Here’s a breakdown of “Maggie Goes on a Diet,” fourteen year old Maggie is overweight and to tackle the lack self-worth that accompanies her issue, Maggie begins a diet and as a result goes through a dramatic change from being heavy and insecure to being the teen soccer star of her school. Through diet and exercise and dedication, Maggie develops new found confidence that builds and grows overtime and helps her become the person she didn’t even know she wanted to become.
This divisive children’s story has been met swift and massive rage from parents, teachers, and children’s experts who claim the book has the potential to hinder children’s self-esteem, introduce ideas about unsafe eating habits and lead to children developing dangerous and pernicious neuroses such as anorexia, bulimia, and more. Pete Maughan, an expert on obesity among children states, “It’s easy for armchair critics to make these kind of statements about the book. Unfortunately, sometimes a courageous author comes to the scene and discusses a sensitive topic with children in a way that has great potential, and a healthy message, but because we as adults have become so careful not to harm children, we’ve gone to the opposite extreme and are unwilling to share literature with children that may lead to a healthy conversation about healthy body weight and self-image.”
“Basically, the general public becomes incensed as a result of the book’s title alone, ‘diet’ and how it is clearly taking as audience young girls” says Pete Maughan, MD. He holds belief that this topic frames a message that really needs to be addressed. Maggie’s experience in the book is chalk full of positive information and positive responses to a serious issue. These critics simply dismiss the book as outrageous because the operative word pinpointing her issue, i.e. the infamous four letter word, is shrouded in negative context and other negative controversy because of how some women and girls have negatively approached their own weight loss in negative ways.
“It is absolutely vital that parents learn how they can convey healthy and positive lifestyles to their families. Maggie Goes on a Diet is a step in the right direction as it opens up parents and others to the idea that they need not attach only stigma to this word...We can all get past the fact that dieting does not only mean excessive gaunt and stick-like figures among the anorexic that the word ‘diet’ can conjure up. Diet boils down to referring to what we eat. Just think about the word when you say ‘healthy diet and exercise,’ see what’s so wrong about that?”
