To be angry at Igloo books for promoting diet culture?

[Emmama163]

So I’m casually reading my baby girl a story from “Animal Stories” by Igloo books and we get to The Goat Detectives.

On the first page it shows a picture of the farmer telling the goats “I’m on a diet and you’re eating whatever you want! You can go on a diet too” then some pages about goats with rumbly tummies eating lettuce all week and then on the last page it says that “instead of having secret snacks, Farmer Field decided to do more exercise, and the goats went back to munching their tulips”

I mean, WTAF. This is aimed at tiny children and as someone in recovery from an eating disorder this makes my blood boil!

So nobody can ever mention being on a diet in a story because you're in recovery from a mental illness?

It doesn't sound like a great subject for a children's story TBH.

Come on you know fine well that's not what she meant Jesus christ. Op I agree putting that sort of thinking into kids heads is terrible, they shouldn't be thinking about "diets"!

Of course many people wouldn’t bat an eyelid about this, but personally I wouldn’t read that to my DC either. I’m careful about not normalizing any association between food and guilt, because I still remember comments from relatives (“ooh, I shouldn’t be eating this cake!” etc) that made me feel bad about my own (thankfully quite healthy) appetite as a child/teen. Children absorb negative messages more easily than many people think.

Congrats on your recovery btw

@Gwenhwyfar I think that regardless of my experiences we shouldn’t be promoting diets or assigning moral values to food in front of children! I certainly don’t want my daughter growing up with the same narrative around food as I did

But it's not promoting diets!? The final page you quote shows that going on a diet didn't work for the farmer, or for the goats who were forced on one! It seems to me it's doing the opposite of blindly promoting diets, and instead showing to do what works for the individual.

But plenty of people go on healthy diets and their lives benefit from this? Dieting isn't a taboo subject that needs to be hidden, that children shouldn't even know exists. People can have unhealthy relationships with anything if they're mentally unwell. We can't erase everything that anyone on earth has struggled with or there'd be nothing left.

@KrisAkabusi

But it's not promoting diets!? The final page you quote shows that going on a diet didn't work for the farmer, or for the goats who were forced on one! It seems to me it's doing the opposite of blindly promoting diets, and instead showing to do what works for the individual.

I agree with this, the moral seemed to be that the diet was a silly idea. Silly farmer, putting his goats on a diet! Kids will come across the word diet a lot so I don't mind my DD having a story to explain that diets are daft.

• I'm also recovered from an ED

I don't think children should even be aware of the word 'diet' in the context of losing weight. I don't have any issues (other than growing up in the 90s when thin was in), but I'm very cautious never to mention weight or make criticisms of my body around my daughter.