A Reader Asks: "How Can I Support My Daughter's Weight-Loss Goal in a Healthy Way?"

Spoiler alert: You can't. But here's what you can do...

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Ten years ago, Jubilee Media released a video where they asked kids and adults a simple question: “If you could change one thing about your body, what would you change?” The kids gave magical, imaginative answers like wanting “a mermaid tail,” “teleportation,” or “extra pointy ears.” They saw their bodies as full of potential and possibility, not something to fix. The adults, on the other hand, all wanted one body part or another to be smaller, firmer, smoother—conditioned by beauty culture to see flaws instead of magic.

So when your tween or teen—once blissfully unaware of their body from an aesthetics perspective—starts to view themself through the prism of beauty culture, it can be pretty disheartening and leave you wondering how to handle it. One reader wrote to me after her daughter announced that her New Year’s resolution was to lose weight. She has given me permission to tackle this dilemma here in the newsletter.

A Reader Asks:

“Happy New Year! I hope this message finds you well. I’m reaching out with a question/concern about my 12-year-old daughter. Her New Year’s resolution is to lose weight. She’s framed it as wanting to feel healthier and more confident, but as a parent, I know this is tricky territory, especially for a tween. If I’m honest, she is a little overweight, but so far in a cute way. She looks younger than her friends because of her round face so I think maybe she just wants to look more mature?

My question is, how can I support my daughter’s weight-loss goal in a healthy way without the risk of her developing an eating disorder? I’m proud she’s setting goals for herself and it’s important to me to support her in that. Rejecting her goal would end up feeling judge-y. I acknowledged her goal when she said it but I feel like I should address it more somehow. I’d greatly appreciate your guidance or any resources you think might be helpful.”

Dear Reader:

I absolutely agree that this is an issue worth addressing! The honest answer to your question—how can I support her weight-loss goal in a healthy way?—is that you can’t. I know that’s probably not what you were hoping to hear but the reality is that supporting weight loss goals in a young person is almost impossible to do without increasing their risk for disordered eating, eating disorders, and a preoccupation with size, shape, and weight.

That doesn’t mean you can’t support her. It just means we need to think about support in a different way. Instead of endorsing weight loss, focus on creating space for your daughter to express her negative feelings about her body, while setting firm boundaries around dieting behavior. You could say something like: “I’ve been thinking about your New Year’s resolution to lose weight. I love that you’re setting goals, and I want to support you. But trying to lose weight while you’re still growing comes with serious risks, and I want to make sure you stay healthy and strong.”

It’s important to ask her more about why she wants to lose weight. Your curiosity and willingness to discuss it might be what she’s really seeking. Her answers can guide how you approach the conversation.

• If she says she wants to look more mature: Validate that wish and discuss other ways to achieve maturity, like building confidence, improving posture, and pursuing personal growth. Focus on qualities that reflect maturity beyond appearance. More than anything, however, we want to promote body acceptance because with all the focus on girls’ appearance at the expense of all their other amazing qualities, their will always be something else to scrutinize and fix.

• If she points to social media influencers or online friends she wants to be like: Help her build media literacy. Explain how both media and social media promote unrealistic body standards and that celebrities and influencers often have money and entire teams behind them to create the illusion of perfection. Even if she already know filters and editing tools can drastically alter images, explain that research shows it’s much harder to apply critical thinking skills to images of peers (and I’d add influencers that seem like peers) than to celebrities. So when she’s scrolling TikTok, she might just forget about those tools and come to the conclusion she’s just not as pretty. Explain too how algorithms are designed to target insecurities to keep us buying. Teaching her to see these curated images critically and encouraging her to follow body-positive or body-neutral creators can help her build resilience against unhealthy comparisons.

• If she says she feels fat or mentions a mean comment made about her body: Avoid trying to convince her she’s not fat. Instead, remind her that contrary to societal messages, fat isn’t bad and doesn’t define her worth. Empathize with her wish to be smaller given the world she’s growing up in, but explain how our physiology plays a significant role in body size. Researchers have identified more than a thousand genes and variants that contribute to being fat, which might explain why thinness for many people isn’t sustainable. Tell her dieting inevitably results in regaining even more weight and is associated with increased morbidity, mortality, and disordered eating.

Shift the focus from weight to health and habits. Encourage her to think about feeling strong, energetic, and healthy rather than achieving a specific size or weight. Frame it as adopting healthy habits like eating nutrient-rich foods and moving her body regularly. If she needs guidance on nutrition and focusing on her hunger cues, consider involving a registered dietitian or therapist with experience in adolescent health who can provide personalized guidance and help ensure her goals are realistic and healthy.

The last thing we have to talk about is tricky and that’s your relationship to your own body and to fat. Girls know how we feel about our bodies and theirs—even when we don’t say anything. And piles of studies show it affects how they feel about themselves. In fact, a girl’s appreciation of her body isn’t predicted by her BMI but by how the important people in her life accept her body. Please don’t take this as a stick to beat yourself with because we’ve all grown up in the same fatphobic culture. But do take it as an opportunity to ask yourself how much of her wish that she were smaller might really be your wish? Unless we really consider the phobia we all have toward fatness that underlies our goals of thinness, we’ll continue to create a generation of girls with unhealthy relationships to their bodies.

It’s painful to imagine how your child might be treated or watch her confidence drain away, but our desire to save them from suffering can cause more suffering. Women tell me they wish their parents had replaced diet tips with observations their bodies were unconditionally good bodies, and that’s precisely what science tells us is best too. A large-scale study of more than two thousand girls found those who were labeled too fat by age fourteen had more disordered eating thoughts and behaviors five years later—regardless of body mass index (BMI).

By listening and empathizing with your daughter, you’re laying the groundwork for have ongoing conversations about how hard it is to have a body—particularly a changing body—in a world that decides small bodies are more valuable than big ones. That said, she may not feel supported right away. She might think you just don’t get it. But over time, your consistent commitment to holding space for her difficult feelings about her body—while setting healthy limits around dieting—will resonate as an act of love and affirmation of her body so she know its the culture that’s broken—not her body.

If your efforts to set limits around dieting aren’t successful, consider seeking professional support to ensure your daughter receives a proper assessment and appropriate clinical recommendations. Look for a therapist who has experience with eating issues and is informed by Health at Every Size (HAES) principles for the most compassionate and effective care.