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Equality begins at home

May 21, 2012 by Molly 23 Comments

Hello and welcome! I'm Molly Forbes - podcaster, presenter and blogger with a passion for positivity, confidence and body image chat. Regularly writing and vlogging about empowering female issues from a motherhood angle, I also cover lifestyle and fashion topics for like-minded mums who want to rediscover themselves after having children. Thanks for stopping by! Read More…

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Tonight should be our first night on holiday in Sp

Tonight should be our first night on holiday in Spain. Made up for it with a meal outside at the village pub and a “late” bedtime (any evening out past 8pm is late for us!). Devon is heaven ❤️ #mumlife

ALL children have the right to feel good about the

ALL children have the right to feel good about themselves and their body - not just the ones who “look healthy”. Children are being taught at a younger and younger age that their body is a problem that needs to be fixed.
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The current climate of intense body shaming disguised as health concern is creating policies which actively damage the relationship children have with their bodies. There is a huge amount of evidence showing that the better kids feel about their body, the more likely they are to make choices that make their body feel good - like taking part in movement or eating in a happy, intuitive way.
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Making health all about weight not only damages kids’ body image, making them either feel like their body is “wrong” or fear it becoming “wrong”, it also gives a free pass to the diet industry to aggressively market their products at children, under the guise of health. Ironically, encouraging kids to engage in dieting and habits which are actively bad for their health. This culture affects ALL children.
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And of course this version of health, and this focus on making kids’ bodies the problem, lets the politicians off the hook. Easier to put the nation on a diet instead of investing in policies which will reduce inequality and give everyone access to the things needed to live a full and healthy life.
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There is a silver lining though, because we can choose to be part of the solution. We can say no to diet culture at home and challenge it when it pops up in the spaces kids should be safest.
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If you’re a teacher our Body Happy Kids workshop is an intro to this subject with tools for creating body happy spaces for the children in your care. Find out more and sign up via my bio. ❤️ #BodyHappyKids

To lift the mood after the last week, here’s a t

To lift the mood after the last week, here’s a throwback to this time last year when I roped my husband into filming me for an alternative Love Island title sequence. Out of shot: a packed beach full of people confused why a woman is doing multiple bikini changes under a towel and instructing her husband on different camera angles while her bemused children look on 😂. The video was an alternative title sequence for if Love Island was filmed in Devon and featured a mum the “wrong” side of 35 and the “wrong” side of a size 10. 🔥 HAPPY BLOODY FRIDAY you lovely lot 🥂🥂🥂 #BodyHappyMum #MumsGoneWild

[Stat from @themilitantbaker’s brilliant TED Tal

[Stat from @themilitantbaker’s brilliant TED Talk]
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Poor body image and weight stigma are serious public health issues. These are complex, far reaching issues that impact us on an individual and societal level in many ways. This thread isn’t to say that each of these things alone accounts for the fact kids as young as three are feeling bad about their body, but combined, they create an environment that makes it really tough for children (and adults) to like their body just as it is, regardless of what it looks like.
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If you care about health you need to be aware that weight stigma kills and poor body image has serious health implications. Want kids to eat more nutrient dense food and move their body? Stop shaming them and teaching them their body is wrong, because research shows body hate is NOT a long term motivator for treating a body with care or respect.
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And then realise that even when kids ARE eating more nutrient dense food and moving more this will not guarantee their body will shrink. And this doesn’t mean they are unhealthy, despite what the headlines might tell you.
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Kids’ bodies don’t need “fixing”. Society needs fixing. Give every child access to good food and safe spaces to move and play. Eradicate inequality and discrimination, challenge stigmatising language. Raise awareness in the mainstream media of what many health professionals already know: health is complex, multi-faceted and is hugely impacted by socio-economic conditions. Saying it’s all down to “personal responsibility” lets the politicians off the hook.
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Maybe then, as a nation, we can have a fair crack at good health. Until then I’d argue it’s not about health at all, it’s about money.
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#bodyimage #BodyHappyKids

In an alternate universe I’d be packing for a ho

In an alternate universe I’d be packing for a holiday to Cantabria in Spain right now. Yet here we are. This summer is brought to us by Argos (paddling pool) and Monki (cozzie). FYI I’m still bikini all the way, but prefer a cozzie for when I get serious doing lengths at the pool 🏊‍♀️🏊‍♀️🏊‍♀️ #bodyhappymum

Did you know that many of the health outcomes blam

Did you know that many of the health outcomes blamed on being in a bigger body can be attributed to weight stigma and weight cycling rather than the weight itself? But despite a huge amount of evidence showing this to be the case it’s rarely reported in the mainstream media and doesn’t form the basis of health policy.
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You know what’s also bad for health? Inequality. Again, not something informing policies that conveniently apportion blame and simplify weight as all being down to personal responsibility and “lifestyle choices”.
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If this government really cared about the health of the nation they’d look at the impact of weight stigma and inequality and create health drives based on these things, instead of saying that putting calorie counts on food labels or telling people to go for a bike ride would make everything better.
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I am all for people living in a healthy way, if they wish to and if they can. Eat nutrient dense food, sure! Move your body, sure! Just don’t assume this will automatically lead to weight loss, or that anyone in a bigger body isn’t already doing these things.
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The latest focus on the weight of the nation makes me scared for how this will impact children. Will kids get put on diets and begin a lifetime of harmful weight cycling? Will it give yet another green light for bigots to go on national TV and say hugely discriminatory, offensive and uneducated things about people in bigger bodies, thereby perpetuating the weight stigma that we know is so bad for health? Probably. But who cares as long as £££ is being made and the weight loss industry is booming.
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It’ll keep us all distracted from issues like the inexcusable number of children living in poverty and the many families in the UK struggling to access nutrient dense food.
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Look beyond the headlines and the health rhetoric, know that the shape of your body does not signify your worth as a person. And challenge any person or article telling you different.
#bodyimage

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