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How Should You Discuss Body Image, Weight, and Beauty With Your Teenagers?
JD Ouellette from Equip wants to change our culture — because our current obsession with beauty is hurting our teenagers. Ouellette offers optimal ways to speak with your teens about body image and how to choose a path that diminishes appearance culture. In this episode, we talk about:
- How can I support my kid in the body they are in?
- How should we talk about bodies?
- What exactly does body dysmorphia mean?
- How can we break the cycle of thin being beauty?
- How important it is for parents to understand their own biases when it comes to weight and body image.
Learn more about JD Ouellette and Equip.
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How Should You Discuss Body Image, Weight, and Beauty With Your Teenagers?
Speakers: Susan Borison, Stephanie Silverman & JD Ouellette
[Music Playing]
Susan Borison:
Hi everybody, welcome to Your Teen with Sue and Steph, I'm Sue.
Stephanie Silverman:
And I'm Steph, and we are the co-founders and owners of Your Teen Media, the resource for parenting tweens and teens.
Susan Borison:
And today, we're talking to JD Ouellette about teens and their struggles with body image. But before we talk to her, we're going to talk about our own experiences as it relates to living in this culture. Since yesterday, I've been thinking about what you have to do to step outside of what you're being assaulted with.
And the example that came to mind to me was I once said to somebody I saw, “You look so amazing. Wow, you look fantastic.” And I just went on too much about it, and the person didn't say anything except thank you.
And I told someone else that I had seen that person and said that, and they said, “You know, she's dying of cancer.” And I was like, what world do we live in? Where like the perfect image is so thin that chemotherapy and dying can give you the look that we call beautiful.
I don't know how to get around it because I mean it and I'm surrounded by it. But it is just so hard to defy society. What was the term she used, Steph?
Stephanie Silverman:
Appearance, culture.
Susan Borison:
Yeah, I think that was it. I love that term because that's what we live in, that's the most important thing. And even to the point where — I don't know if you feel this way, I used to read People Magazine issue. I used to read People Magazine religiously, and they would have the January one of before and after. And those people looked more likable to me when they were thin.
Stephanie Silverman:
I know.
Susan Borison:
Which is terrible.
Stephanie Silverman:
It is and ugh, it's so layered and it's so rife with judgment, and it's so ingrained. So, I don't know, like I have those reactions. And if I'm restrained enough, I don't say it, but I can't stop the thoughts …
Susan Borison:
Because we've been sold it.
Stephanie Silverman:
I know, so how do we undo it?
Susan Borison:
Well, I think JD is going to tell everybody how to do that.
Stephanie Silverman:
Yeah.
Susan Borison:
And it takes a lot of boldness, like she lives her life with bravery and boldness that …
Stephanie Silverman:
I agree with that.
Susan Borison:
I would like to do. In this space, I want to be her. I don't know if I can, but I was thinking of like the next time I have one group where we talk about weight a lot and food, and everyone gets their salad. And I want to be prepared for the next time to say, “I'll get a grilled cheese, or I want French fries or something.” That would be unheard of.
Stephanie Silverman:
Right, I loved how — and obviously our listeners will hear this. It's so arresting too and powerful. Like she knows the conversation's coming, it's like you're prepping for this. Like you know the conversation's coming and how do you do that?
I had this flashback to watching a kid's basketball game and showing up at that basketball game, and we plop down, and I take a look behind me, and I see this guy that I know cannot shut up during the basketball game because I've been in his proximity before.
Lame, this really little shit, unpacked all of her stuff, her crayons and her — she's all set up to endure this hour, hour and a half of basketball. And I see this guy behind me and I'm like, I just can't do it. And I turn around and I said, “Can I just ask you a question? Are you going to be yelling the whole time?” And he looked at me, he's like, “Yeah, probably.” I said, “I so appreciate that,” packed up and we moved.
And when she tells her story silence in conversation about food and body image, it made me think of that, because you have to have like the guts, I guess, to say it and accept whatever the answer is, is the other piece.
That whatever they say, she would have a decision to make, that she's going to remove herself from that group. It's very interesting, it's like a turning point. It's a potential turning point for everybody.
