On Expecting Kids to be Older and Us to be Younger
How to navigate anti-fat bias in schools, and in your aging body.
Heads up! Corinne and I are recording your January AMA episode this week. Send us all your questions here. (They can be New Year resolution-related or absolutely not.)
Disclaimer: You’re reading this column because you value my input as a journalist who reports on these issues and therefore has a lot of informed opinions. I’m not a healthcare provider and these responses are not meant to substitute for medical or therapeutic advice. Please also be aware that today’s column includes links to research that use o-words and other stigmatizing language to discuss weight, race, and kids. Take care of yourselves.
Q: My child is 5 and started kindergarten this year. He is much taller and stockier than every other kid in his class. Since very early in the year we have gotten reports of disruptive behavior and physical aggression at school. He is not and has never been an aggressive kid at home or on play dates. When I drop him off or volunteer at school I often see other (smaller) kids doing the same things that get my child in trouble, with no reprimands. Also, when I ask him about incidents at school he usually reports that someone kicked or hit him first. We haven’t been able to get a straight answer from the school about whether or not this is what’s actually happening. At this point things have gotten so bad that we have requested a 504 evaluation for our child, with the hope of getting an aide in the classroom to control his behavior.
My husband and I agree that our kid needs to stop hitting, but we also suspect very strongly that part of the problem is size. Essentially our child is a 5-yr-old in a 7-yr-old’s body, and the school’s position is that he needs to behave like a 7-yr-old, while 5-yr-olds with 5-yr-old bodies get to behave like 5-yr-olds. When we bring this point of view up with the school we are met with adamant insistence that all students are treated the same. They are completely unwilling to consider that they may have different expectations for a larger child. Are we crazy, or is there any research that back up our suspicions?
Whew, yes, there is research. I’m not surprised that school staff are adamant that they treat all students the same. I even fully believe this is their goal, just as I believe doctors who tell me they don’t intentionally discriminate against their fat patients. But that doesn’t mean they aren’t. The whole problem with bias is that it makes it so difficult to objectively assess your own behaviors and impact. As weight stigma researcher Jeff Hunger, PhD, explained on the podcast last week:
My bias might be at the implicit level and so it could lead me to behave in a way that you pick up as explicit, that you end up feeling discriminated against because of your race, your gender, your weight, when I didn’t really notice that I was doing anything wrong, because my implicit bias was leaking out. So it may not look the same as shouting a derogatory term at someone, but it might be the ways in which I position my body, subtle nonverbal behaviors that I engage in as we interact with one another, things that can shape the outcomes and the experience of the other person, even if I don’t notice them.
Your child’s teachers and school administrators don’t think they have different expectations for a larger child, but the data tells a different story. Children’s weight was more negatively related to their kindergarten teachers’ assessments of academic performance than their test scores in this 2013 study. Physical education teachers may have lower expectations of children in bigger bodies, both in terms of their athleticism and social skills. (A lot of this research focuses on PE teachers specifically because we know they tend to have even higher levels of implicit anti-fat bias than their colleagues.) And kids in larger bodies are often perceived to be “aggressive” but research shows they are far more likely to be the victims of aggression and bullying behaviors than the instigators. Megan, a kindergarten teacher who follows me on Instagram, confirms that she’s seen this bias play out in her own classroom: “I had a few boys in my class last year who were as big and tall as many third graders,” she says. “I spent a LOT of time reminding other staff they were some of the youngest kids in the school since they had spring birthdays.” She also worked with the kids on how to show care for a friend after an accident. “An incident like knocking someone down was often perceived as intentional even though it wasn’t.” (As a fellow parent of a kindergartener, I can affirm—as can anyone who has tried to get a sock on a wiggly five-year-old and gotten kicked in the face—they are all for sure still learning where their bodies are in space!)
This bias around body size intersects with other marginalizations too: Black kids of all genders are three times more likely to be suspended or expelled than white peers. Latinx kids are also punished more often and here’s some more research on the way Black boys are penalized for their bodies in schools. Black girls are particularly vulnerable to the experience of “adultification” (where teachers and others assume that they are older and should therefore be more mature and better behaved, as you’re noticing with your son). This often leads to sexualizing and penalizing Black girls, especially those in bigger bodies, for behaviors, clothing and so on that white girls can engage in without issue. Black boys And when I threw up a question about this on my Instagram, I heard from many parents of otherwise-privileged tall kids confirming “adultification” happens around height too, especially when girls get to puberty, and a 12-year-old “looks like a woman.” (No. She doesn’t. She looks like a 12-year-old and we need to broaden our definition of what 12-year-olds look like.)
