You know when parents confront their kids after having found a box full of cigarettes, condoms, and a loaded revolver in the kid’s room and the kid just stares at the parents and says “YOU WENT IN MY ROOM?!?!?” Or when a wife accidentally downloads a video of her husband having sex with another woman, and when she asks him about it he indignantly responds “Why were YOU on my YouTube account?” When people talk about fat, it is a lot like that.

At some point, calling someone fat became so rude and insulting, so horrific, that speaking the word fat made any further discussion impossible. There is no recovery from the question “Are you calling me fat?” (See Elephant in the Room). Instead we walk on egg shells and try to talk about anything other than fat and the fact that one can actually control how fat they are by how much they move and how much they eat.

Revolutionary really.

The recent Georgia ad campaign designed to raise awareness of childhood obesity was criticized in the media. People were outraged, claiming these ads would only serve to humiliate overweight children and worsen the problem.

What the what?

Since when has increasing awareness about a problem lead to worsening it? Isn’t identifying a problem the first step to solving it? Why are we so afraid of talking about fat? If there was an epidemic of kids not being able to add numbers – wouldn’t we want to talk about it and come up with a solution? Would we just say “Let’s not tell them adding is important, it will only make them feel badly and then they will never be able to add.”? Why is their physical health less important than their cognitive abilities? The Georgia ad shows kids suffering from diabetes, hypertension and social ostracization. That is a big deal people.

Why can’t we talk about fat? If we approach the topic with a focus on health and unconditional love, kids will not feel weird about it.

They only feel weird because we do.

I also recently read a commentary expressing outrage about girls start dieting at an average age of 8. This seemed meant to provoke feelings of disgust, and I get that. Putting an 8 year-old on a cabbage soup diet or ordering Jenny Craig for their lunch box is ludicrous. However, teaching an 8 year old about healthy choices is only logical. Giving them guidelines for a healthy weight gives them tools to know if everything in their body is the best it can be. We need to put fat on the table for discussion if we ever want to foster healthy attitudes. Hmmm…. usually fat on the table is a lot more appetizing than in that context.

Eight year old girls who think they are fat are disturbing. Vector this out into adolescence and these sweet little spirits may be at huge risk for anorexia and substance abuse. This is heartbreaking. These girls are caving to some serious pressure that tells them that being very thin is the only way to be beautiful. These girls are feeling fat, when they are not – even when they are not close.

The problem is that in order for these girls to know if they are fat or not, we need to start talking about what fat is. We need to tell these girls there is a quantifiable way to determine if you are unhealthy. They need to be told if they are in a healthy weight range and BMI range they do not need to worry, and be encouraged not to worry. But if they are not in that range, they are powerful enough to take steps to change it.

And – now this is important – they need to be told that that range has a top number AND a bottom number. You are putting yourself at risk if you are too fat OR too skinny. It is amazing how many girls do not know this. They know about the top number that means fat – but think the low number means nothing, or worse that it is a badge of honor to be below that number.

There is power in knowing things.

If we have fear of talking to our kids about physical health, we are not doing our jobs in guiding them to be their best selves. Our kids need to know how to be healthy. In order for that to happen we must start talking about it.

We want a world full of strong, powerful people. To do this we have to start speaking honestly about something that is making us weaker. Of course, speaking about this from a healthy place means doing some work on yourself, and that is the really hard part. But if we want healthy, well balanced lives for our kids, we simply must cowboy up and start unpacking our own baggage about body image. I know I say this all the time, in all different ways, but the things we want for our kids are the same things we need to do for ourselves. It is harder to be fit than it is to sit on your sofa and talk about how no one has the right to call you fat. I wish it were easier kids, I really do – but it’s the old “walk the walk”. It is much harder, but the message is so much louder.

Let’s think about this because it matters. Let’s think about this because we all want lots and lots more birthdays. Let’s think about this because we all have just one precious life to live and spending out time being unhappy in our own skin is seriously crazy. Let’s think about this because our kids need us to think about it.

And, after we think about it – let’s start talking about it.