Modern and up-to-date as some parents seem to be, sometimes they can have very traditional ideals what their children should look like.

Although this isn’t the 1950s anymore, when women were fully covered on the beach or wearing long johns to bed, sometimes it’s that very thinking that influences their opinion on our wardrobe choices and our body image.

This can come as either a blessing or a curse, some parents are critical of their children’s body image for reasons such as their well-being, so they promote positive images of body weight to help cultivate healthy body images in their children. On the other side, kids or teens who are overly scrutinized by their parents can head down a road of eating disorders and yo-yo dieting.

If you remember, The Daily Mail profiled a young girl who had already internalized severe body-image issues, which arguably had been implanted in her brain by her mother who had made seemingly insensitive comments.

“Normally I would have blamed the shops for selling clothes which are cut too small, told her the style didn’t suit her, or insisted she looked lovely,” said Julie, 48, a business development manager from Maidstone, Kent.

“But by this point she weighed more than 13 stones (182 pounds), and the hissy fits about how awful she looked were becoming so regular that I had to say something.”

“So this time, instead of denying it, I blurted out: ‘Yes, Amie, you’re right. You are overweight — and the only person who can do something about it is you.’”

This mother’s response seems to hold her daughter personally responsible for her weight, but, the question is, when is it ever okay to tell someone they are fat, which is now the new “f-word.”

Do you find yourself trying to fit the body image that you have for yourself or that your mother (or father) have for you?

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