Susan Borison:
Well, also, it sounds like you said it respectfully to the guy and you accepted his answer without judgment. That's the way JD talks: “I'm not judging you, I'm just saying what I need at the moment.”
Stephanie Silverman:
Exactly.
Susan Borison:
And I mean, it's so much bigger than that. It's like someone shows up and — like my friend's kid is getting married and she's not sure she loves the way she looks in the dress, and I have the same experience at my son's wedding.
Like how much time — I think I even enjoyed the wedding less because I didn't love my dress and I didn't love how I looked in it. When I think about it, what a waste, what a shame.
So, to put that on my kids, I don't want to do that. My alternative to doing it has always been to say, “You look so beautiful,” but maybe it's even getting away from that. And we'll learn that from JD, like get away from even just evaluating people's looks and just talking about how they glow.
Stephanie Silverman:
I love that.
Susan Borison:
It is all so complicated when there is a cultural norm that we are trying to break. It is maybe beyond this one podcast, but it's certainly thoughtful and something to kind of consider. So, up next is our conversation with JD Ouellette.
[Music Playing]
Stephanie Silverman:
We can't wait for you to join us.
Susan Borison:
Today's guest is JD Ouellette, she is the Director of Lived Experience at Equip, and is working to decrease the research gap around weight stigma, weight bias, and body image experience. JD, thank you so much for being here with us.
Prom is around the corner and body image is something that we're just talking about all the time and hearing about all the time. And yet it's so pervasive in our society that it's like we're having two different lines of conversation.
One is like the one we wish we'd have, and the other is turn on the news, turn on the media, and you'll see an entirely different world. So, we're listening right now and saying to ourselves, we want to be better at this, we want to support our kids in the body they are currently in.
What's the best piece of advice you could give around that?
JD Ouellette:
I would say one piece of it would be to not really discuss your child's body with them unless they come to you and want to discuss it. Like if you bring it up, you're opening the conversation that there may be something right or wrong or whatever it is about it.
And I actually think that that includes, even if you want to be very complimentary of your child's body, maybe it meets a societally normed look, and you want to celebrate that. You're still sort of selling your own kids' appearance culture. So, I just don't think there's any angle in it, and one of the pieces of pushback I get from other parents would be, “Well, it's about health or what about that?”
And I'm like, “Do you not think your child knows what their own body is? They've never seen a mirror in their life? They know what society says.” Everyone's well aware of the body we live in, and we don't have to tell them about the body they live in.
Susan Borison:
So, just a follow up to that, my kid walks in, I think they look beautiful. Can I say they look beautiful or is even that attached too?
JD Ouellette:
So, what I would try and do — and believe me, please take everything I say with zero judgment to it, these are all lessons I've learned along the way. I would say something like, “You really glow, you look so happy, you're just glowing.”
Something like that where we're replacing the very sort of subjective, what is beautiful, who decided what is beautiful? Like we don't have time for the colonial discussion related to that. So, let's just keep it about they're feeling great about how they are in the moment and celebrate that, comment on that.
Susan Borison:
That's a big shift but I love it. What was the word you used?
JD Ouellette:
Oh, appearance culture? It's an interesting shift to realize that in some ways, even to me, body positivity. I like to talk about body neutrality and body acceptance and body care because even body positivity is selling us on the idea that we're supposed to stand in front of a mirror and go, “I'm a hottie every day,” and why are we obligated to be a hottie? We're not.
Stephanie Silverman:
So, we're talking about our response, let's go to our kids. So, what if you've got a kid who doesn't like the way they look and you're going with them to try on prom dresses, and they say, “I don't like the way this looks, I look fat in this or I want something that covers my arms.” What's our response? Where do we land in that conversation?
JD Ouellette:
So, I would say that we really kind of direct it toward this is about you feeling comfortable and able to dance with a band aid. So, what you want really is kind of should be the thing. And so, if it's going to make them more comfortable to have a dress maybe with some arms coverage on it, then let them get that dress, look for that dress.
But you can do that without saying, “I agree that your arms ‘fat’ or you're right, that's not as more ‘slimming ’ than whatever.” There's a word that we always use, flattering.
