If You Want A Girl To Become Obese, Studies Recommend You Call Her ‘Fat’ As Much As Possible

Having struggled with eating disorders for most of my early adult life, I worry about how my daughter is going to perceive herself. How do you make sure your kids grow up appreciating the way they look – not being plagued by insecurities? A recent study found that when young girls are called ‘fat’ they have a higher chance of becoming obese as adults. This doesn’t surprise me one bit.

From Tech Times:

The research, Weight Labeling and Obesity, conducted by psychologists at the University of California – Los Angeles discloses that girls labeled too fat by the age of 10 have higher chances of becoming more obese at the age of 19…

“That means it’s not just that heavier girls are called too fat and are still heavy years later; being labeled as too fat is creating an additional likelihood of being obese,”said senior study author A. Janet Tomiyama in a statement, adding that the effect remained the same even after removing some factors in the research including the girls’ race, income and actual weight.

 

So much of who we actually physically are is a make-up of how we see ourselves – the interior dialogue that plays in our heads. At the risk of sounding new-agey I will say that I truly believe our minds have an incredible power to shape everything in our world – down to our physical being. When it comes to weight, this is explained scientifically by the fact that being stressed about how you look can actually increase the levels of cortisol in your body, which could lead to weight gain.

Think of someone that you know who is constantly stressed out; we all know a person like this. Have you ever noticed that they have the ability to actually change the energy around them? What happens to a room when someone really worked up walks in? Everything changes. If as humans we have the ability to wreak havoc on our surroundings by the stress that we feel – imagine the kind of ability we have to affect our own physicality?

When we convince young girls that something like the way that they look is of primary importance – and begin using labels like ‘fat’ and ‘skinny’ – how can we possibly not expect these girls to manifest the traits that we are forcing them to focus on? Anything you practice continuously will become habit – and you will become better at it. What will a continuous soundtrack of “I’m fat… I’m fat… I’m fat” do to someone? Is it so hard to believe that people can actually become what they convince themselves they are?

(photo: wrangler/ Shutterstock)