A mom who says she’s 265 pounds posted on Instagram a video of herself and her obese child hollering “Boooo!” at a diet commercial.
The video was posted on Jan. 4, 2020. I recommend you set your volume to low, because she and her seven-year-old overweight daughter are LOUD.
The Instagram video begins with the camera on a TV commercial for a diet. Seconds later:
Mama and child: “Boooooo! Booooo! Boooooo DIET! Booooo diet! Booooo! BOOOOO!”
Mama: “You’re perfect just the way you are! You’re perfect just the way you are!”
Child: “You don’t have to burn fat!”
This is not what body positivity should be about.
Yes, there are diets that cannot be sustained or are unrealistic, but this particular influencer believes that ANY attempt to lose excess weight is toxic.
I’m wondering how overweight her daughter would have to get before her mother realizes that excess body fat is unhealthy in children — that childhood obesity is nothing to kick under the rug.
What this woman is essentially doing is booing the entire medical establishment.
I’ve been following her – to get story ideas, not because I agree with her – and thus, I can definitely tell you that her message is that ANY attempt to lose weight, even if one is obese, is a bad thing.
Even if the “diet” simply means cutting back on extra helpings of junk food, this influencer wants her followers to know that this is a toxic way to live.
I’ve seen videos of her doing simple exercises – and making them look difficult.
At 265 pounds, 5’10 and in her early 30s, she’s still plenty mobile.
But as she gets older, her mobility will begin declining sooner than it should.
Youth is a wonderful thing. It’s highly protective of morbid obesity’s negative effects.
But before this mom of two realizes it, the obesity will catch up to her.
Though she stands 5’10, her weight of 265 puts her in the morbidly obese category.
Her daughter, age seven at the time the video of the booing was posted, seems to have gained more weight over time – out of proportion to her age and height.
The young girl may be on the way to weight problems in the future, especially since she’s being trained to believe that “going on a diet” is a terrible thing.
Her mother has actually posted that no child should ever be put on a diet.
Though many frustrated parents of overweight children go about the solution in a very destructive way, this doesn’t mean there don’t exist positive, encouraging and effective ways of helping an overweight child lose weight.
Imagine the message she’s sending when she encourages this child to shout at top volume, “Booooo diet!” at the TV commercial, and to recite, “You don’t have to burn fat!”
Being Perfect just the Way You Are
Certainly, this is a message that moms should convey to their children.
But when a child is encouraged to remain chubby, and is told the reason is because she’s perfect just as she is, this is very wrong — on so many levels.
Amina Filkins, Pexels
For example, what if one day she wants to play on her school’s basketball team or run on its track team?
At the time of the video she was on a cheerleading squad.
Her mother has already admitted that this child is the slowest of all the girls to learn the moves. There’s no wonder why here.
Good and Bad Diets
“I hate the word diet,” says Susan L. Besser, MD, with Mercy Medical Center, Baltimore; Diplomate, American Board of Obesity Medicine and board certified by the American Board of Family Medicine.
Dr. Besser explains, “It has such negative connotations! I generally recommend mindful eating and moderation in all things.
“That doesn’t mean no junk — just be mindful about what you are doing.
“In this case, the problem is with the mother. She doesn’t understand what eating healthy really means — and so she is training her child to have false notions.
“This is when the pediatrician needs to address the mom’s misconception (it wouldn’t hurt if mom’s doctor would discuss it with her as well).
“As a quick plug for my specialty, Family Medicine, we treat the entire family — so can address this sort of thing from both sides of the table, so to speak.
“Of course, a child can be put on a healthy diet without even knowing it. But first you would have to convince the mom it isn’t a ‘diet’ — just a healthier way of eating.”
When I was a personal trainer I always told my overweight clients that it’s okay to continue eating their favorite foods including carbs.
The key was portion control. My advice was to allow only one portion a day of any kind of bakery or sweets.
So if you had one donut with breakfast, that was it for the day. There’d be no candy bar for a noon snack, or no ice cream after dinner.
I also encouraged replacing soda with water, eating at least five servings a day of any combination of fruits and vegetables, and making sure to eat breakfast, as many of them skipped it.
Another recommendation was to snack only on fruit, nuts, seeds, tossed salads, steamed vegetables, tuna salad, yogurt, etc.
There is nothing toxic about this type of diet, and if adhered to, would result in fat loss, assuming that the dieter understood what “one portion” truly was.
Where does this 265 pound woman get the idea that ANY kind of diet, ANY kind of “mindful eating,” ANY safe attempt at losing excess body fat, is toxic to children and worth a lot of loud BOOOO’s?
It’ll be interesting to see what this seven-year-old child will look like in a few years.
When she’s a lot older and wiser, she may confront her mother:
“How could you have let me get fat?! What were you thinking? I can’t climb a flight of stairs without struggling for breath!”
The Instagram account is replete with this child’s images, and I’m predicting that by the time she’s 10, she’ll be where Honey Boo Boo (reality TV star Alana Thompson) was when SHE was 10: significantly overweight.
In fact, this may happen even sooner, as the bopo influencer becomes more aggressive with her anti-diet crusade.
This body positive Instragrammer may be unknowingly priming her seven-year-old daughter for future morbid obesity and lifelong struggles with food.
Update
As predicted, the influencer’s daughter, now 11 in 2024, is significantly overweight.
I’ve seen her on both Instagram and TikTok, where her mother (who currently lists her weight at 295) continues to push fat acceptance.
Interestingly, her formerly slender 12-year-old son is now noticeably overweight, but not to the extent that his sister is.