We all know what flattering means. We know flattering means smaller than maybe you might be. So, instead of that, talk about, “Are you going to be comfortable in that? Is that going to allow you to celebrate prom with your friends? Is it comfortable, can you move?” That sort of thing. You don't want to be pinched and you don't want to be tugging and you don't want to be all of those things.
I would sort of focus on that when we talk about fit. Is it a fit that allows you to be celebratory? Depending on the direction the conversation is going, and conversations you've had before and relationships with your kids — and I have some other advice about prom dress shopping that I'll share about.
You can say sometimes, it’s crappy that society sold us that idea, like who's making money off of this? And in the moment, that might not be the best. I will say one of the things that I'm a fan of, and some of this really depends on economic privilege too, is very short shopping expeditions, go on a full stomach when nobody's hungrier, has anxiety, or it's rushed.
If you can possibly afford to buy a few things and take them home and try them on their leisure and return with the tags on or a vintage shop or things like that, I think can expand the prom dress buying experience beyond sort of a grueling, full-day in a store under fluorescent lights, which doesn't make anyone happy.
Susan Borison:
I want to go back to something you said about our reaction, like what our reaction should be. And I'm thinking about all the ways that I got a response to my comment and that I probably have done to my kids, “But you look beautiful, you do not look heavy in that.”
Like this kind of counter argument that I think is so prevalent in the way we respond to our kids because we want them to feel good about what they're doing, we don't just want them to settle. So, we say, “It took my breath away, how could you not love this? You look stunning.” So, why does that harm them? It certainly doesn't help, right?
JD Ouellette:
For one thing, if you say you don't look heavy, you’ve said there's a problem with looking heavy, I agree with that, there would be a problem. And let's face it, people come in all sort of weights and sizes and that's okay. And so, I myself identify as a fat woman because I am a fat woman, and that's fine, that doesn't make me better, worse, a different person from when I was a thin woman, all those sorts of things.
So, I think part of it is just like this huge step outside of looking at society and going, what are all the little things we do unintentionally to support the idea that it's better to look thinner in a dress that's always better.
So, I think none of this is built on one prom dress shopping expedition. And I think, to the extent that you can focus on, “You look happy in that dress, you look like you could dance the night away, and if it's not doing it for you, you're the one that matters, honey, let's keep shopping.”
Susan Borison:
Love that.
Stephanie Silverman:
What if we don't like the way the kid looks in that? And that could be a lot of things. That could be like lots of skin showing. So, I'm not sure it's specific to heavy, thin, whatever we're going to say — but we have a reaction. Are we allowed to have a reaction? I guess, this is the first question.
JD Ouellette:
Practice in the mirror, practice your neutral face, which I'm notoriously terrible at myself, beforehand. And then just think about what is the point of this? So, if you're a parent listening to this, I assume that you want to maybe do things a little bit differently and make it a different experience for your child.
So, kind of check yourself to start with on the comments that were made to you when you were a kid or a teenager, maybe some assumptions about why you should or shouldn't show the amount of skin that you're showing.
And at the end of the day, especially when we're talking about prom, these are kids that are close to going out on their own. If it’s senior prom next year, you don't have a single thing to say about what they wear.
So, I would just try to look inward and say, “Why does that feel like too much to me. Even though they look happy in it, why do I think it's too tight? Why do I think it's inappropriate?” I'll say one of my biggest regrets as a parent of four kids is not arguing about dress code more.
I should have fought back, I should have fought back on this is ludicrous, why are we doing this to our kids? And so, kind of who's to say what too much skin is? And I know that there's some people who have religious or values-based beliefs in this. And I think that's a conversation you've had over years and before you hit the dressing room sort of thing.
And I'm going to say that I have come to terms with the fact that my initial reaction to my daughter in recovery from anorexia wears bikinis (and she's an adult now) that are sort of the Brazilian style.
And my first reaction to that was not what I shared with her, but was like, “Yikes, in my day, we did not have our whole behind hanging out our bathing suit.” And you know what, in the end, it wasn't about me, she was very comfortable. It's fine, we all go to the beach together and that's the bathing suit she wears, and if someone says something to her, mama bear would come out.
