My 9-year-old called herself fat. This was my response.
My youngest - my only girl - is about to turn 10.
She's grown up in a home where food is fuel, not a diet. Where I've never once told her she needs to lose weight, never called her anything close to fat, never scolded her for what she eats. She watches me weigh my food, track my food, move my body, live healthy — not because I'm chasing a number, but because I love how it makes me feel.
And a few days ago, she got on the scale, looked at me, and said: "I'm fat. I'm getting bigger. Look at me."
She's NINE.
I sat with that. I'm still sitting with it, honestly. Because no matter how careful I've been with my words, she is absorbing something bigger than what I say to her — she's absorbing a world.
So here's what I want her to know. What I wish someone had told me decades before I figured it out myself:
Your weight does not equal your worth. The number on the scale does not equal health.
Health is true muscle. Health is nourishment — real food, the kind God made for us, animal and plant. Health is sleep. It's a nervous system that isn't stuck in stress. It's movement, a walk outside, a body that gets to feel joy instead of just being managed.
And here's the thing about those women we scroll past — the six-packs, the flat stomachs, the bodies that look like they have it all figured out. You have no idea what's actually behind that. You don't know if she's on peptides. You don't know if she's on testosterone or HRT. You don't know how little she's actually eating, or whether her whole life revolves around maintaining that one look, or whether she's even happy underneath it.
You're comparing your real, whole life to a highlight reel you don't have the full story on. Growing your own grass, on your own side of the fence, is so much better than staring at someone else's.
I want my daughter to know that. And honestly — I want you to know it too, because I still have to remind myself.
Here's what I actually believe, all the way down: our purpose here isn't to have the perfect body. It's to glorify God — in how we treat our bodies, yes, but also in our souls, our hearts, how we speak to people, how we love people. This body isn't going to heaven. We are. It doesn't have to be a six-pack to be enough.
But I still want my daughter — and you — to feel confident now, in this body, in this life. Because a mom who's confident, who's healthy in mind and soul, who actually understands what's going on inside her body and how to fuel it and care for it — she's a better mom. A better woman, employee, friend. Not because she's thinner. Because she's not sick, not depleted, not at war with herself.
That's the balance I want for you. Not obese. Not starving yourself down to skinny. Just fed, strong, and free — understanding how to fuel your one body for the one life you've been given.
This is exactly what I teach inside Strong & Synced, and I'm opening the doors again soon.
Grab whichever one speaks to you. Start there. I'll see you when the doors open.
In true health — Caitlyn 💛