She’s Off the Chart: Why Our Girls are More than a Number
By: Sabina Sully
Tags: Weight, Education, Parenthood, Children, Motherhood

This morning I was reading journal prompts where my eighth-grade students wrote about their hopes for the future. A huge number of the girls identified hopes that dealt with their bodies: losing weight, gaining weight, a curve here, a plane there. So many of them, in a moment when we have so much to hope for, hoped to change their bodies first. My heart…it hurt.

This afternoon I needed to take my daughter to the pediatrician for pains that she has been having in her leg. During that visit, the doctor spent a small portion of the appointment talking with my daughter about her leg, and a great deal of the appointment fretting that she has only gained a pound, asking her why she was so skinny, and telling her she didn’t weigh enough, repeating again and again, “You’re too skinny!” The doctor didn’t ask her what she eats, didn’t ask her how she moves her body, didn’t ask how her body feels. The doctor didn’t see her as a unique person, but instead of a set of numbers on a chart, and unfortunately for us, that chart said that my daughter’s body was wrong. My heart…it hurt a-fucking-gain.

In that moment, I failed. I should have stepped in and told the doctor that this was a discussion that we could have in private. Should have stopped it right then there, and I didn’t. It wasn’t until we left, both feeling like failures, that I realized that my real failure wasn’t in the fact that my child was too skinny, but that I didn’t stand up for her, didn’t say, out loud, that my child is more than a growth chart. I didn’t say what needed to be said: That is a child who is active, who runs and plays, skates and dances. A child who eats a (fairly) nutritious diet, is thriving in school, and happens to be tall and slender. She isn’t wrong just because her numbers aren’t perfectly aligned to the chart. She is more than the chart. To be clear, I am not saying that we shouldn’t listen to doctors. Obviously, these are conversations that can be had, but that they should be had with impact in mind, focused not on the chart but on the person, and how that person is feeling, fueling, and living, within their body.

When I voiced this to my husband, he didn’t really get it. He felt like maybe I was overreacting, maybe being too sensitive. And maybe I was, maybe I am. His stance was that if anyone should have the conversation, shouldn’t it be the doctors? But that’s the danger of these conversations with doctors, the professionals we trust to guide us, to keep us healthy….the professionals who we are taught to believe. Because when the doctor says your body is wrong, when the doctor dismisses the reason why you came and instead focuses on your weight, you believe them. My body must be wrong. The doctor said so.

When we finally got back to the car, Freya’s face sad and downcast, I asked her how she felt. Her voice quavered as she said, “But…I thought being skinny was good.” Proof of all the other times, even with a focused effort at raising her in an environment that loves all bodies, that I have failed.

Now I know. Now I am prepared to have a conversation with our pediatrician about our beliefs and values and make sure that we are aligned in those practices. Now I am prepared to find a new pediatrician if we aren’t. But raising girls to grow to women who love themselves, who view themselves as worthy in any body that they inhabit…it’s tough. It’s constant.

This morning, I read of girls who hope to change their bodies, and I sent them back a list of everything that made them remarkable. Their humor, the way they always say, “Thank you!” at the end of class, the beauty of their words on the page, the way that they make sure to invite the classmate who seems alone into their welcoming fold. I know that it won’t change their hopes for more of this, less of that. I know, as well as any woman who struggles through in this world, that the pressure to be something more or less or other than what you are is never-ending. But I hope, that maybe for a minute, it reminds them that they are so much more than a body, so much more than an image in the mirror.

This afternoon I saw one of the many insidious ways that that mindset begins, the ways that a positive intent doesn’t guarantee a positive impact. It’s our job, as we guide these little people through the world, to remind them of all the things they are that aren’t just their bodies. It’s our job to remind them that they are amazing, thriving, in the bodies that they are in.