And so, times change, things change. And I think it also really goes to very often as a parent, your fear about too much skin is actually a fear about someone else's reaction to the skin. And that's not your kid's problem, that's the problem of the other person reacting. And we need to keep that squarely where it is, it's a process.
Susan Borison:
I just want to acknowledge how much of a shift it is for so many of us. And so, my next question to you is like, is there a way to talk about bodies? So, you call yourself fat, I am fat, but I would never say that.
I want to get comfortable saying that, I love that, and Allie said it also. What an amazing thing to just own that? I have a friend who's too thin, she talks about that all the time. Like it is what it is, but how would we talk about someone is plus size, someone is gaunt, or do we just stop talking about it?
JD Ouellette:
So, I think in general, it's one of those circle things. Like if you've ever seen a circle of grief, like who gets to talk about what and to whom, and do you talk inwards, do you talk outwards? So, ultimately, I think the relationship with one's body and what they're comfortable with is primarily their relationship with themselves.
And so, I think you take your cue from them, and if someone doesn’t identify as comfortable with word “fat,” I would never use it. But I've done a decade’s worth of work to neutralize that and understand that elephants are fat and that's the way an elephant is supposed to be. I just don't attach anything negative to it and I understand that that's a very unusual position.
So, the way we talk about bodies, and we made this concrete shift in my home when my daughter got sick, which I want to be very clear, anorexia is very genetic, it's metabolic. I didn't cause it, society didn't cause it, may not have helped the entry point, but it's a whole different thing. That said, you become very attuned to the way all of us judge bodies constantly. It's like a game, it's just like a whole focus of conversation.
So, we immediately said in our family and sent this message to our extended family, we do not talk about the way bodies look in our home. We can talk about the way bodies perform in a sport, we can talk about the way bodies look maybe like joyful, people look happy, that kind of stuff. We just literally don't comment on the size of anyone's body.
And I want to share an anecdote about the very best compliment that was ever paid to me in my life, and it was at my son's wedding. And I was fat at my son's wedding as I have been for quite some time now, and the wedding was amazing.
It was amazing for so many reasons and my dance with my son was one of the things that I'll always remember. And at the end, when I was running around cleaning up the last things and stuff, somebody that I didn't know, one of my kid's friends came to me and said, “Hey, can I tell you something?” And I said, “Sure, what?”
And she said, “I've been watching you all evening, you are joy personified.” That meant so much more than saying, “You chose a flattering dress for this event.” So, it's just a shift and you're not going to get it right and you're going to have to check yourself and check yourself and check yourself, but you can do it, you can move away.
I have a whole friend group that has trained and trains other people that when we get together, we do not talk about the food we're going to eat, we don't moralize about it. We don't talk about whether we gained or lost weight or any of that kind of stuff, we just don't. We realized a decade ago, we are smart, intellectual, powerful women. What a boring conversation, let's not do that anymore, let's talk about real stuff.
Stephanie Silverman:
Can we talk about the word dysmorphia? Will you define it for us? We hear it all the time.
JD Ouellette:
Yeah, so true body dysmorphia would be that what you see in the mirror does not reflect reality. And so, that's a very different thing than body discomfort, body discontent, not liking what you see in the mirror. It is literally when you look at yourself, at your reflection, at a picture of you, what you see is not real.
Stephanie Silverman:
That can go in any direction, if you will, right?
JD Ouellette:
Yeah, and it's often when people talk about truly body dysmorphic disorder, which is a separate thing than an eating disorder. It can be part of an eating disorder, my daughter certainly had body dysmorphia as part of anorexia. It resolved with the resolution of anorexia.
I have a good friend named Brian Cuban (who happens to be Mark Cuban's brother) who is a man my age, 60 plus, talks really well, I think explains about body dysmorphic disorder. And it literally was when he looked in the mirror, he saw things that were not there.
And so, very often, it can be attached to a very specific body part like a nose or legs, or things like that. It doesn't have to be the whole thing, but it is a very potent sort of psychological disorder. And to what you said about we hear it all the time, I think we throw it around a lot. It's not dysmorphia if you don't like the way you look.
