children be encouraged to lose weight with children's stories?

A new diet book which is aimed specifically at children has come under fire from parenting experts who say that it could create unhealthy insecurities and even eating disorders. The book which is called Maggie Goes on a Diet and written by Paul Michael Kramer tells the story of an overweight fourteen year old girl who is unhappy with the way she looks and decides to eat healthily and get exercise in order to lose weight. The story has a happy ending as she becomes the soccer champion at her school and she ends up feeling much better about her life.

The opposition to the book has made childhood obesity experts extremely angry because they say that the simple message in this book which is that losing weight is a good thing is being attacked. They argue that obesity is the big danger to society and not books which are trying to prevent it.

It should be remembered that obesity is a major cause of low self-esteem, depression, social anxiety and emotional problems as well as the obvious physiological problems. Parents need to understand that having overweight children is a problem that needs to be dealt with sooner rather than later and ignoring it for fear of upsetting or harming the child is a mistake.

An interesting statistic to find out would be how many adults resent the fact that their parents allowed them to become unhealthily overweight when they were children, and also how many adults resent the fact that they were denied fast food and other unhealthy things when they were young.

Unfortunately, many overweight children have overweight parents who themselves are not properly educated in healthy eating practices and this book Maggie Goes on a Diet might even be able to help them too.

What do you think, should children be encouraged to lose weight with children's stories?