Award-winning Christian artist Natalie Grant is making a desperate plea this week for moms to stop body shaming their kids after a trip to her daughter’s doctor left her heartbroken.
Grant took to Instagram with a video about the encounter that happened when she took her 8-year-old daughter Sadie in for her annual checkup.
She says that Sadie got on the scale to get her height and weight before heading into an examination room. As they gathered their things, another mom walked in with her daughter who stepped on the scale to take her height and weight.
“This [teenage] girl gets on the scale and her mom, loudly, so that everybody could hear, goes, ‘Woah, you’re getting up there, oh my word,’” Grant said, describing what she witnessed.
The remark made her so upset Grant added that she “wanted to punch that mom”
“When I looked at that beautiful teenage girl, when I looked at her face that was just covered in shame, she just wanted to disappear,” Grant said. “We were leaving and I just said [to her] I hope you know how beautiful you are, I mean you ARE so beautiful!”
The singer went on to stress how shocked she was to see just how much “destruction” that one comment caused in that sweet girl.
Using her post as a public service announcement, Grant shared a statistic that found 63% of those surveyed in a study said they had been body-shamed by their mothers. She encouraged moms to “take inventory” of what they say to their kids, how they say it, and even what their body language says to their kids about their appearance.
“Moms, we have to do better than that. I am not a perfect mom, I make so many mistakes every single day. But I’m telling you, that is not going to be one of them,” Grant passionately declared.
She added, “My three daughters will have a hard enough time with their self-image, their body image, with what the world is throwing at them. I should be the last person that would ever body shame my beautiful daughter’s. Moms, don’t do it. You gotta do better for your kids!”
The singer concluded with a rally cry to moms saying, “Let’s be better for our kids.”
The post garnered praise from thousands of followers, many who took to the comments with their own stories of how negative comments from their mothers led to eating disorders and depleted self-esteem.
“One comment can take a lifetime to untangle,” Grant wrote.