Susan Borison:
So, there are people in the public eye who are fat and own it in this glorious way. Like Lizzo is the one that comes to mind all the time, and I think it's changed things for my kids. So, first of all, do you see it being a positive influence on teenagers? And also, is there something from us to learn from our kids?
JD Ouellette:
I do see Lizzo being as a positive influence on almost everybody that isn't sort of like got their own problems. What is wrong with any person of any size out there living their truth joyously and not trying to conform to who you think they are, put themselves in a box, that sort of thing.
So, I do think that that is hugely important the way Lizzo is just teaching us that. And she's also teaching us haters are going to hate, I don't care, that doesn't have anything to do with me. I think there's a twofold thing happening in sort of body positivity, so to speak, right now.
I think there's the influence of Lizzo and I think that's wonderful. And I know that when I go (I live in Southern California, I joke I live in the land of tennis skirts) to the beach, I’m very lucky to be able to go to a beach where every culture is represented, it’s just astonishing.
And I always say to people when I go to the beach, like truly you can see all people are the same at the beach because you can see it's a couple having a romantic walk. We don't have to know what language they speak, what culture they are. It's a family with their first visit to the beach, those are the things I see.
And I also see a lot of younger people wearing whatever the heck they want. And it's phenomenal, and I come from (I'm 59-years-old) the more twiggy area and the very specific things that you would just never, never do. So, I think that's happening and I think in parallel, there is also a backlash to it.
And I think that wellness culture is culture rebranded. And so, I think at the same time you have a lot of young people falling victim to what's healthy and not healthy, that kind of thing, and putting it in that vein.
And the truth of it is bodies can be healthy at a wide range of sizes, everything we think we know about it medically is untrue, do a deep dive on that whole situation.
Even if things people thought about fat being bad for your health were true, feeling bad about yourself is bad for your health. And so, this whole perpetuation of making people feel bad about their body size is actually adding to ill health. So, all the folks out there with their concern trolling should knock it off.
Susan Borison:
With their what?
JD Ouellette:
Concern trolling. So, it's sort of you go into the Lizzo comments section and it's like, “But should young people be seeing this example? How can we celebrate obesity? This is glorification of whatever, I just want people to be healthy.” No, you don't, because if you wanted people to be healthy, it's not making people feel bad, and you do you.
Susan Borison:
That was going to be my follow up question to you, but what about their health?
JD Ouellette:
I think Lizzo is pretty darn healthy because I don't think most of her haters could jump around a stage playing a flute for an extended time period, that is a whole lot of aerobic capacity right there.
We just have to wipe the slate clean, relearn everything, totally for people who are super interested really, dive into the racist origins of all of this thin bias and fat phobia and things like that. Sonya Renee Taylors’ The Body Is Not an Apology is a phenomenal place to start.
But I myself as a fat person, and I want to make the point that I am not obligated to anyone to be healthy or even to fight for health. It is something that I do, is pursue health, because that's something I want to do to keep up with my grandkids and things like that.
I am healthy by any measure. I have converted two doctors to a health at every size approach simply by being my energetic self and getting good labs. It's pretty hard to argue after a while that my weight at almost 60 is a problem when I just go around being energetic and doing things and being active and kayaking and hiking and everything else, the arguments not there.
Stephanie Silverman:
We obviously all have our own biases about body image, weight, et cetera. I know what some of mine are, I don't know if I know all of them. How important is that for me to understand that as I parent my kids?
JD Ouellette:
Oh, I think it's absolutely vital. I think that if we want to avoid replicating what we all came up with, we have to look in the mirror, confront what our own stuff is. We have to be super mindful and have the conversation we're having right now.
There's a great piece on, I don't know, maybe Sloan or Slate that's just like how to talk to your daughter about her body, don't.
Someone else says something negative about it, and then you can have a conversation about how those people are — I don’t know how much profanity you allow, so I'll just say “idiots.” It's not her problem.
And I also, think there's a very common thing that happens in parenting, and I am not judging any parent. Parents who focus on their kids' weight are very often doing so at the behest of the medical profession and certainly, larger society. That said on that parents can be prone to almost in some ways, and doctors too, bullying a child because they're afraid of the child being bullied for their weight.
