My 18-Month-Old Daughter Already Weighs Herself

Should toddlers be getting on the scale? (Photo courtesy of Rachel Bertsche)

I weigh myself every morning. Plenty of people have told me to throw out the scale, that the everyday ritual is unnecessary and ultimately harmful, but it’s been a part of my day for as long as I can remember. Recently, though, my morning routine got a new addition — namely, my 18-month-old daughter. She watches me while I shower, and dabs her cheeks with a big brush just like mommy while I put on my makeup. So I probably shouldn’t have been surprised when she stepped on the scale.

The first two times I thought it was cute. At a year and a half she doesn’t know what she’s looking at, I thought, and she liked stepping up onto the platform and watching the digits flash across the screen. She has no concept of numbers or that, when it comes to the scale, lower numbers are deemed “good” and higher are “bad.” But by day three, it hit me: It’s happening. The weight obsessions. The body image issues. This is where it starts.

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Before Maggie was born, I vowed to never talk about weight in front of her. No, “I look fat” or “I need to lose five pounds.” When my husband or I get on the treadmill, which sits in our playroom, our daughter watches us and we extol the virtues of getting strong and healthy and feeling good. We don’t mention looks.

But then, there she was, her soft tiny toes peeking over the edge of the scale. Her perfectly round tummy sticking out from her diaper. The rolls of her thighs just asking to be tickled. Her blonde ringlets pointing in every direction.  My adorable little girl, standing on that platform, was waiting for her number to come up.

I panicked. I hid the scale. I vowed to never let her see me weigh myself again. (Again, people tell me throw out the scale. I can’t do it. I figure it’s too late for me, but I can save her.) To have a daughter who wants to be like mommy is an incredibly exciting thing, but it comes with daunting responsibility. And, in that moment, I was sure I’d let her down.

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She is barely old enough to speak, and I’ve messed her up already.

“First of all, you haven’t screwed her up yet,” Dr. Robyn Silverman, body image expert and author of Good Girls Don’t Get Fat: How Weight Obsession Is Messing Up Our Girls And How We Can Help Them Thrive Despite It, tells me.

The key word here, at least as I hear it, is “yet.” It’s time to stop this in its tracks.

“But you need to quit it with the scale. There’s no scale that’s necessary except at the grocery store,” she says. “The problem, of course, isn’t the scale itself, it’s how you react to it. If you step on the scale and you see one number and grimace, another number and you’re elated, that’s what we pass on. And it’s not that an 18-month-old can read numbers, but she will be able to eventually, and it will be sooner than you think.”

Studies show that kids as young as 3 or 4 pick up the “fat is bad” message. A report issued in January from Common Sense Media stated that “nearly a third of children age 5 to 6 choose an ideal body size that is thinner than their perceived size. By age 6, children are aware of dieting and may have tried it. Twenty-six percent of 5-year-olds recommend dieting behavior (not eating junk food, eating less) as a solution for a person who has gained weight, and by the time they’re 7 years old, one in four children has engaged in dieting behavior.”

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But parents can take measures to combat this, and it starts with improving our own actions. “Watch what you do – do you stop and pay attention to the weight loss commercials? How do you behave around food and dessert? Do you exercise in front of your child in a happy way? We want to make sure we do things that demonstrate that we feel good about ourselves and feel healthy,” Dr. Silverman says. “Pay attention, too, to the way you compliment your child. It shouldn’t always be about her appearance. You can absolutely say ‘you look so beautiful,’ but make sure it’s not about weight and that you’re complimenting her for other things too, like her enthusiasm for sports or desire to help others and be a great friend.”

We, as parents, should be complimenting ourselves, too. Our children hear, and internalize, everything we say, and if what we say is “I’m so fat. I hate the way I look,” they’ll get that. “Your daughter wants to be just like her mommy,” Silverman says. “It becomes her own script. ‘If my mommy, who I think is the most beautiful person in the world, says mean things about herself, then I must do the same thing.’”

And don’t shy away from teachable moments, says Silverman. “Two years ago, my daughter was getting ready for a bath and she was naked and making some comment about our bodies,” she says. “It got us talking about our legs and what they let us do. Those priceless moments send the messages we are trying to underscore—that our bodies are amazing capsules that let us do what we love.”

Now, I keep the scale in a cabinet. I talk to Maggie about being healthy and strong. When I tell her she’s had enough cookies, it’s because more will make her tummy feel bad, not because they have too much sugar. I don’t know which parts she understands, or if my messages blend in with the white noise of her bedtime sound machine. But perhaps, at this point, my efforts to change are more for me than for her. As Silverman tells me, “Kids aren’t very verbal at your daughter’s age, so might she be picking up more than we know? Maybe. But your behavior, your language, let’s work on it now. If she doesn’t get it until later, you’ll be a master.”

Amen.

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