Putting those theories into practice

After my rant about body image and weight control, yesterday Ben was telling Charlie that he was fat. I didn't hear all of either of the incidents, but I think the gist was that Ben was superior to Charlie in this respect. Ben clearly not being fat, in the same way that Ben is never misbehaved, is the fastest runner and all the other ways in which Ben is the best. Just ask him, he'll tell you, at length. :)

So in the interest of not promoting "fat is inferior" but at the same time promoting good eating because getting too fat makes it harder to do the fun things you want to do, how do I tell him not to call people fat? Strangely enough, when I told him not to, he asked why. Hmmmm. So after faffing around a bit, reiterating that the only problem with being fat is if it gets in the way of doing stuff, I decided that the truth as I see it was the best way, even if he didn't really understand it. So I told him that he shouldn't tell people that they are fat because it makes them sad, even though it probably shouldn't. A bit of "you don't want to make people sad do you, because you are a nice boy" (another way in which Ben is clearly superior!) finished it off and hopefully it will at least be a while before we hear that again.

I'm not sure if this is likely to be a successful strategy in the long run, but at least I don't feel like I'm being a hypocrite.