Why Maggie's Diet Is a Bad Idea

I don't want you to buy Maggie Goes On A Diet. I shouldn't even be telling you about the book, because it appalls me to think of it getting in the hands of a parent or -- sigh -- a child. This as-yet unpublished, self-published book would go unnoticed except that people like me are frothing at the mouth and (the modern equivalent) blogging like mad about it.

But, it's out there. The media is delighted about the backlash, and I'm sure the author is delighted at the attention. So, let's talk about it.

Why would the same promotional materials be labelled "necessary" and "dangerous?" Why would people object to children taking care of their health, eating well, exercising, and making new friends?

Let me explain. Maggie Goes On A Diet's premise is that a 14-year old is teased for her weight and decides to diet and exercise -- transforming her from ostracized to popular, from unhealthy to a soccer star. It sounds like every Cinderella, Karate Kid, coming of age story out there, right? The problem is that both the problem and the solution are flawed and even harmful. Under this storyline are grave errors in children's health advice.

• Bullying is not resolved by fixing the victim.
• Diets are NEVER advised for children. Weight loss in a growing child is cause for medical alarm.
• Weight stigma causes harm. Stigma and shaming don't change behaviors, can worsen poor self-care, and often reflect unreasonable standards of appearance -- not health.
• Healthy eating, activity, and self-esteem ARE important, but for their own sake and at all body sizes -- not to change appearance.
• Parents are responsible for feeding and being active with their children, not the kids. Adults should be planning, serving, and eating with their children.
• Counting calories and pursuing weight loss are unhealthy ideas and behaviors for children. Eating disorders, a leading cause of disability and death in adolescents, begin with diets and inadequate nourishment during critical growth stages. Although not all children are predisposed to anorexia, bulimia, binge eating, or other eating disorders the best prevention tool we have is making sure young people are neither encouraged to, or allowed to diet.

Here's why I do the work I do, and why F.E.A.S.T. is holding an international conference about parents and eating disorders in November: because the public needs to understand that the pressure on children and young people to diet is immense -- even normalized in these days of "obesity epidemic" terror. The growing objection to this book is about parents who know the dangers of dieting and weight bullying reaching out to say that there ARE good books to read on this topic, and this one isn't one of them.

• Secrets of Feeding a Healthy Family, by Ellyn Satter
• Shapesville, by Mills and Osbor

 

 

 

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Comments

[recoverypjstyle]

09:53 AM on 09/11/2011

There are so many many things that bother me about this book. But I think the most dangerous is that it is written by someone who 'means well' but has no real concept of the truly deadly consequences of the message he is advocating. He clearly has no idea of the path a simple diet can lead down if an eating disorder takes hold. The line that a person should change themselves to appease a bully is bad enough, but the idea that your life will be sunshine and rainbows and you'll have all the friends in the world and be a perfect and confident person if only you could lose weight is the MOST AWFUL message to project to young girls.
My children will NEVER read this rubbish. My children will read carefully considered and well research information on health and well-being as presented by people with qualifications to be speaking on the matter. And my children will never be told to change just to please anyone else.

[Just Stop Eating So Much]

02:05 PM on 09/08/2011

As a child who was forced to diet (and subsequently gained weight for the first 20 years of my life -- topping out at over 450 pounds), I agree that the concept of "dieting" for a child is wrong-wrong-wrong. Healthy choices, portions and exercise are another story. But none of that is presented well in this book, which, ironically, can be easily understood by the fact that the author himself is obese.

[Laura Collins Lyster-Mensh]

05:51 AM on 09/09/2011

JSESM, I'm not sure the author's weight status tells us anything. Weight is not a choice - nor does it make anyone an expert on weight. Our genes and our experience and our health history do affect our weight but like any health measure it is only a part of the picture. I'm so sad, and very sorry, that your family forced you to diet - that's terrible. I hope some day that society will grasp how dangerous and ill-conceived that is.