I'm sorry, that's totally not helpful. So, like, “I'm just doing it for your own good, when you go out into the world, people are going to judge you for your weight. So, I'm going to talk about it at home and I'm going to help you control it, and I'm going to help you change your body at home because it's a cold, cruel world out there.”
Don't do that. Yes, it's a cold, cruel world. Eat a soft warm landing space that calls out the cold cruel world and arm your children with self-confidence and the knowledge of your unconditional love to be Lizzo, to go out there and say, “I don't care what you think, it does not matter to me.”
Susan Borison:
Don't hide yourself.
JD Ouellette:
You also need to be prepared … I tell all parents this universally. When you are at the pediatrician or any other doctor's office, the minute you hear that hand on the door, you walk out into the hallway and you say, “If you would like to have any conversation about my child's weight, eating, or exercise habits, we will not have it in front of my child, we can have it on the phone later on, thank you.”
Very often doctors will say something to a kid and I happen to have a grandson who is a 97% BMI kid and qualifies as obese. Although, and again, it'd be fine if he was. That said, anybody looking at him would never think that.
He's a very tall athletically built child, and yet, in a doctor's office, looking at your computer and doctors will not even look at the kid and say something about their weight, they haven't even yet looked at the child.
Constantly, I hear stories about how doctors have said, “Well, you need to exercise more, and you need to eat healthier,” without even asking a question about, “What do you do to move your body? What kind of foods do you like to eat?”
And so, you've got this kid who eats more “healthy” and plays soccer and all this other kind of stuff. And you've just told that kid who does all those things that there’s still something wrong with them. I think when we do need to change behaviors, then we talk about changing behaviors, we don't talk about changing weight.
I used to be a teacher and there's a lot of chatter around teachers rooms and a lot of it is very class-based in lunchrooms and stuff like that about the kids that bring this or that to school and who packs their lunch and Cheetos and the Coke aren't breakfast, and all this other kind of stuff with no concern to like income, food deserts, all that other stuff.
And even before this was such a present issue in my life, I would often say it's so funny that I never hear you say that about thin kids eating the same food. That's weird, is it about the behavior or is it about the body size? I'm confused.
Susan Borison:
You are so certain how to change this and you're sharing that with us and our audience, and it makes so much sense and it's going to be such a total mind shift. Like to get off of this and say, “Okay, now what am I going to do to change?”
JD Ouellette:
Well, I'm a very practical person, so I can come at this from all sorts of angles. And if you want to come at it with the false idea that maybe higher weight is de facto bad, what has 60 years of telling people that they're fat and they should get skinnier gotten us?
Are we a nation of skinny people? We are not a nation of skinny people. Even if that was your goal and it's not my goal, you're still not doing it, it doesn't work. So, at a certain point, stop doing it.
Susan Borison:
Stop banging your head against the wall with the same thing that's not working. That's awesome, such good advice.
JD Ouellette:
Let's just try accepting everyone for who they are. I'm a huge fan of a video on YouTube. It's like four minutes long, I used to use it in the classroom called Poodle Science. It's sort of making a metaphor about different breeds of dogs, and you might say that X is an ideal weight and it's the ideal weight for a standard Poodle, something like that.
The median BMI for a standard Poodle is the ideal thing to be. A Rottweiler that weighs the same as that Poodle is a very, very sick Rottweiler. We came from around the world, our bodies were developed for the environments they lived in.
It’s fine, you're not going to make it through a Siberian winter with no fat on you. Just like a walrus isn't going to make it right, it's okay. We are allowed to be different sizes and in fact, we are different sizes and that's the way it was intended to be.
Susan Borison:
Alright, I'm going to give you the floor now to talk about prom, because you said earlier you had more to say about prom.
JD Ouellette:
So, I think that it is very hard and fraught, and as a former high school teacher, I also always say like a traditional North American high school experience is not for everyone. So, if your kid doesn't go to prom, don't make him go to prom. It's not, and I will also say I've had my own prom, I've had multiple kids have prom.
Temper your expectations in general, it is built up to be such a magical night that there's hardly any way that it can live up to that. So, trying to suck yourself up for disappointment.
