Is It Wrong To Call Your Toddler “Chubby Chubs” And “Greedy Guts”?

Posted by: Jessica Wakeman Filed in: news
12:50PM, Wednesday June 17th 2009

Comments (15)

Fuzzy Wuzzy was a bear.
Fuzzy Wuzzy had no hair.
Fuzzy Wuzzy wasn’t fuzzy…was he?

Why can I still recite this nursery rhyme by heart even though I’m 25-years-old now?

Because I have hairy arms and my mom unwittingly drilled the rhyme into my head by teasing me about being her little “fuzzy wuzzy.” Yeah, kids remember what their parents said to them. I’m a testament to that.

But even I thought the Babble.com advice columnists who discouraged a lady against calling her toddler “Chubby Chubs” and “Greedy Guts” were overreacting.

Babble’s columnists, Rebecca Odes and Ceridwen Morris, cautioned Greedy Guts’ mom to choose her terms of endearment more judiciously. I know they mean well, but I think they’re misguided by validating “chubby” as an insult and a word that shouldn’t be used.

In fact, I think their advice will just contribute to the problem of size-ism:

“In our culture, we have complicated feelings about being ‘chubby.’ Especially when it comes to girls…...You may really mean this all in playful adoration of your daughter’s abundance. But it’s worth taking this opportunity to think about whether there might be something else going on. Are you afraid she will be fat? Do you have anxiety about your own weight? Most women do. We live in a very thin-obsessed and incredibly unhealthy culture when it comes to body image. It’s understandable that you’d want to protect your daughter from potential angst. Perhaps using those names somehow makes you feel like you’re fighting back against all that pressure. If that’s the case, we applaud your intention, but as she grows, you might consider something less easily misinterpreted. It’s true that she’s young now, but she’s learning every day. Why not start early with more positive messages?”

True, the word “chubby” is usually used positively and chubby people sometimes aren’t living a healthy lifestyle. But sometimes chubby people are healthy. And sometimes words that are “supposed” to be insults can be reclaimed—yes, even “chubby” or “fat.” It sounds like this mom is calling her toddler daughter Chubby Chubs affectionately, as a term of endearment. What’s wrong with that?

If you teach a kid that something about them is bad, then they’ll believe something about them is bad. It’s possible for parents to teach their kids to “own” whatever it is society tells them is not good about their bodies, whether it’s pudge, glasses, crooked teeth, ADD, depression, or Megan Fox‘s creepy toe-thumbs. It’s better if kids can laugh about it—like I can laugh about my arm hair, which I realized was sort of silly and bear-like as a young kid. (Full disclosure: I once tried to shave it off in middle school, along with my armpit hair, after some students teased me about being hairy. But my arms grew back so stubbly that I left them alone ever since. Now I just embrace my fur, because it’s part of who I am!)

All that being said, Chubby’s mom should cool it with the cutesy nicknames as the kid gets older—say, when her girl goes to kindergarten. Don’t say it in front of her daughter’s classmates, lest “Chubby Chubs” actually get wielded as an insult. A mom lovingly teasing a little girl for vacuuming up her Goldfish crackers is entirely different than a mean-spirited little five-year-old girl socially shunning a classmate as she calls her the same thing! At home, though, I think she can be loving and affectionate AND teach her daughter that she’s beautiful just the way she is, baby fat and all.

Hopefully as Chubby Chubs gets older, if someone does try to insult her about her weight, she’ll be able to say, “Yeah, so what” because she knows it isn’t something to be ashamed of.

I don’t have any kiddies, though. What do you all think?

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Tags: fat, weight, weight gain, size, chubby, sizeism

Comments (15)

comments

jojo32
wrote on June 17 2009 @ 01:09 pm: [report]

Awww…I love to grab my daughter pudgy little legs and say “oooh I love these chubbers!!!” and she squeals with laughter! She’s got legs like her dad. In other words, they are thick. I had the skinny, knock-kneed legs as a little girl, so the worst I got called was ‘skinny minny’. Uh, no one is really calling me that anymore. LOL

I hope she doesnt get teased about her little chubby legs. I love them. I hope I can find a way to make her love everything about herself too. Cuz she’s a beauty. No doubt.

becktasm
wrote on June 17 2009 @ 01:11 pm: [report]

My mom’s an aerobics instructor and a fitness nut, and growing up she was constantly ragging on me about my weight (I was ten years old). I remember really hating my size, then the summer before 6th grade my nanny Nida told me I wasn’t fat, I was “pleasingly plump”. I was blissful! Overjoyed! It was the best compliment anyone had ever given me. Then I told my mom, and she freaked, saying there was nothing “pleasing” about being overweight, and I came down from my cloud. That woman is lucky I don’t have an eating disorder, with all the sh*t she’s given me.

writergirl
wrote on June 17 2009 @ 01:21 pm: [report]

Wow. Imagine these two psychologists if they ever found out I called my son “Monster Child” from the time he started walking until he was two and a half.

joyy
wrote on June 17 2009 @ 01:22 pm: [report]

@jojo - just don’t do what my parents did: nickname her “thunder thighs” and then remind her about it throughout childhood/adolescence. It didn’t result in any issues for me, but it was pretty unnecessary - if they hadn’t mentioned it, I would have never known hah.

