We Teach Girls About Periods. TikTok Is Teaching Them Everything Else.

When should you talk to your daughter about puberty, periods, body image and female health? Earlier than many parents think. Live Life Whole co-founders Meg and Sarah explain what girls should understand about their bodies from primary school through the teenage years, and how mums and dads can start those conversations without making everyone want to crawl under the table.

My daughter is nine, which in my head still puts her firmly in the category of cartwheels, friendship dramas, school lunches returning home uneaten and somehow never being able to find the shoes that were definitely beside the front door five minutes ago. Except nine apparently isn’t as little as I would occasionally like to pretend it is.

Girls this age are already being exposed to conversations about skincare, food, bodies, exercise, wellness and appearance. They can stumble across a perfectly lit stranger explaining how to “fix” their hormones before they necessarily understand what hormones actually do. Meanwhile, plenty of us parents are mentally filing puberty under “conversation for Future Me”.

Unfortunately, puberty has other ideas.

Meg and Sarah, co-founders of Live Life Whole, say practitioners are seeing puberty begin from around eight, with some girls getting their first period before they finish primary school. Their advice is to start conversations about female health earlier than many parents expect, but in much smaller pieces than we probably fear.

That last bit feels important because nobody is suggesting you sit your eight-year-old down after breakfast and announce, “Right. Cancel Bluey. Today we’re covering hormones, pelvic floors and bone density.” The point is almost the opposite. We need to stop thinking about female health as one enormous, mortifying Talk and start treating it as something our daughters simply grow up understanding.

When Should You Start Talking to Your Daughter About Puberty?

Conversations about puberty can begin from around six to eight with simple, age-appropriate information about bodies, correct names for body parts, how bodies grow and change and the understanding that her body belongs to her. By eight to ten, girls can start learning what puberty and periods actually involve before those changes happen.

In other words, “She’s only eight” may be precisely why it’s a good time to begin.

Meg and Sarah recommend talking about periods, breast development, body hair and the fact that everyone’s timing is different. They also suggest showing girls pads and period undies and putting a small period kit in their school bag before they need it.

I love the practicality of this. We’re not creating fear around something that might happen. We’re quietly giving them a map before they arrive.

By 11 to 14, Live Life Whole recommends going deeper into the menstrual cycle as an indicator of health rather than treating it purely as a monthly inconvenience. Girls can begin learning what’s normal, what isn’t and how hormones can interact with mood, sleep and energy.

From around 15, the focus shifts increasingly towards taking ownership of their health: tracking their cycle, knowing when to see a GP, understanding areas including bone, gut and pelvic health, identifying reliable health information and learning how to speak up in a medical appointment.

The important part is that none of this requires one terrifying three-hour conversation. As Meg and Sarah put it, “It’s not one big talk. It’s lots of small ones.”

What Should an 8 to 10-Year-Old Know About Puberty?

An eight to ten-year-old doesn’t need a medical degree in female physiology, but she should have enough information to recognise the changes happening to her body without wondering whether something is wrong.

That means understanding what a period is and why it happens, knowing that breasts and body hair develop during puberty, understanding that bodies don’t all change at the same age or speed and having some practical knowledge about period products before they’re needed. It’s also an important age to start talking about fuelling a growing body properly.

This is where I think we sometimes underestimate our girls. Meg and Sarah say that after working with more than 25,000 women and girls, they’ve found girls’ questions are often incredibly practical.

“Is discharge normal?” “Can I still swim or play sport on my period?” “How do I know if I’m eating enough?” “Why do I feel so tired at training some weeks?”

These aren’t children desperately trying to avoid the subject. They’re children trying to understand what’s happening to them.

In fact, one of Meg and Sarah’s observations really stayed with me: “They’re not embarrassed by the information, they’re embarrassed by the silence around it.”

Maybe we’re the awkward ones.

What Should Girls Know About Their Periods?

