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The biggest thing I’ve ever done in my life (aside from growing, birthing and raising two humans)

February 7, 2021 Leave a Comment

This month marks ten years since I first started this blog. The place has become a bit dusty, there are a few cobwebs here and there and I’m not sure if anyone ever stops by these days considering I pretty much shut up shop nearly a year ago.

A lot can happen in a year.

But I’m back in the room because I wanted to mark this day on this blog, the first place where I started to write since becoming a mum.

I’ve written a book.

BODY HAPPY KIDS: How to Help Children and Teens Love the Skin They’re In, published by Vermilion, is being published on 1st April 2021 and is available to pre-order now.

It will hold your hand as you learn how to dismantle diet culture around kids, giving practical tools, expert insight and evidence-based advice to raise children and teens who are friends with their bodies. Accompanied with beautiful illustrations by Stacie Swift to highlight key concepts in the book. 

Featuring wisdom from more than thirty academics, educators, scientists, activists, nutritionists, doctors, therapists and health first fitness and movement experts from around the world, along with decades worth of academic research, Body Happy Kids brings a broad perspective to a vast and nuanced subject. 

From the impact of body ideals, self-objectification and gender stereotypes to social media, emotional literacy and the power of words when we speak about bodies, to the inevitable health question, to joyful movement, to happy eating, to TV, to clothes… and more, the book gets into it all. 

Diet culture is stealing our children’s childhoods and, with this book, you’ll be empowered to do something about it. 

Apparently pre-orders really matter because they give retailers the confidence to actually stock the book, so if you can, please do pre-order. The book’s available to pre-order everywhere including Amazon, Waterstones, Hive and Bookshop.org. 

It’s written for any adults who are ever around children – parents, grandparents, aunts, uncles, teachers, youth leaders, dance teachers, Brownies, Scouts and Guides leaders… the lot. If you care about cancelling diet culture around kids and reversing the epidemic of body shame the current generation of children is growing up with, then this book is for you too. Everyone is welcome. 

And if you know someone who you think may benefit from the book then please do share the news. Over the next couple of months over on Instagram I’ll be sharing some previews from the book, we’ll have interviews with some of the people who’ve contributed to it, I’ll share some behind the scenes of how it all came to be (writing a book during a global pandemic wasn’t the original plan!). 

The world is a very different place from the one that I wrote the initial book proposal in. I got the book deal three weeks into lockdown when I was homeschooling my two children while working full time across multiple different projects – which I continued to do while I wrote the book. The alternative was for the book not to exist and that was never an option.

I probably won’t be here that much in the future. My purpose since starting the blog ten years ago has changed and I’m working on so many things away from this corner of the internet I can’t give it the love it deserves. But I might pop in from time to time to dust off the cobwebs, say hello and remember a time when I used to write about sleep deprivation and breastfeeding, motherhood guilt and post-baby relationships. This was the place where it all started.

For now though THANK YOU for being here and, if you’ve supported my work around body image over the past few years THANK YOU for that too. It often feels like pushing water up a hill but it’s a push worth doing because my kids – and yours – deserve better.

OK, let’s do this. 

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Hello and welcome! I'm Molly Forbes - podcaster, presenter and blogger with a passion for positivity, confidence and body image chat. Regularly writing and vlogging about empowering female issues from a motherhood angle, I also cover lifestyle and fashion topics for like-minded mums who want to rediscover themselves after having children. Thanks for stopping by! Read More…

