Sadly, a pair of nasty little insults has been doing the rounds online lately.
These are aimed at teenagers and young people who haven’t done anything wrong except exist in a body that someone else has decided to make fun of. “Manlet” is used to mock shorter boys and men, while “hiplet” has sprung up more recently as a kind of comeback aimed at girls and women over the natural shape of their hips. Neither term is doing anyone any favours, and for parents, it’s important to understand what’s going on so you can actually help if your child ever comes across them.
What manlet and hiplet actually mean
“Manlet” is used to poke fun at men and boys for being on the shorter side, something that’s been floating around online for years as a way of making height into something shameful. “Hiplet” has emerged more recently as a sort of retaliation, targeting women and girls for having natural inward curves near their hips, something that’s a completely normal part of how bodies are shaped.
Some people have tried to frame “hiplet” as a bigger statement about how unfairly short men get treated, almost like a deliberate tit for tat. But regardless of the reasoning behind it, both terms end up doing the same damage, making ordinary physical traits feel like something to be embarrassed about.
Why these words hit so hard
A family psychotherapist explained that social media has a strange way of taking something completely normal about a person and twisting it into a flaw overnight. Terms like “manlet” and “hiplet” are built specifically to make people feel like their body sits outside some invisible normal range, even though height, hip shape and body proportions naturally vary hugely from person to person.
Men who’ve been called “manlet” have described feeling low and insecure as a result, while women targeted with “hiplet” say it’s just one more thing added to their list of insecurities. None of this is harmless fun, no matter how casually the words get thrown around online.
What to do if your child tells you they’ve been targeted
It can be tempting to tell a teenager to simply brush off unkind comments, but that’s often much easier said than done for someone still figuring out who they are. If your child opens up about being called “manlet” or “hiplet”, the psychotherapist suggests resisting the urge to wave it away as nothing.
Instead, it helps to acknowledge what they’re feeling and remind them that comments like these say a lot more about the culture of online comparison than they say about the person being targeted. Asking gentle, open questions like how the comment made them feel, or what they think the person was trying to achieve by saying it, can help a teenager process what happened rather than quietly absorbing it as truth.
What to do if your child is the one saying it
Sometimes these words come from other young people who don’t fully grasp how much they can actually hurt someone. Kids joining in on a trend online often haven’t stopped to think about the impact their words might have on somebody else.
If your own child has used “manlet” or “hiplet” and claims it was only a joke, it’s worth gently reminding them that something is only a joke if everyone involved is actually laughing. If a comment is upsetting, damaging, or made at someone else’s expense, it stops being a joke and becomes something that needs addressing properly, since our words and actions always affect the people around us.
Watch what gets said about bodies at home.
Kids pick up far more from the adults around them than most people realise, including how those adults talk about their own bodies or other people’s. It’s worth being mindful about avoiding negative comments about your teenager’s appearance, even ones that might seem harmless or throwaway in the moment.
When adults criticise body shape, suggest someone should lose weight, or hint that a person’s appearance could be improved somehow, the message a child hears underneath it all is that they’re not okay exactly as they are. That message can stick with a young person for a long time, long after the comment itself has been forgotten.
Help teens value what their body does, not how it looks.
Building real body confidence starts with helping teenagers see themselves as so much more than just their appearance. Encouraging conversations about what their body lets them do, whether that’s playing sport, dancing, hiking or simply keeping up with friends, shifts the focus away from looks entirely.
It also helps to gently build a teenager’s ability to question the trends they see online, especially ones that seem to profit from making people feel insecure. The goal isn’t to pretend cruel comments don’t sting at all, but to help teenagers build enough of a sense of self that someone else’s opinion carries far less weight over time.
Praise who they are, not what they look like.
It’s easy to default to complimenting a teenager’s appearance, but experts generally suggest steering conversations elsewhere instead. Praising things like kindness, creativity, humour, effort, and resilience helps a young person build their identity around qualities that actually reflect who they are as a person.
Over time, this kind of praise tends to matter far more to a teenager’s confidence than comments about how they look ever could. It reminds them that their value isn’t tied to their body at all, which is a much sturdier foundation to build self-esteem on.
When it’s time to bring in extra support
Unfortunately, bullying doesn’t always stay confined to the school playground anymore, since it can easily follow young people home through their phones. Height-based bullying, particularly among boys, deserves to be taken just as seriously as any other form of bullying, since it can deeply affect a young person’s mental health.
If body-shaming continues at school, or starts to impact your teenager’s mood, confidence, or willingness to spend time with friends, it’s worth involving the school directly and seeking extra support where needed. Getting help early tends to make a real difference to how things turn out.
Signs that shouldn’t be ignored
If a young person starts showing signs of real distress about their body, changes in how they eat, or an obsessive approach to exercise, it’s important to take that seriously and act early rather than waiting to see if it passes. These kinds of struggles are complicated and often benefit from proper support from professionals who understand them.
Getting help sooner rather than later tends to lead to far better outcomes for a young person going through this. If you’re ever unsure whether what you’re seeing warrants extra support, it’s always worth reaching out to a GP or school counsellor for guidance rather than waiting to find out.
