Now you all would have known about Australian's sweetheart egg. But she's an Olympian. But she's an ex swimmer. Libby Tricketts, Oh incredible. She's won so many gold medals, she still holds records. She's truly amazing. And now she is a mum of four beautiful children and recently she wrote an article for Mama Mia around something that her eight year old experienced and it really I mean as a mum, it really struck me, but also just as a woman.
It's something that I think everybody has been through at some point in their life, and that is conversations around your weight and especially as your body changes. Now, Libby's little girl is eight years old and we have her on the phone, not the little.
Girl, we have Libby on the phone to talk about it. Hi Libby, Hi Libby, Welcome to the show.
Thank you so much for having me on.
Question Libby, what has happened?
Because there's a lot of dialogue between something that's gone down between some of your friends and something they said to your daughter.
Basically, what happened was I was in the kitchen area just around the corner from where my daughter was with someone close to us, and they basically said to her, oh, Poppy, you look like you've lost weight. You're looking fantastic. Your daughter lost right, Yeah, to my eight year old, like directly to her. And because I wasn't in the exact presence, but you know, was overhearing the conversation, I was just completely shocked to the point that I had no words.
I felt really annoyed at myself that I didn't kind of call it out in the moment, but I actually think it was for the best because then I could pull Poppy aside later try not to make too big a deal of it. And we just basically said, look, this is not how we talk about bodies. That's not what is valuable. What we care about as a family is that you know, we're moving our bodies. We're healthy, we're strong, and we're fueling it in the ways that
is what is needed. She's eight years old, right like, this is just so far from her brain and I shouldn't have.
To be living. That's the thing. It breaks my heart to think that she would then she could then go and look in the mirror and go, wait, am I bigger? Do I look fat?
It is something that I think all of us have experienced on some level. I know my sister is in a larger body and has been most of her life and has recently lost a significant amount of weight, and she just is horrified by how much better she's treated now. And that's horrific, Like we shouldn't as a society, we
shouldn't be doing that stuff. But it starts at eight years old when someone says something that seemingly on the surface is a compliment, right, it's something that is totally but we're saying that she looks great, you know, but that things that maybe she looks worse before, or you know, from the person's perspective, she looked worse before, and that can get internalized and there's insidious, little toxic comments becomes something that this never should have been anything.
Do you think it's generational though, because you know, I think all of us are growing and we're raising our children more of a conscious way because we think about the things that we experienced as kids and whatnot. But it is sometimes the older generation. I don't want to stereotype, but that's where some of the negative comments can come from.
Absolutely, And you know, this person is of an older generation and we spoke to them right, and we had the conversation directly with them. We said, this isn't how we talk about bodies now. We don't talk about weight, we don't talk about, you know, how we look. We talk about being kind and funny and smart and hard working, and that's what is valuable, not what we look like. But you know, as a society we still have a huge issue with looks and that being the value of someone's important.
Were they okay with it once you explain it to them, like your friend, they understand the problem and where they went wrong.
Yeah, they actually responded really well, and that washeartening, I think. But I also know that that is conditioning for them, because I then overheard them say something about someone else in another conversation. Their conditioned right, that that's how they were brought up, that's what was valuable to them. And so I'm going to still be very conscious when these people are around us, because you know, it's hard to
know that those behaviors will change immediately. I think over the long term it will change, But it's being conscious, you know, about what is happening in our house and what my girls are exposed to, what Alfie, my son is exposed to and be open to having those conversations because I think the thing that we experienced is that it was just all swept under the rug. We wouldn't even approach it. We'll just kind of internalize it and get sad and completely different times.
I went all the way ins with my mum when she was on white watches as a kid. That's what made me game. You were shocked when I came out. It's because I was with all the women going did you lose weight this week? Ways, all right, leave you Triggert. Thank you. If you want to read that article, it's on mamama dot com. Go over read. Thank you for coming on the tickut. We adore you.
My absolute pleasure. Guys,