My 11-year-old cousin asked if she’s too fat for her 6th grade pool party. I don’t know what to say.
My AC broke in my apartment this past weekend, so I crashed at my aunt and uncle’s place on their pullout couch. My little cousin Lila, 11, volunteered to help me fold the mountain of bath towels that had been sitting in the dryer since last week, because her mom made her do it anyway and she said it’s less boring with me there. She was wearing that frayed gray Harry Styles hoodie she got for her birthday, chewed the end of the drawstring the whole time we worked. Halfway through, she folded a slime-stained blue towel (she refuses to throw it out, says it’s “lucky”) and just blurted it out: Do you think my stomach sticks out too much for the pool party next week?
I dropped the towel I was holding. I know that’s such a cliché, but I really did. I wasn’t expecting it. We’d just been talking about how her pet hamster escaped his cage for the third time that month, and how she got a B on her math test that she didn’t study for. One second we’re chatting about hamsters, the next she’s asking me if her body is wrong. I fumbled for the right thing to say, said what everyone says: You’re perfect, Lila, all the girls are just being silly. She just shrugged and folded another towel, like she’d heard that exact line ten times that month already. Which she probably had.
After that I couldn’t stop thinking about it. When she left her phone on the couch to go help her dad carry groceries in, I clicked on it. I know that’s invasive, I felt gross doing it, but I couldn’t help myself. I went to her stories, and half of what she’s reposted is all this “healthy girl” stuff. 19 year old influencers with a million followers talking about intuitive fasting for beginner girlies, what I eat in a day to get a flat stomach, how to “eat clean” even when your parents make you junk food. She posted a poll two days ago: Should I skip lunch this week to fit my new one-piece? 82 people voted, 68 said yes. All of them are 11 and 12 year old girls from her school.
It’s not like anyone around her is actively being mean, honestly. That’s the weirdest part. My aunt is just a regular overworked 40-something who complains about her own muffin top while she stirs salad for dinner, who says “I’m being good this week” when she turns down a slice of birthday cake. She doesn’t realize Lila’s absorbing every word. Last month when we went shopping for high-waisted jeans (Lila begged me to take her, said low-rise makes her “stomach look like a blob”), she tried on seven pairs. Every single one, she’d turn to the side and suck in so hard her whole body tensed, then shake her head and say it’s too tight, it makes me look fat. The third pair fit her perfectly—she looked so cool, like a kid who gets to be 11 and cute and excited about new clothes—and she still wouldn’t get it. Said the waistband digs in too much. I paid for it anyway and stuffed it in her bag when she wasn’t looking, but she still hasn’t worn it to school.
Some days I tell myself I’m overreacting. She still climbs the oak tree in their backyard to get away from her annoying little brother, she still laughs so hard she snorts when we watch old Hannah Montana reruns, she still spends all her allowance on stupid sparkly keychains for her backpack. She’s still a kid. But then I see her push the bread basket away at dinner, pick at a single grilled chicken strip and a handful of lettuce for lunch, and my chest gets tight. I had a friend in high school who started skipping lunch when she was 12, just to fit into her cheer uniform. She’s 23 now, and she still counts every calorie before she eats it, still can’t go to a friend’s cookout without panicking about what she’ll eat. This stuff doesn’t just go away when you grow out of middle school. It sticks, it roots down when you’re that young, when everything feels permanent and every offhand comment feels like the end of the world.
I thought about talking to my aunt about it. But the last time I brought up Lila talking about diets, she waved me off. Said kids these days just talk about that stuff, it’s just what they do, she’s fine, she’s just growing up. And I get it, she works 50 hours a week at the dentist’s office, she’s up at 6 every morning making lunches and driving kids to practice, she doesn’t have time to scroll through every single TikTok Lila watches. I don’t blame her. I’d probably be tired too. But that doesn’t make the worry go away.
I texted Lila after work today. Told her I’d pick her up after school tomorrow, we can go get that mint chocolate chip ice cream she likes from the little shop downtown, get whatever size she wants. She texted back 10 minutes later: Can I just get a kid size? I don’t want to get full. I typed out a whole big speech about how it’s fine, she can eat whatever she wants, diets are stupid, all that. Then I deleted it. Just wrote back: Get whatever size you want, I’ll eat whatever you don’t finish.
That’s all I can think to do right now. I can’t shut down TikTok. I can’t make all the other girls at her school stop talking about how to get flat stomachs. I can’t rewire every bad message that gets thrown at her every single day. I just show up when I can, and eat ice cream with her, and don’t comment on anybody’s body, ever. It feels like way too little. But I don’t know what else to do.
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