“Maggie Goes on a Diet” raises storm of protests among experts

By Dr. Ananya Mandal, MDAug 22 2011

A picture book for children in which a pudgy 14-year-old girl gets thin enough eventually to become her school's soccer star has come under attack. The book – “Maggie Goes on a Diet” won't be released until October, but Barnes & Noble and Amazon.com are among booksellers taking advance orders for the 44-page hardcover.

According to the Barnes & Noble's website the book is for young readers 6 to 12; Amazon's site says ages 4 to 8. Maggie's weight-loss journey is told in one of several self-published children's books in which author Paul M. Kramer tackles what he calls “the issues that kids face today.”

He has written about bullying in the 2010 title, “Bullies Beware!” and tried to help kids deal with bed-wetting and divorce in “Do Not Dread Wetting the Bed,” and, “Divorce Stinks!,” both due out this fall. The books are written in rhyme and meant to be read by parents alongside their kids.

This new book as per the plot summary is about Maggie who “goes on a diet and is transformed from being extremely overweight and insecure to a normal sized girl who becomes the school soccer star. Through time, exercise and hard work, Maggie becomes more and more confident and develops a positive self image.”

But that storybook plotline doesn't reflect what happens in real children's lives, warned Joanne Ikeda, a nutritionist emeritus at University of California-Berkeley. Highlighting imperfections in a boy's or girl's body “does not empower a child to adopt good eating habits,” Ikeda said. In real life, dieting down to a smaller clothing size doesn't guarantee living happily ever after. “Body dissatisfaction is a major risk for eating disorders in children all the way up through adulthood,” she warned.

Furthermore, role models like Maggie can perpetuate the idea that “if you don't look like Cinderella, you're a failure,” Ikeda said. “I wouldn't want a child to read this ... because they might, in fact, try to do this and fail. What is that going to do to their self-esteem?” Ikeda spoke Thursday without seeing the book.

Feature writer Laura Barnett wrote that she objected to the cover illustration of a dumpy, frumpy pigtailed teen holding a pink party dress clearly meant for someone half her size, while gazing into a mirror featuring her smiling, slimmed-down doppelganger. Barnett said she found the cover image “so disquieting…that perhaps we may, in this case, allow ourselves to judge the book by it.”

Youngsters must be at least 13 to participate in Weight Watchers' newer online program. For boys and girls who haven't yet passed through puberty, cutting calories poses “the danger of stunting growth and height,” Ikeda said. “As a consequence, most responsible health professionals would not recommend dieting, even for overweight children. There's usually the strategy of trying to help children grow into their weight.”

Pediatric obesity literature contains cases “where children restricted their calorie intake because they were so afraid of becoming fat that they actually slowed down their growth curve,” she said. In addition, some researchers have reported that dieting among teenage girls “leads to greater risk of overweight than among girls who don't diet during their teenage years.” In her own study of women carrying around hundreds of extra pounds, Ikeda found that the heaviest among them “had actually started dieting before they were 13.” Extreme weight fluctuations from years of ‘yo-yo’ dieting can be downright dangerous, Ikeda said, and “contribute to increased risk of obesity, coronary heart disease and hypertension.”

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said obesity now affects 17 percent of all children and adolescents in the United States, which is triple the rate from just one generation ago, and that one of seven low-income, preschool-aged children is obese. The federal government has developed methods to help teach children the importance of a healthy diet at an early age.

First lady Michelle Obama also launched the Let's Move! initiative, which is dedicated to solving the challenge of childhood obesity. The initiative also gives parents helpful information and foster environments that support healthy choices. It also focuses on providing healthier foods in schools and ensuring that every family has access to healthy, affordable food.