The Horrifying Children's Book That'll Teach Your Six-Year-Old How To Lose Weight!

It follows a 14-year-old overweight girl who trims down to a ‘normal’ size through hard work and exercise!

Campaigners are up in arms about Maggie Goes On A Diet, claiming it will encourage kids to starve themselves. They want it pulled from the shelves of Barnes & Noble and online sellers like Amazon. How did it ever get published?

The book, written by Hawaiian author Paul Kramer, is still on pre-sale, but it’s stirring up a huge storm.

It has a recommended reading age of 6-12 and according to the blurb it follows “a 14- year-old girl 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.”

Susan Ringwood, head of eating disorder charity Beat is horrified. She tells the Daily Mail, “Concerns about weight, size and shape are beginning to affect children at ever younger ages. Six and seven-year-olds already believe that their size tells the world what sort of person they are, and that big equals fat equals unpopular.”

Unless their weight is affecting their health — six to 12 year olds DO NOT need to worry about dieting.

It was recently revealed girls as young as FIVE are being hospitalized because they’re suffering anorexia, and books like this are why!

It should be pulled from sale immediately.

Do you agree, HollyMoms?

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I like the part that says ‘Through time, exercise, and hard work..’. I would like to read the book myself but I think if it reinforces hard work and time to lose weight, it may not be a bad book to have in the marketplace. At least it can be used as a tool for parents to talk to their kids about weight and being healthy.

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With the love handles and guts I see that are put on display under an Abercrombie & Fitch sausage casing on 12 yr old girls, they should know from an early age that you DO need to eat healthy, exercise. Growing up in their parents foot steps of “eating like there’s no tomorrow”,will only make them another succession of glutinous, lazy and dependent Americans.

Are all of you blind or do you just thrive to be politically correct?! Being over weight is a HUGE problem and not healthy at all. People need to stop being pansies about an issue that is not about being superficial but is emotionally, psychologically and physically impairing. Do none of you go to the store or anywhere in public?! If so, you would see that there is a much bigger problem with our lazy fat ass citizens and especially children, being OVERWEIGHT! Not anorexic. By definition, a diet is simply what you eat. Merriam-Webster’s definition “1 – a : food and drink regularly provided or consumed”. It DOES not mean you restrict yourself to carrots and celery till you pass out.

Couldnit agree more.. children should be encouraged to go aoutside and play! Not sit around with an x-box..

This is tough, especially for me as an overweight person and as a former overweight kid. Part of me thinks it is good…maybe not for SO young, but 8 and up. There are alot of obese children now. On the other hand, it just teaches kids that the only way to be fat is to be a lazy pig…this is why they are teased. And that is not the truth in some people’s cases. Also, I agree it could lean towards starvation. I guess you’d just have to read it…and if you don’t approve…don’t buy it for your kid.

People are bitching about an OVERWEIGHT kid getting HEALTHY via DIET AND EXERCISE? How in the HELL is that in ANY way related to kids developing eating disorders?? To me, this book sends a POSITIVE message. Statistically, there are significantly more obese and overweight kids than are diagnosed with an eating disorder. Not to mention, I had a stint with an eating disorder when I was 9 and 10, because I WAS overweight and people made fun of me, and I didn’t know how to lose weight the healthy way (these are the days long before iPhones and Google). How can you be against such a positive message for our children?? This is ridiculous.

oohh, tough one, on the one hand it is bad for children to think they need to starve themselves, but at the same time how many oveweight children are there? this is a good example, and after all if it promotoes a “healthy lifestyle” whats to say children are going to read it and starve themselves?

I agree. Of course I would like to read the book to fully judge for myself. Maybe they should put a book out that encourages kids to play outside instead of playing video games and watching TV while eating junk food all day. There was very very few obese kids when I was young but we played outside and were more active than kids are today.

this book should be pulled before it’s release because it reinforces the stereo type that thin is always best. children aren’t fully developed yet and need much more than adults do