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YOUTUBE

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THANK YOU ❤️ I’ve felt a bit flat the last w THANK YOU ❤️ I’ve felt a bit flat the last week, but after steeling myself to take a look at some reviews that flatness is easing. 
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Maybe this feeling is normal? A post-publication day flatness... it’s familiar and kind of expected, I’ve felt it after any big thing. A kind of anti-climax, mixture of exhaustion and overwhelm maybe?
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Publishing in a pandemic is tough and the fact I haven’t even been able to see my book in a bookshop doesn’t help. There’s been no celebration with friends and family, no fun launch event, no way to officially mark it as such - that’s all on hold. And self-promotion always feels a bit cringe, but I know it’s important - not just to get the book out in the world but also to show my daughters that as women we must be proud of our achievements. Particularly when we’re so often told to be quiet. 
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So here I am sharing this bloody wonderful review for Body Happy Kids: How to help children and teens love the skin they’re in. It speaks for itself. And while I’m here I’m going to be super direct and get over myself, to ask YOU to please leave a review if you’ve read the book too. It really does make a difference. Apparently Good Reads is also important (thank you to my buddy and book cheer leader @giraffemilklady for that nugget of advice).
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I’ve got a few cool bits of press coming up about the book but you can’t rely on media coverage of books - particularly when you’re not a celeb or have hundreds of thousands of Instagram followers. So word of mouth really is more important than ever. THANK YOU ✨
#BodyHappyKids 
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#bodyacceptance #bodyimage 
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[Image description: a screenshot of a five star Amazon review of the book Body Happy Kids. Full text in Alt Text.]
Body Happy Kids has been out in the world for just Body Happy Kids has been out in the world for just over a week 🎉 It’s been wonderful and overwhelming to see people reading it all over the world. I’m so grateful for everyone tagging me in their posts and Stories, particularly as I haven’t been able to see the book in a real life book shop yet 😭 (publishing in a pandemic is tough 💔). 
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If you’ve read the book I would be ever so grateful if you could leave it a review on Amazon. I’m told it makes a difference and can help some people decide whether to read it or not!
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This is a tiny thread taken from the chapter about toys. There’s some fascinating research into the impact of toys on body image in kids, showing that what children plays with matters. It’s not a straightforward case of banning Barbie (my 6yo loves her Barbies) but more a case of being mindful of the impact of these toys, talking about them and making sure kids have a range of different types of toys to play with. There’s a toolkit at the end of the chapter to help with this.
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As well as the research you’ll hear about in that chapter you’ll also hear from brilliant academics @christiaspearsbrown and @kopanoratele about the impact that gender stereotypes in toys have on the body image of children.
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In the meantime, swipe through to read a bit more about Barbie (including Slumber Party Barbie from 1960s 😱)
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[Full text in Alt Text]
I want to see more B roll photos. I want to see th I want to see more B roll photos. I want to see the deleted photos, lying forgotten deep at the bottom of the trash folder. The discarded selfies. The ones taken and hastily replaced with ten “better” ones. I want the perfect imperfection, the unglossy, unfiltered, messy, grainy slightly out of focus frazzled photos. 
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Not because we’re making a point about Insta versus reality, or to show that “even the girl in the photo doesn’t look like the girl in the photo”, or as the punchline to a joke about angles and what other people see versus what our phone sees when we swipe up. Just because. 
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I want my daughters (when they’re old enough to have phones), to feel able to show up with a make-up free, unfiltered face without feeling like they need to do so with a caveat or an apology. I want them to be able to exist online just as they are, without being hailed as “so brave” just for putting up an image of them living their life that hasn’t been taken under perfect lighting or with on-fleek brows or posed just-so. 
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We live in an age where we are all judging others and ourselves based on our appearance more than ever. Defining other peoples’ bodies. Deciding who is worthy or not worthy, who gets to speak, who gets our attention, based on what they look like. And looking at ourselves through the glare of a camera phone or zoom filter for hours every day. Living outside of our bodies and our faces. It’s. So. Boring.
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Talk to me about what you saw today, what you read, who you spoke to, what made you laugh, what made you think, that TV show that made you sob, the art that gave you tingles, the chat with your mate that left you aching to hug them. 
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Show me the B roll photos, the messy, accidental, fuzzy, real moments of unposed, unselfconscious LIFE. I’m here for it. Here’s mine.
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[Image description in comments.]
Today the Women and Equalities Commission released Today the Women and Equalities Commission released a big report into body image, with a whole raft of recommendations for the government to implement. The report included the findings of a large survey they did last year which found 66% of children suffer with negative feelings about their bodies most of the time. 
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There are a number of recommendations in the report, including scrapping the use of BMI as a measurement of health, getting rid of the National Child Measurement Programme (NCMP) that sees children being weighed in school, and encouraging the Department of Education to take a whole school approach to body image (as well as regularly reviewing the RSHE curriculum). 
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Doing this job often feels like pushing water up a hill. It’s frustrating, anxiety inducing and regularly leaves me burned out. But there is no alternative because we MUST have change. Our children deserve better. We ALL deserve better. Today’s report is some welcome news and now it’s on all of us to continue the work and show we care about these issues. The more the government realises it’s an issue that people want prioritised, the more seriously they will take the findings and recommendations in the report. 
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They have eight weeks to respond. We mustn’t stop talking about this. 
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Parents, teachers, youth leaders: follow @bodyhappyorg (the social enterprise I founded to promote positive body image in children and teens) for more support in this area. 
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I’m sharing what we offer here on my own account as I know there are some new people following me since the publication of my book last week and I want to let you know what resources and support we can offer in this area. I work with a brilliant team of people at @bodyhappyorg who are all equally committed to these issues. Hopefully this post will be useful - if you’re a parent we have support for you too. Check out the links in my bio or the @bodyhappyorg bio ❤️
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Last night I posted a reel about saying no to diet Last night I posted a reel about saying no to diet culture and someone commented that it wasn’t so dramatic as a straight-sized white woman. They were right, it’s not. Hopefully this post explains why, but I want to make it super clear where I stand because this stuff is important. 
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Also, a gentle reminder: it’s never OK to comment on or define someone else’s body without their consent. Holding people to account is important and appreciated. But piling in with comments about someone’s body as if they’re not there is rude and crosses a boundary I hold for my own body, and the bodies of others. 
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Thank you for being here ❤️
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No you’re crying. Can’t express how much this No you’re crying. Can’t express how much this means to me. 😭 #BodyHappyKids
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[Image description: A yellow square with a screenshot of a DM overlaid which reads “I’ve only read one chapter and I’m finding it so moving. There is not a moment of the day when I don’t worry about my 9 year old and how as a bigger child he may be stigmatised. I feel so empowered to have this book. We did the affirmations this morning and even the 2.5 year old joined in. Both my boys demeanour changed and when discussing ways in which the eldest thought his body was amazing was incredibly empowering. Thank you.”]
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