[Just Stop Eating So Much]

10:25 AM on 09/09/2011

Thanks for your reply to my post, Laura. I appreciate your opinions very much. I do, however, think the author's obvious lack of health does play into it being a bit absurd he would write a book like this and also speaks to why he might be a bit misinformed. People are overweight for two reasons: eating too much and not moving enough -- even with thyroid issues, etc.

[BeautifulMagUK]

07:27 AM on 09/09/2011

Hi there. I'm sorry you've been through so much. I'm really interested in what you've got to say here - mostly in how you think of dieting compared to 'healthy choices'. I'd love to ask you what, for you, is the difference between these two things? It's ok if you don't want to answer so I'll throw the question out to anyone else who is reading this too. :-)

[Just Stop Eating So Much]

10:29 AM on 09/09/2011

Hi, BeautifulMagUK! To really answer this would take lots of time. But simply put, a "diet" relates to going "on" and "off" something. And this is a really poor concept to teach to a child. It teaches that healthy eating is a temporary thing to attain a certain goal, and then you can "go back to your old way of eating." As adults, we know that we need to sometimes cut back to fit into our skinny jeans. But kids don't understand this. And even us adults are having a hard time with this concept, based on the obesity crisis here in America and elsewhere. Eating should be about satisfaction and nourishment. And not necessarily in that order. And it can begin in this moment, as opposed to when we reach a certain weight. Kids can be nurtured to eat well, feel better and enjoy all aspects of life in moderation (including ice cream). While well intentioned, this book contributes more to the overall problem than it's claim to want to fix it.

[Charlotte Bevan]

02:00 PM on 09/08/2011

Great article, Laura. I am sad that this book has got so much media attention. I am glad that there are people like you, drawing attention to the dangers of it.

[Ern4ever]

12:58 AM on 09/08/2011

Thank you Laura Collins for giving us a clear picture of how the idea of dieting in children can become a dangerous and negative view of responding to the both the public concern of obesity and how we tolerate cruelty. It is the responsibility of all of us to teach by example healthy eating lifestyles as well as respect for human beings for who they, not what they look like. This book geared towards young children sends a very dangerous message

[c-tom]

08:59 PM on 09/07/2011

A book where a 14 year old starts eating healthier, exercises, joins a sport, and improves the way she feels about herself doesn't strike me as the most horrible YA fiction of the year. I know she doesn't want to become a vampire or date a shapeshifter but it's not all bad.

[Charlotte Bevan]

12:25 AM on 09/08/2011

Aimed at a 6 year old,c-tom? Should 6 year olds be thinking about loosing weight and body image as a way of improving their lives? That is the concern here.

[BeautifulMagUK]

05:47 AM on 09/08/2011

I understand that after being media educated on 'healthy eating and exercise' as a means to 'healthy weight loss' you feel this book isn't all bad. But, with respect, please research into the causes of eating disorders, their effect on, and their growing prevalence amongst, children. Also look at the studies that show dieting as the main predictor of obesity and overeating related diseases. Having strong opinions on this subject (something everyone seems to have) is often a result of being pulled into the whipped up media-led obesity frenzy, but the majority of the people who feel strongly on the subject haven't really bothered to find out anything about it. This keeps us in a dangerous place with ignorance as the driving force behind most of the currently prescribed solutions and a public mindset that is damaging to both children and adults. It's the acceptance of unscientific hearsay as established fact and a disregard of the actual scientific evidence that plays a major part in causing the epidemics in eating disorders, obesity and overeating related diseases.

[Jody Hendrickson]

06:32 PM on 09/07/2011

Thank you for this article. I've already posted at Barnes & Noble and Amazon in objection to this book, which should never reach the hands of any child.

[Laura Collins Lyster-Mensh]

06:05 AM on 09/09/2011

Good work, Jody! Take action, folks!

[KristineM]

05:49 PM on 09/07/2011

What a thoughtful bunch of reasons you have described as to why this book should not be given to a child, or be available for purchase by a child. I wish all parents of young children could read this piece, and I thank you for writing it.

