Maggie Goes on A Diet by Paul Kramer, is due for publication in the US in October but is already listed on many bookseller’s websites. The book tells the story of 14-year-old Maggie who “is transformed from being extremely overweight and insecure to a normal-sized girl who becomes the school football star”. “Through time, exercise and hard work, Maggie becomes more and more confident and develops a positive self-image,” it adds.
Really? Really?
Wait. Shouldn’t that image be reversed? She’s skinny but she thinks she’s fat? Then it’s called “Maggie Goes on a Diet,” people convince her she doesn’t need to and she learns to to gain self confidence and realizes that size is only a number and curves are beautiful?
I mean WTF did a man write this BS? Wait, yes one did.
curves are only beautiful if you’re healthy and curvy
you can be string-skinny and be terribly unwell
at the weight in the picture she appears unhealthy to me :\
if the book promotes healthy diets and healthy exercise where is the problem?
how does she appear unhealthy? I have no idea from this picture that she is unhealthy.
Unless it’s a frickin’ huge sweater it appears she’s too overweight for her age and size. Which I believe would generally be categorized as ‘unhealthy’ by a lot of doctors.
Until I read the book I won’t really know, but if she only joined the football team AFTER she exercised and dieted maybe she couldn’t play sports because she was too heavy?
Wait how do you know how much she weighs from the picture? It’s just a picture so we have no idea what her size is. I don’t think a doctor could look at a drawing and assess the healthiness of a fictional character. And if they did, I would really find them suspect.
My problem is that Barnes & Noble’s website says that the book is for readers 6 to 12; Amazon’s site says ages 4 to 8. Kids at that age (especially 4 to 8, what IS that) need to be getting help from their parents or a doctor if they are legitimately, unhealthily overweight, not reading a book and trying to do it on their own. I could also go on about the fact that it certainly looks like (and I know I’m interpreting here) she’s trying to fit into a dress of a particular size as a goal, and I don’t think a size is ever a healthy goal.
