She has thick fleshy cheeks or chipmunk cheeks but she’s not fat.

Some kids just have round faces like that. I did too. They grow into them. No big deal.

Little girls often get temporary pot bellies preceding or along with a growth spurt. Kids don’t grow proportionately. It evens out in the end. No big deal.

Sometimes with a huge growth spurt it affects how they stand and present themselves. It takes them a while to become accustomed to their new size. Until then, they kinda slouch and pooch their belly out. It makes them look bigger, or fat, in pictures, especially ones angled down. But that’s just bad optics, not reality. No big deal.

You’ve got a cute kid. You’re a good, caring mom. You’re clearly doing more than most to help your daughter build healthy eating habits.

Work on you and your relationship with food and don’t worry about her so much. If she’s eating well, not binging *all the time or emotionally eating, and eating variety she’s fine.

At some point much later down the road, you’re going to have to help her rebuff body shaming and not because she’s too fat or too thin (it won’t matter what she looks like, it might not even be about weight) but because people can’t seem to help policing female bodies or talking about what they find wrong with them. So start thinking about those conversations now.

Other than that, relax. Spend your mental energy on making fun memories.

May I recommend a paper football tournament of champions. Those were fun times. Double points if she bonks it off your nose.

~

*I want to be clear that a lot of kids “binge" prior to a growth spurt, my daughter included. They just can’t get full. As long as it’s not consistently ongoing and they’re not making themselves sick I wouldn’t worry about it too much.