Diet book for 4 year olds- because 8 year old is just too old to start hating your body

Maggie goes on a diet. Everyone else is adding their two cents so I figured I'd chime in as well. As everyone probably knows already, this is a children's book targeted to children ages 4-8 (according to amazon) or 6-12 (according to Barnes and Noble). The age range listed on amazon is slightly more disturbing, but children 4-12 shouldn't be reading this book either. In fact no one should be reading books about dieting and body shaming, but kids are particularly vulnerable. Everyone trying to defend the book is going on about how no one's even read it (it's not available until October). All I have to say is- can we get real here? Can anyone really claim that something like this is okay? Or parrot the 'ole "don't judge a book by it's cover" line? We have the cover as well as a description and that's more than enough, thank you very much. Let me tell you a little something about eating disorders- and be prepared, I won't be nice and I won't be my usual eloquent self. I will curse and I will get mad.

To the people defending this book or defending diets and weight loss programs for children- are you fucking kidding me? Do you even have an inkling of the horrors that people who struggle with disordered eating and eating disorders face? Do you have any idea what it's like to live in a fat body at 14 years old (the age of the girl in the story)? It would be one thing if this book was about exercising and eating right and being healthy- it's not. It's about a fattie getting thin and solving all of her life problems. Bullshit. Not only can she be a soccer star while also being a big fat fattie, but she can be happy and healthy and wear a pink dress in her size.

I also have a problem with the photo- that's not a size 14. Images like this severely distort how we think about body sizes. Or, as my husband calls it, social body dysmorphia. This is a size 14. The girl in the picture looks closer to a size 26 or so. I know sizes look a bit different on teens, but come on. This is me at a size 16 at age 16 (only two years older than Maggie here. Yes, it's a picture of a picture. So sue me.) There's nothing wrong with being a size 26 but there is something wrong with distorting what we imagin when we think of sizes because it helps push those ideals lower. It simply highlights the sensationalist nature of this book.

What, you think this won't contribute to the same diet culture that creates and perpetuates those eating disorders to begin with? It's true that no one thing suddenly causes an eating disorder or self esteem problems. It's not just this book that's the problem. The problem is that our entire culture supports the ideas in this book. It's not about this one book, it's about the fact that kids already have enough body hate thrown at them, they don't need mommy and daddy reading them books about hating their bodies when they go to bed at night.

Let me regurgitate some facts for you (yes, I used that word on purpose):

• half of little girls 3-to-6 think they're fat 
• eating disorders (specifically anorexia and bulimia) in kids under the age of 12 rose 119% over the past 9 years
• Eating disorders on the whole rose 15%.
• A majority of 5-year-olds would rather lose an arm than be fat (did you read that? I fucking said FIVE YEAR OLDS)
• More than 60% of teenage girls skip breakfast at least once a week and nearly 20% skip it every day.
• An estimated 1 in 3 of all dieters develop compulsive dieting attitudes and behaviors. Of these, one quarter will develop full or partial eating disorders.
• In a study of children aged 8-10, approximately 50 per cent of girls said they were unhappy with their size.
• In a study of girls aged 9-15, more than 50 per cent claimed they exercised to lose weight, nearly 50 per cent claimed they reduced food intake in order to lose weight, and approximately 5 per cent claimed to use their parents' diet pills or laxatives in order to lose weight.
• One out of three women and one out of four men are on a diet at any given time.
• In 1970 the average age a girl started dieting was fourteen; by 1990 the average age dropped to eight. (This book apparently thinks that's too old since it's targeted at 4-12 year olds).
• 51% of nine and ten year old girls stated they felt better about themselves when they were adhering to a diet.
• Frequent dieting is highly correlated with depression
• 79% of teenage girls who vomit and 73% of teenage girls who use diet pills are frequent readers of women’s health and fitness magazines.
• 81% of ten year old girls are afraid of being fat.
• 42% of girls in first through third grades state they want to be thinner.
• 30% of women chose an ideal body shape that is 20% underweight and an additional 44% chose an ideal body shape that is 10% underweight.
• Kids as young as four are being hospitalized for eating disorders (four- keeping in mind this book targets kids as young as four according to the amazon website)

I could go on, but I don't think I need to. 

