My Single Mom Life

Mark and Sebastian are typical brothers, calling each other names, picking on each other, fighting, brothers.
Well this evening Sebastian called Mark fat, Mark called him a not-so-nice name back, and then a little bit later when I was in my room stretching out, Mark came in to talk to me.

He asked me if he was fat, did I think he needed to be on a diet, cutting out carbs, taking some sort of diet pill like Fentraphen or something like I was taking.

I emphatically said NO.
I told him that he's still growing, he's not fat, he may be a little overweight, but for his height, a few workouts and it would all turn to muscle.
I told him if it concerned him, that he should ride his bike more, or go and see if he can get back in the weight room at school again, join a sport or something, but no, in my opinion, he is not fat.
Fat to me is really overweight, which he is not, he has love handles, small ones, but he's still growing, and he'll be fine, but under no circumstances did I think he should take any supplements to help him lose weight.
We talked for a bit longer about food that he likes to eat, maybe not eat so much of them, that we could go shopping and buy more fruits and veggies, get outside and ride his bike, do more stuff, and he seemed to be ok after that.

I really hate that both boys and girls are plagued by the word "fat", that it weighs so heavily on their minds, that they see all these images of "perfect" bodies and think that they are somehow less than those images, not good enough.
I'm not sure how to help more than that, how to make him see that he's not fat, but he certainly doesn't have to try and be the perfect body either, because those bodies are airbrushed and photoshopped, and even people like Beckham get a sock stuffed in their underwear to sell more Armani.
No body is perfect, every body, has flaws, but you have to live as healthy as you can and be happy for yourself, not other people's ideas of perfect.