The Heavy: A Mother, A Daughter, A Diet

When she put her 7-year old on a diet, the child's weight had spiked almost 30 pounds in a year and her appetite was seemingly insatiable. Armed with a specialist-approved eating plan, Dara-Lynn Weiss became an enforcer - in her words, The Heavy. The mother was very vocal about it, socially, publicly ... even writing in that tribute-to-thin-dom Vogue Magazine .where she was excoriated. But her story exposes just how confused and conflicted a parent can be in trying to change the habits of a child diagnosed Obese. We hear from the author of The Heavy, Dara-Lynn Weiss and from others on everything from eating healthy ... to "fat shame" ... to the merits of publicizing it all.

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The Heavy: A Mother, A Daughter, A Diet - Dara-Lynn Weiss

Not since the Tiger Mom has a memoir of strict parenting been as reviled as The Heavy. It's the true story of Dara-Lynn Weiss, and her daughter, Bea. The 7 year old New Yorker was just over a metre tall and weighed 42 kilograms or 93 pounds. Her pediatrician said her parents needed to act. That was the start of a long and strict diet, a battle of wills, and now a controversial new book.

Dara-Lynn Weiss wrote about her daughter's diet in Vogue Magazine last year and her book, The Heavy: A Mother, A Daughter, A Diet hit Canadian shelves this month. Dara-Lynn Weiss was in Toronto.

The Heavy: A Mother, A Daughter, A Diet - Panel

Child obesity is an increasingly common problem in this country. According to Statistics Canada, 31% of children aged 5 - 17 are overweight.

Dr. Tom Warshawski is a pediatrician and chair of the Childhood Obesity Foundation. He was in Kelowna.

Shelly Russell-Mayhew is a registered psychologist, and associate professor of educational psychology at the University of Calgary.

And Katrina Onstad is a journalist, author and editor of two collections of essays on motherhood - Because I Love Her and Between Interruptions. She is in our Toronto studio.

This segment was produced by The Current's Jessica deMello.

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