Maggie Goes on a Diet?!

I just hope it's as good as Booger Bob by the same author, where the kids in school learn tolerance by finally accepting Bob for who he is. ;-)

There is always one kid in class who will eat the white paste.

AnneMarble said:

Now that one I would read! In fact, I think I went to school with Bob...

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I love the graphics. Here is Bob being tormented by Mr. Finger.

This is Go the Fuck to Sleep all over again. This book will probably sell alot of copies now because so many people are outraged and curious about it.

I don't think Maggie Goes on a Diet is a terrible concept. From what I've read the book is about a girl who suffers from emotional over eating. That is a real bad habit. I used to do it as a kid and became an overweight adult.

I think the thing that is really making people angry is the whole fat = ugly thin = beautiful idea. And that it includes the word "diet" which alot of people hate (including me. Diets are stupid). It probably would've been better if he'd titled the book "Maggie Learns to Be Active" or "Maggie learns how to eat heathy" because encouraging childern to diet is bad. Diets are not good for the body. It is better (in my opinion) to eat in moderation instead of going on stupid diets that restrict your food intake. I have lost 14kg since last november and that has not been through dieting. I just exercise for 30 mins every couple of days and watch my sugar and fat intake. But I do not deny myself anything. That is dieting and it only makes people miserable.

AnneMarble said:

I took one look at the cover and thought "Must be self-published." So I Googled the publisher, and sure enough, it was put out through a self-publishing company. In other words, all those protests are doing is giving more attention to a book that would have been ignored by almost everyone.

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Not all self-published books are bad, having not read it, it could be possible this is a good one. As for the illustrations I don't think they are bad at all, actually reminds me of the one's in the books when I was little.

The book hasn't come out yet, but there are already eight threads about it on its page on Amazon:
http://www.amazon.com/dp/0981974554/?tag=absowrit-20

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Smart [self-published] author. Good on her.

I didn't know Amazon had so many vitriolic tags.

• eating disorders for beginners
• if you hate your daughter
• your 12-year-old isn't sexy enough
• talentless hack writer
• why self-publishing exists

What throws me is the target age compared to the age of the protagonist.

I wouldn't have wanted my 4 year old reading a book about a 14 year old's lifestyle choices regardless whether they were dieting unwisely, developing a positive body image, or wanting to be fit enough to get on a soccer team. They're too little. They shouldn't be worrying about sporting success or their own health, not yet.

And the cover is just odd. Pigtails? On a 14 year old?

skylark said:

I wouldn't have wanted my 4 year old reading a book about a 14 year old's lifestyle choices regardless whether they were dieting unwisely, developing a positive body image, or wanting to be fit enough to get on a soccer team. They're too little. They shouldn't be worrying about sporting success or their own health, not yet.

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The reality is that they do. 4 year olds are growing up in a world that is obsessed by body image [programmes lik X-Factor.] I think it was bad enough in the 90's, I'm certain it's worse now.

I work in McDonald's and its heartbreaking to see obese 4 year olds.

Queen of Swords said:

I didn't know Amazon had so many vitriolic tags.

• eating disorders for beginners
• if you hate your daughter
• your 12-year-old isn't sexy enough
• talentless hack writer
• why self-publishing exists

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The more normal tags (healthy eating etc) have minus numbers. How the heck do you get minus tags?

Encouraging kids to diet is bad?

Um, no. I would have thought allowing them to overeat until they got fat was worse. If a kid's overweight, yes, they should be on a diet. How else are they supposed to lose weight and get fit again?

scarletpeaches said:

Encouraging kids to diet is bad?

Um, no. I would have thought allowing them to overeat until they got fat was worse. If a kid's overweight, yes, they should be on a diet. How else are they supposed to lose weight and get fit again?

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The idea of getting fit isn't the issue. It's the word DIET. Here in the US, at least, there is a certain stigma attached to the word.

"Why aren't you on a diet?" "I just started another diet." "I've been dieting for five years."

The problem with most diets, especially fad diets, is that they're more about what you deny yourself than actually changing your eating habits for the better. They don't teach you a balanced, healthy eating lifestyle, they teach you how to avoid certain foods--usually foods your body needs (in moderation, as in all things).

