My son is almost 9. He’s built solid, thick, you know? but he is at a healthy weight for his height. He thinks that he is fat, and brings it up more than I feel comfortable with at this point. He sometimes gets a little belly bloat after eating which is making us look into food sensitivities, but he’ll point at it and comment about how fat he is. 
This was never a real issue until we started becoming involved in certain activities with other kids. He’s homeschooled, and didn’t have a ton of social time with other kids until these past couple of years, and this is just one of the negative things he’s picked up. The other kids will tease each other about everything, and he hears a lot of “fat” talk from them, and it’s made him self conscious. He hasn’t been called fat, but just hearing the other kids tease each other has him all worried that he’ll gain weight and get teased, and makes him think that he is already fat.
He eats really well, and is involved in a homeschool gym class, tennis, swimming... So he has a healthy lifestyle. We talk a lot about how people come in all different shapes and sizes, and it’s all good, and if he wants to feel his best, it’s important to eat healthy and be active... But I still worry about this becoming a bigger issue down the road. I’m not going to just assume that’s he’ll get over it with time. I don’t want to bury my head in the sand and have him develop an eating disorder, ya know?
It just makes me so sad that young kids are so weight conscious these days! They should be eating healthy and getting lots of activity but worrying about their weight? Ugh. Not cool!
Any thoughts? Tips or advice from anyone who has been there?
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