Here’s part two of my interview with clinical social worker and coach Barb Steinberg, who works with both teen girls and parents to improve their body image and help them discover who they are.
If you missed the first part of our interview on how Barb helps teens improve their body image, definitely check it out.
Below, Barb talks more about body image and offers fantastic insight on how parents can help empower their daughters. Her wise words on finding happiness in everyday moments particularly struck me.
She also raises thought-provoking questions that parents can ask themselves about their own unrealistic expectations and definitions of beauty.
And if you’re a teen, I think you can glean lots of great information from Barb’s answers.
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While I think the vast majority of parents really want to build healthy self-esteem and body confidence in their daughters, it’s amazing how our own old “traps” can emerge and influence youth in ways that we don’t even realize. An incident comes to mind of shopping the other day and hearing a mother tell her young daughter how wonderful she looks in the outfits she was trying on in the fitting room, but then the mom tearing herself down as she saw her own reflecting in the fitting room mirror. Our actions speak so much louder than our words.
@ Ashley, that’s a great point! In one of the articles I recently wrote for Psych Central, an eating disorder expert emphasized just how important parents are in their kids’ lives, even though many don’t realize it. So really another key factor in helping your child build a healthy body image and self-image is to work on your own. Children pick up on everything. Even if you praise their bodies and their minds, if you’re bashing yourself, they internalize that, too, and probably will start mimicking that behavior.
This is such great information! Thank you for posting this.
Thanks, Ashley! Glad you found it helpful!
Your article is certainly informative and brings out good ideas for parents to help their daughters. The only problem is, media, movies and advertisements showing skeleton thin girls, along with peer pressure is probably a bigger factor than anything parents can achieve. I found that research in this terrific book, “Tipping PoInt” written by Malcolm Gladwell, gives examples about how all of our good intentions and parenting don’t have the effect we hope it will! But hopefully our love and support will let them know they can depend on us!
JJ
7:12 pm on
October 7th, 2010I loved this post and especially the Naomi Wolfe quote. I’m about to give birth to a daughter any day now and definitely think how I want things to be different for her growing up with respect to body image and eating problems. Radiating self-love and self-acceptance are two great, tangible goals… they also make me think about why I struggled with eating problems in the first place (these are things my mom is simply terrible with to this day).
@ JJ, congrats on your pregnancy and soon-to-be birth! 
It’s awesome that you’re thinking about these issues and wanting to help your daughter build a healthy body image. It’s important for all of us to be aware of how we conduct ourselves around little ones, for sure. I think that while today society is harsher in terms of body ideals, we’ve also become more aware of the negative effects of a poor body image and how we can help, which is progress.
“There is happiness in the little things.” What powerful words. It is the moments we notice or we make that can make such a huge impact on our own self-esteem and on our child’s self-esteem. I recently read, Operation Beautiful, which illustrates how you can create those little moments of happiness, for yourself and for others. The concept is to use sticky notes to write empowering messages about beauty and leave them in public places for others to find. Not only do you end up feeling good about yourself, but you also help someone else recognize their own intrinsic beauty. Try it!
@ Wendy, so true! Yes, I’ve written several times before about Operation Beautiful, both the movement and the book. It’s so inspiring and a wonderful – and necessary – movement. Thanks for reading and leaving your comment!
Robert Wilson
4:48 am on
October 18th, 2010thanks for the post
Amazing how it’s so easy to see when our daughters are being unfairly critical of themselves, but difficult to notice when we’re modeling it. I love this post, and I don’t think it’s a message that can be spread too much- it’s time to embrace ourselves, be empowered, and as a result show the girls in our lives how amazing and beautiful and valuable they are- inside and out.
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