Maintaining a Positive Body Image in Child Modeling
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The modeling industry can be an extremely beautiful place, where magic happens and dreams become a reality. However, there is also a dark side of rejection and toughness. You have to have thick skin, they say, but it’s also important to hold true to your values. In today’s world we are bombarded with images of what “beauty” should look like and that can be very damaging to a lot of people, especially child models. They are held up to a standard that others are not and are constantly being compared against other children. It is important that your child always feels comfortable in their own skin, and with your help, guidance and love — you can keep them on the right track, in every way. In this blog, we’ll be discussing ways to help your child model maintain a positive body image, while progressing in their career.
Use Positive Language
There are a lot of negative discussions going around about what body is the most “beautiful”, or what look is “best”. These all need to be tossed out the window because they are purely meant to hurt, and have no positive side at all. It’s much better and more beneficial to first speak about being a good person and then discuss health, not beauty. Being beautiful is not the same as being healthy, sometimes a lot of people go to extreme lengths in order to fit into the “beauty standard” that the modeling industry imposes.
Discuss Social Media
Social media is key to a successful modeling career. You can’t be a successful child model without a social media presence, however the amount of time spent on social media can be damaging. There are so many people on social media pushing their own beauty ideals, and subscribing to theirs is not always beneficial. Better to always keep in mind that social media is a world of its own, and not always real. There are filters, photoshop, and many other tricks that are used in order to change one's body and how it appears in a photo. It’s good to take a break from social media, and see what the real world looks like, rather than getting sucked into a false reality.
Establish Healthy Habits
One thing that can be done at home is simply adding healthy choices to their everyday lives. As a reminder, this has nothing to do with doing anything about being skinnier, it is solely to make sure they are living their healthiest lives. It’s important to maintain a healthy lifestyle while modeling because it can be all too easy to simply eat takeout all the time while traveling. It’s also important to fill their days with physical activity especially since a lot of jobs for kids entail sports. Having some athletic skills is helpful for booking jobs, as well as maintaining a solid state of health.
Being body positive means embracing the person someone is before judging them for their body. It is important to be healthy but not in order to meet some beauty requirement, but because living a healthy life is important no matter what job you have. The key is to ensure your child always knows that who they are is most important and not what they look like. As long as they are good people, all the successes will come, and being a beautiful person is more important than meeting an unrealistic “beauty standard”. To find out more about our child modeling agency, visit our website.