What is wrong with this picture?

Shawna Kelley, MA, our Seattle Community Outreach Coordinator, writes:

Last year my 7 year old niece came to her mother very upset because one of her friends had called her fat. They had been standing in a circle and one of the young girls looked at the other four girls in the group, pointed at each one and said “you are skinny, you are skinny, you are skinny and you are fat”, looking directly at my niece when she said the dreaded three letter word.

Her mother is the only woman I know that does NOT have any food or body image issues, so that type of conversation does not happen in her household. When her mother asked her what was wrong with being fat, my niece couldn’t come up with an answer. She just knew that “skinny” was good and “fat” was bad.

The question is, where did she learn that? Our beliefs about being fat vs. thin is embedded so deeply in our culture that it comes across in our every day lives often without our awareness. One place we often overlook for negative messages about food and body image is in children’s books. It is usually well hidden in the context of the story, Cinderella anyone?

However, in his new book, “Maggie Goes on a Diet” (due out in October), the front cover says it all. The synopsis from the author, Paul R. Kramer, says “Maggie has so much potential that has been hiding under her extra weight. This inspiring story is about a 14 year old who goes on a diet and is transformed from being overweight and insecure to a normal sized teen who becomes the school soccer star. Through time, exercise and hard work, Maggie becomes more and more confident and develops a positive self image.”

So what is wrong with this picture?

Let’s start with the cover of the book. It shows what is supposed to be an “overweight” Maggie, looking into a mirror, envisioning a thin Maggie wearing a special dress. The message sent by this image is that Maggie should not consider buying a dress that would flatter her figure at her current weight, but must lose weight in order to look good.

This reflects our society’s belief that you are not “good enough” for a pretty dress, a job, a life, unless you are thin. The ironic part is that for adolescents with food and body image issues, no matter what their weight, they see a much heavier person in the mirror. The exact opposite of what is happening on the cover of this book. Now to the story. There are so many things that scare me about the synopsis that I am afraid of what the book may say.

According to the LA Times, one of the passages reads:
“Losing weight was not only good for Maggie’ health,
Maggie was so much happier and was also very proud of herself”

And another one says:
“More and more people were beginning to know Maggie by name.
Playing soccer gave Maggie popularity and fame.”

Great results for Maggie, right? She loses the weight that makes her so insecure, her “real” self that was hidden by the weight comes out, she is suddenly popular and a talented athlete. All because she follows a sensible diet, exercises and becomes a normal size.

Wrong, in fact the author could not be more off the mark. Many of us have dieted to lose weight at some point. We have gotten the compliments and praise for losing the weight. We have fallen into the trap equating weight loss with happiness.

And what did ALL of us find out? It doesn’t work that way. Weight loss does not lead to happiness; it leads to a false sense of who we are as a person based on how we look. Mr. Kramer is trying to sell what society is already shoving down our children’s throats, that losing weight and being thin is the key to everything.

The words he uses are heavily laden with layers of meaning in our weight obsessed culture, like fat, thin, diet, normal, insecurity, health, and happiness. The target age group for book (according to Amazon, 4-8 years old) is simply not able to understand all of the nuances. Instead, like my 7 year old niece they will hear the basics. Fat is bad, thin is good, and popularity is only a diet away.

In other words, a series of lies.