Girls should understand that periods are not simply something inconvenient that happens once a month. Their menstrual cycle can provide useful information about their health, and knowing what’s normal for their own body can help them recognise when something might need further investigation.

One of the biggest knowledge gaps Meg and Sarah see is that girls know something is happening to their bodies but don’t necessarily understand why. Some expect a menstrual cycle to run perfectly every 28 days and worry when it doesn’t, despite irregular cycles being common in the first few years. Others go in the opposite direction and don’t realise that extreme pain, very heavy bleeding or missing periods are things worth discussing with a doctor.

This matters because plenty of adult women are still discovering things about their own bodies decades later.

Meg and Sarah say almost every woman they speak to has some version of the same story: she learns something important about her body in her 20s, 30s or 40s and immediately wonders, “Why did nobody tell me this sooner?”

Period pain is a big example. They say many women were taught that pain severe enough to keep them home from school or work was “just part of being a woman”. Their women’s health physiotherapists stress that pain of that severity deserves investigation, with conditions such as endometriosis sometimes diagnosed years after symptoms first appeared during adolescence.

Teaching a girl about periods, then, shouldn’t only mean teaching her how to use a pad. It should also mean teaching her that she doesn’t have to quietly tolerate symptoms that are significantly interfering with her life.

Why Is Girls’ Health About Much More Than Periods?

Periods matter enormously, but female health also encompasses nutrition, iron, sleep, bone health, gut health, pelvic floor health, mental wellbeing, body image, self-worth and boundaries.

Live Life Whole approaches girls’ and women’s health through three connected areas: body, mind and self.

On the physical side, Meg and Sarah say we’re not talking enough about nutrition and fuelling, particularly for active, growing girls. They also identify sleep, iron, gut health, bone health, skin, breast health and pelvic floor health as areas girls need to understand.

Bone health particularly surprised me. Their physiotherapists point out that much of the bone strength women have for life is built during adolescence and early adulthood. By the time bone density becomes a conversation in a doctor’s office years later, an important opportunity to build it has already passed.

Then there’s the mind. Stress and emotional wellbeing don’t exist in a completely separate box from physical health. Stress can show up through sleep, the gut and the menstrual cycle, while practical tools for managing it can become part of a girl’s health education.

Finally, there’s the self: understanding her values, learning boundaries, developing self-worth and learning how to speak to herself kindly. As Live Life Whole puts it, these are health skills too.

It raises an interesting question for parents. Are we teaching our daughters how their bodies work, or mostly teaching them what to do when something happens to them?

Because there is a fairly substantial difference.

How Can Parents Help Girls Develop a Healthy Body Image?

Parents can help girls develop a healthier body image by shifting attention away from appearance and towards what their bodies can do, avoiding commentary about weight and other people’s bodies, keeping food morally neutral and helping girls build an identity around their interests, abilities, relationships and values.

And this conversation may need to begin earlier than we think.

Meg and Sarah say their psychologists and dietitians are seeing girls as young as nine or ten comparing themselves with friends, older girls and people they see online. By adolescence, body image can influence what girls eat, what they wear and whether they continue playing sport.

Their advice is refreshingly practical. Praise her strength, energy, skill, kindness and curiosity. Make food about nourishment and enjoyment rather than punishment or reward. Encourage movement that feels good rather than exercise designed to change her shape, and help her build a sense of herself around things that have absolutely nothing to do with how she looks.

Parents should also pay attention when something changes. Skipping meals, obsessive exercise or significant distress about food or weight shouldn’t simply be dismissed as a phase. Meg and Sarah recommend speaking with a GP early if something feels wrong.

How Do You Talk to Girls About Weight, Dieting and Food?

Perhaps one of the most powerful things parents can do is examine the way we talk about our own bodies and food, because girls absorb far more from our everyday comments than we may realise.

And yes, this is the section where things become mildly uncomfortable for the grown-ups.

