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By Daniella Gray
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A parenting expert has shared the eye-opening facts on how early body image starts in young girls.
Violeta Gordeljevic, a parenting science communicator, said the foundations of how girls view their bodies are often laid in early childhood, shaped more by the everyday behaviors they see at home.
In a post on Instagram, Gordeljevic (@violeta.parenting.science) outlined how studies show that between ages 2 and 7, children are especially attuned to the cues they receive from their caregivers.
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“At this age, children don’t interpret media ideals on their own; that model on TV just looks like another woman,” Gordeljevic told Newsweek. “Instead, they rely on parents to signal what matters, what to focus on, what to judge [and] what is worth commenting on.”
That helps explain why research consistently finds that weight anxiety and body dissatisfaction can emerge shockingly early.
By elementary school, many girls already associate thinness with happiness and success, and a significant number fear gaining weight long before puberty.
Gordeljevic said these beliefs are rarely transmitted through direct comments about a child’s body. More often, they come from subtle, unintentional messaging: a parent labeling foods as “bad” or “fattening,” joking about needing to lose weight, or frequently commenting on other people’s appearances.
“Those children naturally begin to evaluate their own bodies through the same lens,” Gordeljevic added.
Children interpret these moments differently than adults intend. A casual remark about dieting or an offhand critique of one’s own body can be absorbed as a broader rule about value and likability.
Even when no one ever comments on the child’s appearance, the message can become internalized: certain bodies are preferable, others are not. Over time, children raised in appearance-focused environments may begin scanning bodies—others’ and their own—automatically, without realizing why.
Gordeljevic emphasized that body image is rarely taught explicitly. Instead, it is modeled daily through tone, focus and repetition.
Many adults are surprised to recognize this pattern in their own upbringing, recalling caregivers who constantly criticized their bodies or admired thinness without ever intending to pass down insecurity.
The research, however, also points to powerful protective factors. One of the strongest is neutral body talk—reducing how often bodies are discussed or evaluated at all.
“Neutral body talk means not making bodies a frequent topic of judgment at all, neither praising nor criticizing appearance,” Gordeljevic said. “It means speaking about food in terms of nourishment and enjoyment—not weight control—and speaking about movement in terms of strength, fun and energy.”
When children are developmentally ready to engage with media, open conversations about unrealistic portrayals can help—but by then, the groundwork has already been set at home.
In a culture saturated with thin ideals, Gordeljevic said, the most influential counterweight is not perfection but consistency: showing children, day after day, that bodies are valued for what they do, not how they look.
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