Symian
wrote on June 17 2009 @ 01:42 pm: [report]

Have people not figured out that children will take to heart what they hear you saying about them? Look at all the rotten little “princesses” running around. Then look at all the rotten adult “princesses”. It isn’t going to affect all children, but God forbid your child ends up internalizing “fatty bottom” ate the cute age of 3. When she realizes at 15 that being a fatty bottom isn’t popular she may invest her time into unhealthy and unnecssary activities, and if she gets sick, you may wish you had called her sweetheart.

Humble Bee
wrote on June 17 2009 @ 01:49 pm: [report]

@Becktasm, I have a friend like that, her mom has fake brests, she works out like crazy, and she MUST get really fixed up to go grocery shopping and running errands. Well her mom would always give her sh*t about her weight and she’s been yo-yoing for years, one month she’s thin as hell, the other she looks like a completely different person +20lbs. Now, all she does is smoke, drink, water, and eat sugar free jello. She is the most self concious person I know, but the sweetest. I feel so bad that her mom put her through all that.
On the weight issue, I have a 3 year old sister, I swear she’s the smartest 3 year old Ive ever known. She is one of those really fat toddlers but the thing is that she doesn’t over eat, she’s just chubby like my 16 year old sister. So my family always teases my 16y/o sister, they call her “gorda” (fat) and they do that to the 3 y/o too! everyone! they always say to her, “Oh look, she’s so chubby, how cute, I just want to grab your chubby cheeks” Not just my family, everyone tells her. So the other day she asked me for a hug, and I hugged her really really tight almost shifting my weight on to her, and she said to me, Oh your heavy. So i said, I’m getting fat, and she replies with “No i’m fat, and Nene” (my 16y/o sister) My first reaction was laughter, how funny. BUT then I felt sad for her, at 3 years old she knows she’s fat. That’s kind of demeaning. I never call her chubby anymore, Every day I tell her she’s smart, funny, I’m proud of her, I tell her she looks nice. Positive comments are hard to believe somtimes, but when someone tells you a negative one, you always seem to remember it more. So I try to emplify good ones to her since she picks things up so quickly its amazing.

CheeeeEEEEse
wrote on June 17 2009 @ 02:07 pm: [report]

@humble be: This girl is 2 IQ 156 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ESE6-UAF6pw

becktasm
wrote on June 17 2009 @ 03:02 pm: [report]

@Humble Bee: Ha! My mom has big fake boobies too. She thinks I should get mine done. She says they’re just not big enough for my frame, and D’s will make me look much slimmer.

Humble Bee
wrote on June 17 2009 @ 03:13 pm: [report]

I havent tested my sisters IQ, its too expensive, but I am enrolling her in a gifted school this year. At 3, she counts past the 20’s, she knows almost all her ABC’s, she can read 2 books. lol. She knows all these damn nursery rhymes AND because of Kai lan she knows Grandpa, hello, dragon, yes, no, and some other little words in Chinese. Also, she is bi-lingual. She speaks both English and Spanish, very well. She has a really extended vocabulary for a 3 y/o. I know its no 156 IQ, but I was dumb as hell when I was 3. I didnt know my ABC’s till I was 5, so I treat her pretty special. I try to dedicate at least 20 minutes of my day to read to her & to teach her more colors. I know its not a lot, but its working for her.

sam04
wrote on June 17 2009 @ 03:15 pm: [report]

I’m glad I grew up in a positive environment!

dlc910
wrote on June 17 2009 @ 03:56 pm: [report]

Lol, I hope I’m not scarring my nieces by singing “Brass Monkey - that chunky monkey” to them! But seriously, toddlers are supposed to be chunky. Carrying that over to school age, however…

Alison Wonderland
wrote on June 17 2009 @ 07:47 pm: [report]

Jessica: Way off topic- but get a Smooth Away. I use it on my arms and even though it doesn’t really work on other body hair it’s totally worth dropping $10 bucks on at CVS.

jteo
wrote on June 18 2009 @ 05:33 pm: [report]

As a Mom and Kindergarten teacher, I take issue with calling a child Chubby Chubs.

First, terms of endearment are meant to be kind in spirit, but sometimes, as people have shared, the meaning becomes more detrimental as the person ages and has other connections to and in the outside world.

My own daughter was very small when she was born; her Dad always called her “Little” as a term of endearment. As she has gotten bigger, that name has fallen by the wayside, and I am a glad. She will always be little and as she goes through life, I am sure people will be finding ways to point out to her that she is indeed little. Hopefully, we will be able to teach her that everyone is special, no matter what size you happen to be!!

Parents like the cutesy names, but kids are kids and names stick—how would you like to be called Chubby Chubs as a grown adult? Not very appealing—and not so to a kid.

snap
wrote on June 18 2009 @ 05:50 pm: [report]

@jteo - Fyi, only proper nouns are capitalized. The words “mom” and “dad” are only proper noun when used as names. Same for “kindergarten,” except I can’t imagine a situation where one would capitalize it.