Diets also don't fix the emotional problems that come with being overweight, especially for those of us who were teased about it as children. Those things stay with us into adulthood.

It also gets tricky, because young kids don't understand nutrition. If something tastes good, they want to eat it. And they only know something tastes good because parents let them eat it. My niece is two and a half, and you know her favorite foods? Fruit and yogurt. And cheese. Because that's what her mom feeds her--not cookies or snack cakes or sugary cereal.

Do we need books aimed at kids that can help teach them a healthy, active lifestyle? Hell, yes.

Does it need to be a diet book? No, not as we currently think of diet books today, which are about denial and avoidance of food.

hadn't read the book, but this seems like much ado about nothing.

as far as reading too much into this, that ALSO seems like much ado.

On a side note, when my son started Cub Scouts it was with some deep reservations on my part--I wanted no part of Scouts over their stance on gays, but wasn't willing to make my son the poster-boy for my causes. So he went, and we got our first assignment: read pages 9-15 or whatever with your kid and discuss.


We read half of it. It was supposed to be a well-meaning "look out for child molesters" thing, but it went from mildly creepy on downhill, with early scenarios being things like "what do you do if a stranger offers you a ride home" and later ones being things like "your grandpa invites you to sit on his lap while he is naked...." after awhile it just got way too creepy Freudian, and all I could think of was this being the scoutmaster version of the Marine dad in American Beauty.....THAT struck me as having some odd subtext

ChaosTitan said:

Do we need books aimed at kids that can help teach them a healthy, active lifestyle? Hell, yes.

Does it need to be a diet book? No, not as we currently think of diet books today, which are about denial and avoidance of food.

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isn't that an issue of completely mis-branding the word, and letting negative associations rule in an entirely prejudicial fashion?

Again, I haven't read the book, and "Maggie couldn't get felt up, not with her fat ass and beady pig-eyes, and no boy would like the fatty girl in class" is worlds different from "Maggie felt tired and sad, but learning to eat better helped", but this seems like a lot of gut-reaction about a single word. Diet means what you eat, it has already been co-opted to mean controlling what you eat, and now that's further co-opted in some minds to "a draconian and unrealistic system of restriction and self-flagellation".

I just don't believe many words, including "diet", are positive or negative, a lot is in how they are used or misused, but it doesn't seem any of the complainers have any idea HOW it is being used yet.

The whole thing seems a bit like measuring the hanging rope, THEN having a fair trial....

quicklime said:

isn't that an issue of completely mis-branding the word, and letting negative associations rule in an entirely prejudicial fashion?

Again, I haven't read the book, and "Maggie couldn't get felt up, not with her fat ass and beady pig-eyes, and no boy would like the fatty girl in class" is worlds different from "Maggie felt tired and sad, but learning to eat better helped", but this seems like a lot of gut-reaction about a single word. I just don't believe many words, including "diet", are positive or negative, a lot is in how they are used or misuesed, but it doesn't seem any of the complainers have any idea HOW it is being used yet.

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I definitely agree with your points. People seem to be getting up in arms over a title and cover, without ever having read the content (not that this should surprise us, since it happens quite frequently).

Diet is definitely a word that has been misused a lot and given a very negative connotation. A lot of people, especially those of us who've struggled with our weight (in past or present) have knee-jerk reactions to the word. And it's often a painful knee-jerk. I was eleven the first time someone told me I should go on a diet.

But given the constant rise in obesity in the US, and not being able to flip the channel on TV without seeing an ad for the next weight-loss wonder-drug, it's going to be hard to reclaim that word for the better.

scarletpeaches said:

Encouraging kids to diet is bad?

Um, no. I would have thought allowing them to overeat until they got fat was worse. If a kid's overweight, yes, they should be on a diet. How else are they supposed to lose weight and get fit again?

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Neither encouraging a kid to diet nor allowing them to overeat is a good thing. The only good thing is teaching kids how to eat good, healthy foods and to exercise. When I was a child, I was maybe one of five fat people in my school. Now, you look around and more kids are fat.