It Doesn't Matter What You Eat- Food Is Why You're Fat

It's funny how memories can just pop up over the littlest things. I got up this morning and poured myself a bowl of cereal and it reminded me of some old diet advice I was given.. I suppose when you spend so many years dieting it's natural to have a hell of a lot of memories. In this case the sentence that popped into my head was, "Well, there's your problem- the Cheerios!". Yes, I'm serious- the secret to why I was fat according to this fitness guru (I believe this conversation took place when someone crossposted a question on reddit.com to the fitness subreddit without my permission) the entire reason why I didn't lose weight, even though I was starving myself, was because I ate Cheerios. I started thinking of all of the absolutely bogus excuses that people came up with for my fatness.

"Maybe you eat too many bananas" (when I was briefly a raw foodist and consulting a dietitian about weight).

"It's because you're vegan! Vegans are carboholics" (assuming I ate lots of pasta without even asking).

My favorite: "You must be lying about what you eat".

Upon finding out that I exercised every day: "That's not going to do you any good, your body gets used to it, duh" (in an obvious attempt to indicate that I was simply too stupid to exercise properly.. so exercise.. but not every day.. or something like that.  #butiwasexercising*).

"You eat too much fruit" (from a different person than the dietitian- they insisted that fruit was no different from shoving cupcakes in your mouth).

"You don't eat enough. You need to keep your metabolism up" (or the alternate "You eat too much- doesn't matter how little or much you actually eat).

"You should skip breakfast" (or the alternate "it's because you skip breakfast").

I'm sure there are more that I'm not thinking of right now.. but the anti-fruit people are the ones that make me laugh the hardest.. or maybe just the ones who make me afraid for humanity the most. I don't mean that literally of course.. just an exasperated exclamation about the ignorance of the general public on issues of both fat and health. When you begin villianizing fruit in attempt to further fatphobia, then the extremism of fat hate has gotten to a point of being simply astonishing. Add your own bizzare diet advice or "you're fat because" comments. Then we can all have a good laugh together at how ridiculous they are and a good cry over the fact that we, sadly, used to believe them (what were we thinking?!).

*anyone else notice that the last bit looks like "sexercising"? Now that sounds like a good workout! 

Thinner is not better

This time the victim wasn't me, but rather my husband. This past weekend, unfortunately, we had to take a trip to his home town in Pennsylvania to see a sick relative in the hospital (thankfully he's doing at least a little better and was moved out of the ICU into a regular room). While there, of course, we had to see a lot of people- he has a very large family and we had a very busy weekend! While I didn't have to really put up with any weight talk directed at me- he did. It wasn't what you would consider negative.. most people would consider it positive: praise for losing weight.

Now.. he didn't actually lose weight.. at least not as far as we know- his clothes still fit.. at least mostly since he's a bit in between sizes- 36 is too big and 34 is too small. Last time we saw them he either wore a 38 or a 36- I can't quite remember. But either way the difference was either none or very little.. but they couldn't help but tell him how good he looked since he lost weight. His grandmother made sure to assure him that he didn't look bad before, but we all know the implication- thinner is better so losing weight is good. Praising someone for losing weight  automatically makes them feel obligated to maintain that weight or lose more (we want to do what gets us praise- we're just wired that way) and it plants a more sinister message that gaining weight is bad bad bad.  I didn't lose weight.. so of course no one told me how great I looked.

Praise. Everyone wants it.. that little reward center of our brain that just lights up with praise makes us addicted to it. No matter what the behavior, idea, belief, or accomplishment- if someone is praised for it often enough they start to crave it and repeat the behavior in order to get it. Gee, no wonder people are obsessed with losing weight- we're addicted! Psychologists recognize that when this goes too far and we diet too excessively (excessive calorie restriction like anorexia for example) or exercise too much (compulsive exercise disorder) that it's a problem. But it's addiction nonetheless. It's one reason of many that we can't trust human beings to inherently know and do what is right- we're such complex creatures- our brains are impossibly complicated in such a beautiful way and yeah, we're trained animals. It takes a lot to overcome this training which his why so many FA activists talk about what a journey it is to get towards a place of acceptance. It's also why education is so important.

Luckily, even though my hubby isn't big on confrontation and he didn't really tell them why they were wrong to offer praise, he did steer the subject towards something different or outright deny any weight loss. He never said thank you- there was nothing to thank them for... because thinner isn't better.