When I was twelve, I had a super awesome blue bathing suit.

It was sporty, it was audacious, it was totally me.

At that time I was already conscious of my body, but I didn’t have a full-blown eating disorder yet.

One day, I was walking down the beach of Ramatuelle wearing that gorgeous bathing suit, feeling confident, cool and almost ready to join one of the many celebrity parties going on on the yachts closer to the bay. I had a great day with friends and truly enjoyed myself until my friend’s mom told me to suck in my stomach because it stuck out.

Crickets.

I remember the sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach, the goosebumps, the shame coming all over me as if it happened this morning. From this moment on, my relationship with my belly was never really the same again.

I began to want to hide it, change it, get rid of it.

I began to hit it with all my inner force because I hated it so much.

I began to diet, exercise and run my health into the ground.

That one sentence from an adult I respected changed my self-perception forever. I wasn’t the same afterwards and neither was my relationship with food.

My belly became that one thing I focused on whenever I “ate a little too much”.

My belly became the focus point of many diets.

My belly became my enemy.

That’s the power of words.

That’s the power of taking away the innocence of a young girl.

That’s the one thing you should never ever do as an adult: comment negatively on a girl’s body.

She had no point in telling me to suck in my stomach. She had no right to comment on my shape. And there was no point to it.

What was she trying to say? What exactly was the purpose of the comment?

There was none. But her words hung in the air for years.

Kids are extremely perceptive and they take in most of what you say – even if they don’t show it in that moment.

So, respect the kids around you. Respect the young girls who are going through a hard enough time as it is.

Love them up. Nurture their self-confidence. Don’t destroy it.

Here’s the truth: you will never ever help a girl lose weight if you comment negatively on her body – nor should you. You will only chip away pieces of her self-worth.

You will never support a girl in a positive way if you tell her that her butt is too big and that her cheeks are too broad.

You will make a lasting impact on a girl by running over her with your words, but it’ll be a destructive one.

Therefor, we must treat each other kindly, lovingly and extra special. We need to stick together – for the sake of our children.

Stop projecting your own poor self-esteem on the young girls around you and instead of tearing them down, lift them up, focus on more than their bodies and more than their skin.

You are better than that.

Now, I’d love to hear from you. Do you have a memory of someone “hitting” you hard with words? What happened as a result of it?