Kudos to Dara-Lynn Weiss for putting her clinically obese 7-year-old daughter on a weight-loss diet!!! I have not read her book, Red Light, Green Light, Eat Right, nor do I know what type of diet this child was eating. If only more people would pay attention, I mean TRULY pay attention to what they and their children are eating, we would have less disease and obesity in this country. There are many healthy choices that, when on a weight-loss diet, you can actually say, "Is this really okay to eat?" because it tastes sinfully delicious! Losing weight shouldn't be about deprivation, it should be about giving the body the nutrition it needs.
Putting an overweight child on a strict diet IS the DUTY of a parent. A seven-year-old should never become obese in the first place; sorry, but I have to blame the parent, not the child. Unless a child has some sort of disease that causes weight gain, more than likely, the wrong foods are the culprit. Most 7-year-old children do not have an income to purchase the household groceries. If only healthy, wholesome foods are in a child's home, they have no choice but to eat them and yes, the parent probably has a weight issue, too. "Healthy, wholesome foods" are key words. This country has been seriously brainwashed as to what foods are healthy.
The word diet bothers me. We as a society have misconstrued this word to mean "how we eat to lose weight." By definition it means 'what our daily food consists of.' i.e. "What is on your diet for today?" We can go on a weight-loss diet, or a cleansing diet or a healthy-eating diet, but 'diet' has unfortunately become synonymous with 'weight loss.'
Eating healthily should be something that comes naturally to children as parents present only healthy choices. I only wish I had been educated on eating healthily instead of having been brainwashed when my daughter was young. Today when I see an advertisement for multi-grain potato chips, I shake my head and say, "Why would a grain be added to a potato since vegetables are a healthier choice than grains?" Then I say, "ahhh, but IS A POTATO STILL A POTATO and IS A POTATO STILL A VEGETABLE????"
