Thursday, August 18, 2011

WTF?!

I just saw this on Jezebel:
According to Amazon, it's a children's book meant for kids ages 4-8.  Are you fucking kidding me?  Here's the blurb: "This book is about a 14 year old girl who goes on a diet and is transformed from being extremely overweight and insecure to a normal sized girl who becomes the school soccer star. Through time, exercise and hard work, Maggie becomes more and more confident and develops a positive self image."

The whole premise (as far as I can tell) is this girl wants to fit into the pretty pink dress her mother bought for her many sizes too small.  When she finally fits into it, her life is perfect and she's finally pretty and liked.

Talk about promoting body issues at the age of 4. Jesus.

I admit, the second sentence of the blurb sounds good and I'm all for teaching your kids to be healthy through proper diet and  exercise, but how about doing it the old fashioned way instead of relying on superficial stereotypes?  You, know- teach by example?


side note:  This reminds me of a stand-up routine I saw a few years ago where the comedian says before having children he used to judge parents in public with screaming children, thinking they were terrible parents with no control.  The punchline was: Don't judge 'til you have kids of your own...YOU HAVE NO IDEA what it's like.

Here I am being judgey-mcjudgerson.  I'm sure I'll change my tune when I have kids.

No comments:

Post a Comment