Childhood Obesity and Dieting... How much is too much?

Hello everyone!




I was browsing on Yahoo and I came across this article: "Vogue article by mom about 7-year-old daughter’s weight sparks heavy backlash"


In the article, the author, a socialite named Dara-Lynn Weiss wrote about when her daughter's doctor told her that she should be put on a more careful diet because at 4'4 and 93 pounds, she is considered obese. 


This is not what people find controversial.  What she does about this weight problem is what is angering people. 




"Sometimes Bea's after-school snack was a slice of pizza or a gyro from the snack vendor," Weiss wrote. "Other days I forced her to choose a low fat vegetable soup or a single hard-boiled egg. Occasionally I'd give in to her pleas for a square of coffee cake, mainly because I wanted to eat half of it. When she was given access to cupcakes at a party, I alternated between saying, 'Let's not eat that, it's not good for you'; 'Okay, fine, go ahead, but just one'; and 'Bea, you have to stop eating crap like that, you're getting too heavy,' depending on my mood. Then I'd secretly eat two when she wasn't looking."



It gets crazier-


"I once reproachfully deprived Bea of her dinner after learning that her observation of French Heritage Day at school involved nearly 800 calories of Brie, filet mignon, baguette, and chocolate. I stopped letting her enjoy Pizza Fridays when she admitted to adding a corn salad as a side dish one week. I dressed down a Starbucks barista when he professed ignorance of the nutrition content of the kids' hot chocolate whose calories are listed as "120-210" on the menu board: Well, which is it? When he couldn't provide an answer, I dramatically grabbed the drink out of my daughter's hands, poured it into the garbage, and stormed out."


Stormed out of a Starbucks over a range of 80 calories.   Her daughter, Bea, also spoke in the interview after having lost 16 pounds-


"That's still me," she says of her former self. "I'm not a different person just because I lost sixteen pounds." I protest that indeed she is different. At this moment, that fat girl is a thing of the past. A tear rolls down her beautiful cheek, past the glued-in feather. "Just because it's in the past," she says, "doesn't mean it didn't happen."



Lastly, Dara-Lynn had this to say-


"I have not ingested any food, looked at a restaurant menu, or been sick to the point of vomiting without silently launching a complicated mental algorithm about how it will affect my weight," Weiss admitted. "Who was I to teach a little girl how to maintain a healthy weight and body image?"





What are your thoughts on this? For all of you moms and dads- if your child was obese, how would you handle it?