It is a known fact that dieting is rampant among adolescents and younger age groups. Becoming malnourished for any reason, including dieting, can trigger the conditions necessary for those predisposed to an eating disorder to manifest one. My own daughter decided to "go on a little diet" when she was 11 (12 years ago), unbeknownst to my husband and I. She was a healthy weight for her height and age, but her body had started to change with early adolescence and she was terrified that she would become overweight. She had witnessed the teasing and negative treatment of those who were and wanted none of it. She started with a "little diet" and was soon in the grips of a serious, life-threatening illness.

I can't even imagine how she would have felt if she had seen a book like this. I know that the majority of kids who read this book won't ever develop an eating disorder, but the other reasons that Laura mentions apply to all kids and families.

[BeautifulMagUK]

04:01 PM on 09/07/2011

Great post. Thank you.
One thing I'd like to add if that's ok? You say: "Eating disorders, a leading cause of disability and death in adolescents, begin with diets," which is exactly right but you missed out that obesity also begins with diets. Now I'm not saying that all overweight and obese people suffer from 'obesity related diseases' or that all thin people don't suffer from them (because they're lifestyle related diseases and not obesity related at all) but I am saying that dieting is not only the cause of the eating disorders at the anorexia end of the scale, but also the eating disorders at the other end that are often associated with obesity and are a leading cause of disability and death. These are not seen as eating disorders, though, because of our society's fat hatred, but they are.

[RuftyRoo]

04:06 AM on 09/08/2011

I agree.

[Laura Collins Lyster-Mensh]

06:01 AM on 09/09/2011

You are SO right, and thank you for bringing this up! Dieting is harmful to all: it doesn't "work" in that it doesn't lead to a permanent change in weight status, it can lead to disordered eating patterns of all sorts, it can trigger eating disorders - including Binge Eating Disorder, and it's a miserable existence for the dieter AND for those who must suffer through hearing about it.

[Liza Burby]

03:52 PM on 09/07/2011

This is one of the reasons that self-publishing a children's book is a bad idea. Those who understand and work in the book publishing industry know that a book aimed at 4- to 8-year-olds can't have a 14-year-old main character, that you should only attempt rhyming if you're very skilled at it, that children don't like obvious moral lessons, that you have to be sure that the topic matches the developmental level of your reader, and if you're going to try to teach readers about a healthy lifestyle through your book, it's best to get the input of professionals to make sure that the message doesn't cause more harm than good. Given all that, this is a book that would be rejected if the author took the traditional publishing path. I understand that his intentions were good, but the harm to young readers, as Laura and many others have stated, can't be underestimated.

[Laura Collins Lyster-Mensh]

06:03 AM on 09/09/2011

Agreed. The marketplace has been altered by easy access to the press, and to controversy - in both good and bad ways. I am hoping that infamy doesn't lead to popularity in this case.

[Doris Smeltzer]

12:44 PM on 09/07/2011

Beautifully stated, Laura...thank YOU!

[Laura Collins Lyster-Mensh]

06:04 AM on 09/09/2011

Thank you, Doris - only saying what you've been teaching so many for so long!

[Holly Marciniak]

11:57 AM on 09/07/2011

Great article, Laura- and love your bullet points about the errors in line of thinking in this book. I was also flabbergasted at the picture on the front of the book- a girl in pigtails, who does not look 14- more like 6. It almost feels like this book was written specifically to torment small girls and seduce them into the ed world. Reading up on the author told me that he probably had good intentions (he has written other books on childhood issues), but his intentions were very misguided here. Children should never be charged with "dieting"- eating is, after all, a life and death matter- one that only a capable, responsible, loving adult should be charged with. We wouldn't expect our children to be in charge of keeping a roof over their own heads- neither should they be in charge of eating healthfully. This book is wildly inappropriate at best- psychologically and physically dangerous at worst.

[Laura Collins Lyster-Mensh]

06:05 AM on 09/09/2011

Oh, Holly - if only people understood this!