Aussie swimming great Libby Trickett reveals the disgraceful question her eight-year-old daughter was asked

Olympic gold medal-winning swimmer Libby Trickett has delivered an angry message urging Australians to ‘do better’ after a family friend asked her young daughter about her weight.

The 39-year-old former world record holder posted a video on Instagram after her daughter Poppy was recently questioned about her body.

“Someone close to us today said to our eight-year-old daughter, ‘Wow, you look like you’ve lost weight. Have you lost weight? You look great,'” Trickett began.

‘My daughter is eight.

The four-time Olympic gold medalist (pictured with daughters Poppy, Edwina, Bronte and husband Luke) believes questions about weight make children believe their ‘value as a human being’ is about how thin they are

“We need to do better as a society in the way we talk to our young children. We need to do better as a society in the way we speak about ourselves.

“Yes, we need to do better in front of our children in the way we talk to ourselves. We just need to do better at times in the way we talk to ourselves about our bodies, because that will influence the way we talk to our children about their bodies.

‘She’s eight. I mean, this is how it happens, right? We create an environment where our value as human beings depends on how we look and how thin we are.

“I will do everything in my power to protect my children from that and to love their bodies the way they are because they are amazing.”

Trickett’s post struck a chord with her followers, receiving nearly 5,500 likes and many supportive comments.

“Thank you for sharing this story, your children are blessed that you show them another way,” one commenter wrote.

The 39-year-old’s Instagram clip (photo) earned her a lot of support

‘There are some real home truths in this and I can say that it really affected me after my 7-year-old daughter was told by a fellow student last year that her legs were fat. The damage this has already done is that she wanted to change her character in a video game to be skinny,” another replied.

“Heartbreaking on so many levels.. but as others have said, she is so lucky that you are her mother,” a third wrote.

Trickett has previously shared her concerns about her most recent pregnancy with son Alfie, who she predicted would be the most ‘challenging’ of her four children.

She also opened up about her history with postpartum depression after welcoming her third child, Bronte Rose, in 2020.

“I think when you go through a change like that in your life, it can always be quite scary,” she said.

“Especially for me, knowing that I’ve had a history of postpartum depression, and it’s certainly something we’re very aware of.”

When Poppy was just four months old, Trickett said the extreme sleep deprivation caused her mental health to deteriorate.

The lack of sleep made her angry, and it got to the point where she started yelling at her daughter.

Trickett (pictured with her daughters) has previously opened up about her struggles with postpartum depression to help other women struggling with the condition

“It’s almost like I’ve had a mental break, and I just had a moment where I completely lost it with Poppy, I screamed at her,” she said.

‘The progression of the extreme sleep deprivation she put everyone through only exacerbated my mental health and my mental illness to a point where I became afraid of myself.

“I couldn’t imagine being an eight-month-old baby and being yelled at,” she said.

It was then that the swimming legend decided she needed help.

Trickett used her memoir, Beneath the Surface, to help other women understand the symptoms and warning signs of the condition.