Why? When I was a kid, people didn't eat a lot of junk food, they played outside all the time, we have physical education classes at school. Now, a lot of kids eat crap and don't exercise enough, and they sit in front of TV or game console or whatever. I happened to sit in front of the refrigerator a lot to compensate for what was going on inside of me.

I tried to diet when I was a kid and it did no good for me. In fact, when I in my late teens and early twenties, I had a good old fashioned eating disorder. I did eventually lose weight, but it was because I chose not to be unhealthy anymore. I didn't diet, and I don't diet to this day. I changed my eating habits and started running. That did it for me.

Parents needs to be the examples in healthy eating habits too.

Everyone is on a diet. 'Diet' just means what you eat.

If you eat less food and get more exercise, you'll lose weight. Simple physics. Use up more energy than you put in.

And yes, I'm saying that as a citizen of one of the unhealthiest, most overweight countries in the world. We rule on heart disease, cancers and strokes! Go Scotland!

didn't you forget "alcoholism" and "silly menswear"?

Yeah, I think that using the word "diet" in the title is what troubles people. As posted before me, in America, we prefer to say to our daughters, "Lead a healthy lifestyle" rather than "Go on a diet."

There's a difference between the MC in this book - a young girl who overeats for emotional reasons - and people like my stepdaughter.

She's 7, fit and healthy, tall and very thin. She recently insisted to me that her biomom is fat. (she's maybe size 6).

Finally, I asked her where she got that idea because she was very serious that her mother is fat. She said that her mom says she is.

Her mother is putting it into her head that a size 6 is fat.

Not cool.

And kind of derailing a bit...

Back to the OP - I think the concept of the book is a good one. Children need to learn what consitutes healthy eating and living because unfortunately, they don't necessarily learn that through their parents' examples.

The title should have been different, though.

And all those reviews will guarantee everyone and their daughter reads is.

Alpha Echo said:

And all those reviews will guarantee everyone and their daughter reads is.

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This.


I've often thought that if I ever really gave up on the writing thing, I could cheat and write a story about a gay, profane Christ. It wouldn't even have to be a well-written story, but the extremely devout would trample one another to get to the bookshelves so they could make me rich while sharing in their collective moral outrage.....

gotta love folks who buy something just so they can be mad about it, instead of walking the fuck by....

scarletpeaches said:

Everyone is on a diet. 'Diet' just means what you eat.

If you eat less food and get more exercise, you'll lose weight. Simple physics. Use up more energy than you put in.

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To the first part, yes, that's what the word means, but it does have a decidedly negative connotation here in the US. People see it and freak the hell out--as evidenced by the reactions to this book--and even with the word "diet" attached, people are very very VERY tetchy about weight issues here.

As to the second part, yeeeah, it's really not that simple for a lot of people. And that attitude that it's as simple as eating less and exercising more is one of the reasons WHY they're so tetchy. (I'm looking for a link that goes into a much deeper discussion about that, but I'm not having much luck here. It was a response to some long diatribe elsewhere on the internet of some girl saying, "Why are you so fat? It's so simple to not be fat! And you look disgusting!" or something to that effect. Hang on...)

gothicangel said:

The reality is that they do. 4 year olds are growing up in a world that is obsessed by body image [programmes lik X-Factor.] I think it was bad enough in the 90's, I'm certain it's worse now.

I work in McDonald's and its heartbreaking to see obese 4 year olds.

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But even if this is so...why isn't this book about a 4-8 year old dealing with her body image problems? Why is there this massive gap between the target agegroup and the protagonist?

My son's only 12, and it was a problem when he was four finding books which were at his reading level and dealt with issues he understood. Sure he played football (soccer)...but books about 9-12 year olds devastated about not getting in the school team still went way over his head socially.

scarletpeaches said:

Everyone is on a diet. 'Diet' just means what you eat.

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Here in America, when someone is on a diet, they are usually trying to lose weight.

If you eat less food and get more exercise, you'll lose weight. Simple physics. Use up more energy than you put in.

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Absolutely correct. However, a lot of people don't get this concept.