It probably would depend on the age of the child telling me I was fat. If she was a younger child between ages 3-6 I would likely ignore her remark, since these little ones likely see us adults through their little eyes as giants anyway whom they have to look up to (literally UP to). So an adult, whether he or she is overweight or not, can look huge to a small child, and that could certainly be what the child was referring to when she called the friend fat. Also, little children are very smart and tend to compare themselves to others in their environment (mostly friends, but sometimes adults). Maybe she regarded her little body and came to the conclusion that compared to herself, her mom’s friend looked “fat”. Still the term “fat” came from somewhere and understanding the child’s perception of what or who is truly fat may be important to help figure out what her values are regarding people whom she believes to be overweight. That said, it would become more problematic, if her health conscious mother at some point referred to another person as fat in front of her child and she is now repeating what she heard her mother say. Moreover, if her mother is very slim and places great stress on maintaining her figure, then her child has likely become accustomed to her views on health and physical fitness and tends to see everyone whose body shape and weight does not correspond to that of her mother as “fat”. Of course, if it was an older child who called the mother’s friend fat, the blurt-out may become less acceptable, since most people feel older children should know better. However, children do sometimes say these “darnest things”, oftentimes just to get the attention of the grownup or to watch his/her reaction to the statement. Overall, it is best not to overreact to much so that the child does not get the impression (even if the statement held some truth and the person was somewhat overweight) that being “fat” is a bad thing. I personally have experienced a similar incident when my friend’s 4-year old asked me “why is your belly getting rounder? Is there a baby in it?” Well, good question. I’ve been asking myself why my belly is getting rounder, and no – no baby is in there. But sometimes childhood curiosity, as well as limit-testing does play a part in questions and statements children utter that sometimes upset especially us weight-sensitive people. I’m not happy of having gotten a “rounder belly”, so yes, I could have been hurt a little bit by her statement (especially since the 4-year old’s mother is also a health freak with a tiny frame) had I not realized that it was a child asking me this. Sometimes as adults we take things children say and grade them as harshly with our judgment as we would, had another adult told us the same thing. Instead of feeling hurt, I told my friend’s 4-year old, “No, there’s no baby in there right now. But my belly is just practicing being round for when I’m ready to have a baby in there”. Needless to say, I never mentioned it to my friend.