You can give your daughter all the body-positive speeches in the world, but if she regularly hears you stand in front of the mirror criticising your stomach, declaring you’ve been “bad” because you ate dessert or announcing another diet before summer, she’s receiving another lesson at exactly the same time.

Meg and Sarah say the influence is enormous. When a girl repeatedly hears her mum criticising her own body or attaching guilt to food, she can begin learning that bodies are things that need to be managed and fixed and that food is something to feel guilty about.

And it isn’t only mums. Dads, grandparents, coaches and older siblings all contribute to the language surrounding girls. Even seemingly complimentary comments about someone losing weight can reinforce the idea that body size is something other people are watching and evaluating.

As a parent, this is mildly inconvenient information. It’s considerably easier to tell your child to love her body than to catch yourself complaining about your own because your jeans are apparently involved in some sort of conspiracy.

Live Life Whole recommends dropping “good” and “bad” labels around food, eating a variety of foods without drama and letting children see adults move their bodies because it feels good. And when we inevitably catch ourselves slipping back into old language, we can correct ourselves. “I shouldn’t have spoken about myself like that” can be a powerful thing for a child to hear.

How Can Parents Help Girls Spot Bad Health Advice on TikTok and Social Media?

Girls can learn to identify unreliable health advice online by asking who is giving the advice, whether that person is qualified, whether they’re selling something, whether the claim sounds extreme or too good to be true and whether the information can be verified through a credible health source.

Welcome to the era in which Dr TikTok will see your daughter now.

Girls have access to more health information than any generation before them. Unfortunately, they also have access to an extraordinary amount of health nonsense. As Meg and Sarah rather brilliantly describe it, much of that advice comes from people with “great lighting and no qualifications”.

Their solution isn’t simply to ban social media. Instead, they teach girls to ask better questions. Who is saying this and what are their qualifications? Is the person selling the product, powder or program they’re recommending? Are they promising to “detox” something, eliminate entire food groups or magically fix hormones in a week? Does the information leave you feeling more capable or does it make you feel worse about yourself? Can you check the claim somewhere credible?

For parents, curiosity may get us further than ridicule. Instead of immediately declaring the latest TikTok claim ridiculous, ask what your daughter has seen. Watch it together and pull it apart. Who made it? Why might they have made it? What are they selling? Where else could you check the information?

We can’t spend the rest of their lives standing beside them deleting questionable wellness advice from their feeds. At some point, we need to teach them how to recognise it themselves.

What Do Girls Who Play Sport Need to Know About Periods, Food and Iron?

Active girls need enough food to support both growth and training, and parents and coaches should understand that menstrual changes, fatigue, low iron, recovery, bone health and pelvic floor symptoms can all warrant attention.

This section particularly caught my attention because many parents spend a sizeable portion of their week driving children to training, washing uniforms and wondering how one small person can require quite so many snacks.

For growing girls who play sport, those snacks actually matter.

Live Life Whole’s dietitians say many active girls simply aren’t eating enough to cover both their training and growth. Over time, under-fuelling can affect periods, bones, energy, mood, recovery and sporting performance. This is known as low energy availability or RED-S.

Importantly, a missing or irregular period in an athlete isn’t necessarily a badge of honour proving she’s training hard. Meg and Sarah say it can be a sign that her body doesn’t have enough fuel and is worth discussing with a GP.

Iron is another consideration. Their dietitians point out that girls lose iron through menstruation and training, and low iron can be a common and treatable reason for fatigue and poorer performance. Pelvic floor health also deserves a conversation, with leaking during high-impact sports such as netball, gymnastics, running or trampolining described as common in young athletes but not something they should simply accept.

Most importantly, sport should remain somewhere girls feel strong and capable. Comments about weight, uniforms and body comparison can push girls away from sport at precisely the age when movement, friendship, confidence and belonging can offer so much.

How Do You Talk to Your Daughter About Puberty Without Making It Awkward?

