Nursery World - Children as young as three unhappy with the way they look

Nearly a third of early years practitioners have heard a child calling themselves fat, with children as young as three are worried about their weight, according to new research.

A survey of childcare professionals by PACEY suggests that a quarter of them have witnessed signs that children aged between three- and five-years-old are already worried about what their bodies look like.

PACEY says that the research highlights how body image is affecting children’s self-esteem at a younger and younger age. Seventy-one per cent of childcarers said that children are becoming anxious about body image at a younger age, with 57 per cent of the view that girls are more conscious of how they look than boys.

Phrases such as ‘She/he is fat’ are commonly heard among children in childcare settings – 31 per cent of practitioners said that they have heard a child call themselves fat.

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