So educators (like most humans) hold anti-fat bias (along with other biases) and it shows up in their teaching and classroom management. The real question is what should you do when it’s your child caught in the crosshairs of implicit bias. When a teacher calls home, Megan advises asking for specifics. “Where is the behavior happening? Who is around when it is happening?” This might help you establish a pattern that points to a solution. And frame the conversation around the skills your child needs to build. “I would be asking, ‘What social skill do you think my child is missing? What will you do at school to help them acquire that skill? How can I help my child build that skill at home?’” suggests Megan. “I find that focusing on the word ‘skill’ helps to keep conversations about behavior out of the good kid/bad kid false dichotomy.”
Megan also encourages parents to explicitly state the potential for size bias: “My child is sometimes perceived as older than they are due to their size, and other children and adults may expect them to act in ways that they can’t.” Sharing some of this research (you’ll find lots more here, here, and in this podcast episode) may be helpful, especially if there is one teacher or other person on the school staff who feels like more of an ally (or is at least a clear fan of your child and rooting for him to succeed). I find it helpful to frame these conversations around my own learning: “I’ve been working to understand my own misconceptions around this stuff and here are some changes I’m trying to make.”
I would do this work alongside pursuing the 504 and the aide—not because your child so clearly requires one, but because it sounds like a way you can work with the school on this issue. Depending on the aide they hire, that person could be an important ally and advocate for your son. You should also continue to investigate how these altercations begin (perhaps the aide can let you know what dynamics they observe between your son and his peers). Five years old is young, but depressingly, not too young for weight-based bullying to have begun. And even if your son’s peers aren’t teasing him directly for his size, he may be picking up on some ambient negativity about his body from other kids or adults, and that could be fueling his response to them. One of the bigger boys in Megan’s class kept getting into physical conflicts with other boys—and because he was bigger, staff tended to blame him. “But after talking to him, I was able to figure out that he felt uncomfortable around other boys and discharged that feeling by initiating conflict,” she says. “He made female friendships much more easily and was able to be more comfortable seated at a table with all girls.”
I’d also explore whether therapy —with a play therapist and ideally one who is fat positive though I realize that might be a unicorn depending where you live—could help your son process what he’s experiencing at school in important ways. And look for ways to give your son positive and affirming experiences in his body. That could be an after school activity like karate, swimming or rock climbing. It could be doing cool jumps on the backyard trampoline or going on family bike rides around the neighborhood. To be clear: I’m suggesting these activities not because I think your kid needs to “exercise,” but because he deserves to feel proud of his physical self.
Last thought: Look for allies in other parents of bigger kids. I was inundated with stories from other parents when I asked about this on Instagram, so you truly are not alone. And I loved this anecdote, from Lindsay: “I ran into another tall mom at Disney once, and after I accurately guessed her daughter’s age, she was visibly relieved. It was like we had an instantaneous sisterhood as moms of kids who are expcted to act older than they are. We talked the whole bus ride from the resort to Disney Springs.”
I’m really sorry your son is struggling in this way, and that you have to navigate a biased system not built to support him. But I’m glad he’s got you in his corner. You likely can’t change the school’s entire culture on this (though I do think you may be able to make a few important chips!). But you can validate what he’s experiencing and support him in the body he’s in. I know that doesn’t make it better right now. But it’s actually everything.
Q: There's something I've been struggling with body image-wise that I haven't seen or heard discussed a lot. I turned 45 years old a few months back. My body is changing like crazy because of perimenopause, pandemic stress and raising a young daughter. (I'm a late-in-life mom and my body didn't "bounce back" after pregnancy.)
I was trying on swimsuits the other day, and I couldn't believe how saggy my skin looked around my belly, hips and breasts in those awful dressing room lights. I also have new dimples on my legs around my knees and calves and forearms. Even the skin around my forearms looks -- I don't know how to describe -- dry, thin, wrinkle-prone.
I can't help thinking: Is this normal? Is this what aging skin looks like on our bodies (not on our faces, because we don't normally cover up our faces)?
I know I shouldn't compare, but my only visible role models are 50+ celebrities like Nicole Kidman and J. Lo. (And the photo editing in media is unreal; I saw a photo spread of Madonna a few months back and she looked the same as she did in the 1980s.)
It's not something women talk about openly. But I'm guessing I'm not the only middle-aged woman struggling with this. How to be body positive when my body is changing so quickly?
What you’re describing sounds completely normal, at least by the standard of my own 41-year-old set of sags, dimples, wrinkles, and let’s not forget chin hair! But you are right that this is not the “normal” body we ever see celebrated in public discourse around aging. Our culture defines “aging gracefully” most often as “still somehow alive despite reaching her late 40s or 50s and yet not visibly aging at all.”