The easiest way to talk about puberty is usually through lots of short, casual conversations rather than one formal “puberty talk”. Car trips, walks, cooking together, television storylines and everyday questions can all create less awkward opportunities to talk.

This is probably where many of us get stuck. We know we’re supposed to talk. We just don’t necessarily want to announce over dinner, “While everyone has the spaghetti, let’s discuss vaginal discharge.”

Fortunately, Meg and Sarah aren’t recommending that either.

They suggest using side-by-side moments because conversations in the car, on a walk or while cooking can feel far less intense than sitting opposite one another at the table. Books, television storylines, school programs or questions from siblings can also provide natural openings.

Use the correct words and say them normally. “Period”, “breasts” and “pelvic floor” don’t require a special whispering voice.

Perhaps most reassuringly, parents don’t need to know everything. “I don’t know, let’s find out together” is a perfectly good response. In fact, it teaches children something arguably more useful than pretending Mum and Dad are walking medical encyclopaedias: how to find good information when they don’t know something.

What Are the Five Things Every Girl Should Know About Her Health Before She Leaves School?

If Meg and Sarah could make sure every girl understood five things about her health before finishing school, they’d want her to understand her menstrual cycle, know that her body needs adequate fuel, recognise the connection between physical and mental health, understand that she’s building future health during adolescence and know that her worth isn’t determined by her appearance.

First, her period is a sign of her health. She should have some understanding of what’s normal for her and know that pain which stops her living her life deserves medical attention.

Second, her body needs fuel, not restriction. Eating enough and eating regularly supports her brain, bones, growth, mood and physical activity. Food isn’t something she has to earn or something she should feel guilty about.

Third, her body and mind are connected. Stress, sleep, hormones, nutrition and emotions don’t operate independently of one another.

Fourth, she’s building her future health now. Adolescence isn’t simply the slightly chaotic waiting room before adulthood. The habits she forms and the bone strength she builds during these years can support her health for decades.

Finally, her worth isn’t defined by her appearance and she has the right to speak up. She deserves to set boundaries, ask questions and be taken seriously when she asks for help, including in a doctor’s office.

We don’t need our daughters to leave school capable of diagnosing themselves. We need them to leave understanding their bodies well enough to notice when something changes, confident enough to ask questions and informed enough to know that being female doesn’t mean quietly putting up with pain, exhaustion, embarrassment or discomfort because someone once told them it was “normal”.

Maybe the Goal Isn’t One Big Talk After All

I started this thinking about what I should be telling my nine-year-old. I came away thinking perhaps I’ve been framing the whole thing incorrectly. There isn’t one conversation I’m supposed to have with her. There are hundreds of small ones woven into ordinary family life.

It might be a 30-second conversation in the car, a question after school, a packet of period undies casually explained before they’re ever required, talking about why a TikTok claim sounds suspicious, catching myself before criticising my own body or explaining why breakfast before sport matters. Some conversations will probably be met with an eye roll. Others will inevitably happen when we’re running late, I’ve got three other things on my mind and I would have preferred approximately 24 hours’ notice to prepare my response. That’s parenting.

Perhaps that’s the most reassuring thing Meg and Sarah shared. After working with thousands of girls, they say girls actually want to talk about this. “They’re not embarrassed by the information, they’re embarrassed by the silence around it.”

Maybe our job isn’t to have all the answers. It’s to make sure silence isn’t where our daughters have to go looking for them.

About Live Life Whole

Live Life Whole takes an integrated approach to girls’ and women’s health across body, mind and self. Meg and Sarah’s responses for this article draw on the education of the Live Life Whole team of dietitians, psychologists and women’s health physiotherapists. The organisation also provides a free Community Hub with expert resources, conversation guides and webinars for parents.

Health disclaimer: This article contains general health information only and is not a substitute for individual advice from a qualified health professional. If you have concerns about your child’s health, development, eating, menstrual cycle, mental wellbeing or other symptoms, seek advice from an appropriately qualified healthcare professional.