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.
if we’re judging based on just how she looks, then yes, she does look unhealthy. You could be considered healthy and in shape at that weight, but at 14, it’s probably best for a child to lose some weight to avoid possible future health problems. If it’s not promoting starving yourself down to a size 0, I see no problems.
No this drawing does not connote unhealthiness. We don’t know anything about this girl from this picture. The only thing that we know are the ideas we make from seeing it. I see a full sized girl who is worried about her size and desperate to be thinner. That is what I see. Not an unhealthy girl who needs to lose weight. Pictures send all sorts of messages, but the messages are the ones that we take from them. That’s what art is about.
A lot of these comments are really disturbing me. First of all everyone is beautiful regardless of health. You don’t randomly decide physical attributes of beauty. Nobody gets to. Also the book may say she’s 14 but she looks younger then that to me. Should could be anywhere between 8 to 14. Is this the message we want to send to girl who are 7 or 8 and who’s weight is likely to change as they grow?Also people can play sports at any size. I know plenty of men who weigh over 300 pounds who plays sports. The problem with this book is it’s shaming young girls and telling them they need to change. Above everything though people don’t have the right to have an opinion on someoe else’s body. This may just be a drawing but you don’t get to fucking say “she looks unhealthy” or “she needs to lose wieght” because it’s not your fucking business. I wouldn’t look at people and say “god you need to change you hair color” or “the way you dress makes you look like a freak” because I’m not an asshole and I know it’s not my business.
emphasis mine.