And I would just say going into it again with like what are we really going to talk and focus about? You're going to be with your friends for like it's a great sendoff before you all scatter to different places, your relationships matter, your connections with those people matter.
If you like dancing, the dancing is going to be great. If you like music, hopefully, the music is going to be great. If you like getting together with your friends for dinner before, that's going to be cool. Those elements of it that are not appearance-based and also, we know we have the photo thing, that's a big thing, all of that.
Again, I encourage if you have time to start before prom and do some online shopping, do that kind of stuff, and do it in small doses, and do it on a full stomach and do it in a good mood. And don't just feel pressured by the whole thing. The same goes for wedding dress shopping as well, I would say, or bathing suit shopping for that matter.
Like the environment of a department store dressing room with harsh lighting and chaotic noises and stuff like that, it's not awesome. It's not awesome for any of us, so keep it short, keep it sweet, maybe look and have an idea of what you want.
Make sure that your prom going kiddo of any gender knows this is about you expressing the way you want to look, what's important for you.
I happen to follow a segment of TikTok that where they show prom photos from black kids in the south, it’s next level. Like these dresses are incredible, there's cars involved in the photo shoot, there's all this coordination, that's their place of joy.
And honestly, as I watch these TikTok’s, never does size come into it. It again is about the joy that they're feeling and the statement they're making about themselves. So, a lot of it, if you've kind of been in a parent's focused family, and I'm not judging you, it's going to be hard to change that between now and May 30th, that's kind of not going to happen.
But you can start to have those conversations and you can just start to introduce the idea that in the hierarchy of things you want prom to be, you looking whatever society's vision of flattering is kind of not the most important thing, and the more we can move toward that, the happier we'll be.
Stephanie Silverman:
We're going to wrap up our podcast the same way we wrap up with all of our guests. What is the biggest myth about teens and body image?
JD Ouellette:
I would say probably the biggest myth is that we, as parents, should be focused on appearance culture, or appearance in any way, including telling our kids that they're beautiful. You're good as you are.
So, I think if we almost put too much focus again on wanting our kids to feel wonderful every time we look in the mirror, we're setting the expectation that you should feel wonderful every time you look in the mirror.
No, what honestly, in a perfect world, you should, and we call it shitting all over yourself — is not really care that much about what you see in the mirror, other than am I seeing the happiest version of myself that I want to be? And if not, do I want to make myself happier? How is that?
Susan Borison:
JD Ouellette, this has been an unbelievable time with you, so life-changing in more ways than I have the energy to think about right now, but I think it's really good to pivot.
It's really good to be challenged to say that what we thought might not be helping anybody and like in that story are so many things that we could all agree to, but you take it to a next level, which I think is challenging. And we're all up for the challenge. So, thank you so much for jumping in and being here with us.
[Music Playing]
JD Ouellette:
No, I'm so happy to be here and talk about this and it's a journey. So, wherever you are on this path, don't fault yourself. When we know better, we do better, and sometimes, we take a couple steps forward and one step back, and that's okay, that's all part of the journey.
Stephanie Silverman:
Thanks for joining us today. If you have any topics that you want us to talk about, let us know on our Facebook page or email [email protected]. You can follow Your Teen on Facebook by searching Your Teen for Parents and on Instagram and Twitter at your teen meg.
Susan Borison:
So, we're two moms who share everything, we read an article and we go like, “Oh my God, my friend has that same story.” We listen to a podcast, and we think to ourselves, who can we share this with? It was so good.
And we're hoping you're the same. We're hoping you're listening to our podcast, Your Teen with Sue and Steph, and you're so excited by what you're hearing that you're sharing it with a friend.
We're so grateful in advance for you doing that because that changes our whole story. We get much more exposure, and we want everyone to hear what our fabulous, talented experts have to say to help us raise our teenagers.
Stephanie Silverman:
You can find more from us at yourteenmag.com and listen to all our episodes on evergreenpodcasts.com or wherever you listen to podcasts.
Susan Borison:
Your Teen with Sue and Steph is a production of Evergreen Podcasts. Special thanks to executive producer, Michael DeAloia, plus our favorite producer, Hannah Leach, and audio engineer, Gray Longfellow.
Stephanie Silverman:
We'll see you next time.
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