Weight Watchers launched an app for children last week. Called Kurbo, it is aimed at kids between 8 and 17 who want to “reach for a healthier weight.” It’s currently only available in the US, Canada and Singapore, but according to Weight Watchers, there are plans to launch worldwide. The organisation would not make further comment.
As life would have it, the day it came out was also the day a friend sent me an old photo of myself. There I am, 11 years old, sporting bike pants next to my tall, blonde bestie who I felt like Jabba the Hut next to.
This was taken around the time I decided I needed to go on my first diet.
That was the first year I went on a diet. I felt I was so unacceptably fat that there was no hope of me ever having a proper life if I didn’t shed some kegs.
I was on the cusp of adolescence, a time when, according to the Diet Coke commercials, I’d have to wear a bikini and laugh silently in the passenger seat of a convertible sports car, while a guy in a chartreuse visor who wore sunglasses at half-mast, would wink directly at the camera before we sped off. A saxophone would play in the background.
How could I attain this type of adolescence in my current body? It wasn’t going to work. But if I was skinny, then I could really live. My worries would evaporate, and then love would follow, and then bikinis and silent laughter.
Want control? Diet. Want unconditional love? Diet. Want happiness? Diet. Want distraction? Diet. Want a job? Diet.
This is the promise – and the lie – of diet culture. A diet is sold as the skeleton key of life, capable of opening the door of every wish you have. Want control? Diet. Want unconditional love? Diet. Want happiness? Diet. Want distraction? Diet. Want a job? Diet.
It would be almost 15 years before I stopped weight cycling. I would be on a diet every month, every week, in fact, from the age of 11 until 24.
I tried them all: Atkins, Limits, (where you just eat biscuits), even Weight Watchers, and flat-out starvation. Each time I’d lose weight, then feel safe enough to start eating, and then quickly eat too much (because I was starving) and put it all back on.
In Australia, eating disorders are estimated to affect over 16 per cent of the population. Moreover, those with unhealthy weight control practices, are at increased risk of obesity.
I didn’t consider my dieting a disorder. I wasn’t thin enough! I thought that hovering between size 12 and 14 was unacceptable. Little did I know that even at a size 8 I felt huge.
I’m a size 12 these days, and though my body has produced two children, and is currently battling an auto immune disease, I can’t say I love it.
But here’s the thing: As an adult I have a fully developed brain, so when I try to hang hate on my body, it doesn’t have the same magnitude. I have too much shit to do anyway.
Kids don’t have those luxuries. Their brains are still developing, they don’t have the bandwidth to challenge diet culture alone in their heads. A national survey conducted by the Butterfly Foundation last year found that one in three Australians are unhappy with the way they look, and 62 per cent said they spent a lot of time thinking about their body shape and weight.
In the US, where Kurbo will make most of its money, the average age a girl will begin dieting is 10. In the 1970s that number was 14.
In the US, where Kurbo will make most of its money, the average age a girl will begin dieting is 10. In the 1970s that number was 14. All of this is to say: more young people than ever before are already struggling to accept their bodies, they don’t need an app charging them money to make it worse.
If it’s obesity you’re worried about, my story is proof that diets lead to weight gain, not loss. Body image advocates and dieticians have flatly condemned the app, and many of them are calling for its discontinuation with the hashtag #wakeupweightwatchers on their social media platforms.
I spoke with one of them, intuitive dietician Rachel Goodman, who called the app dangerous. “There is enough research that tells us 95 per cent of diets result in long term weight regain and repercussions to our health, including increased risk of heart disease, low self-esteem, eating disorders, depression, binge eating, and negative body image.
“This is even more prevalent with children and teens who are more vulnerable than adults at a time when their bodies are developing and self-awareness toward their body increases.”
“Considering the fact that we have research to show teens who diet are up to 18 times more likely to develop an eating disorder, choosing to ignore these facts and put them on diets is unethical.”
It took me years before I realised that hating my body was just a symptom of hating myself, and that a diet wasn’t a cure-all for life’s ills. If only someone had told me that at 11.
Source: Read Full Article