

This is a link to a YouTube clip of a Good Morning America clip about a young girl who lost sixty or more pounds in a year through diet and exercise. Although the girl describes an alleviation of some medical issues after her weight loss, like difficulty breathing, the clip is problematic.



There is a lot of praise about how she “looks”, not how she feels. The host says she “looks healthy” when she comes on the stage, when she really just looks thinner. Her (thin) parents put her on a restrictive diet (20g of fat a day or less, low sugar, etc.) and exercise plan without contribution from their daughter (“there were some struggles”, “it was hard”, “we had a zero tolerance policy, we’re doing the walk no matter what”, “don’t be afraid to do the tough love”) and are also praised heavily by the host. They even speak about how fat their daughter was as a baby and how they knew she would have a weight “problem”, had a slow metabolism, etc.



Most distressing to me was the point when her mother, while talking about getting all of the health checks they could to ensure her daughter’s health, had her join a swim team. “But they knew they had to step it up” when she was on the team and still gaining weight, despite the pediatrician’s assurances that she would grow into her body and despite the results of their health testing being completely normal. It is obvious to me that they were concerned, not about her health, but about making her thin.



I have a lot of thin privilege, but this blog has opened my eyes to a lot of society-wide problems and news stories like this have begun to make me cringe.