be misinterpreted and lead to feelings of loneliness and insecurity.

I see Instagram accounts of people that I know are home but yet, they'll post photos saved up from vacation to make it appear as if they are traveling and leading this exotic, adventurous life. I look at those photos and wonder if they actually enjoyed any time of their vacation if they were so busy, creating such staged, "instagram worthy" photos.

As I'm getting older, I feel like the inevitable is happening. I'm becoming more cautious, more worried and definitely more anxious of what's to come.

As little C gets older, I'm realizing I can't really protect her from everything especially in a world of social media but I can help her deal with its consequences. I'm going to do whatever is in my power to keep her my confident, opinionated, tomboy yet princess dress wearing little girl!

Any thoughts?

X-ray Vision