Dara-Lynn Weiss attracted national media attention by putting her obese 7-year-old daughter on a diet, writing about it in Vogue, and ultimately scoring a book deal. Her story is relevant in American where 1 in 3 children are obese. There’s a need for information on how parents can help their overweight children—but Dara-Lynn, who fat-shamed her daughter in public, got it all wrong and only sets a bad example for other moms in similar situations. And as we all know, the last thing the world needs is yet another example of bad parenting.
When Bea Weiss was 6 years old a pediatrician diagnosed her as clinically obese. Bea was 4 ft. 4 in. and 93 pounds.
Bea’s mother, Dara-Lynn Weiss, sprang into action and put her daughter on a strict diet. The Manhattan socialite also fat-shamed Bea, humiliated her in public, and once she denied her daughter dinner because she consumed brie, filet mignon, baguette and chocolate at her school’s French Heritage Day. Another time she stopped her daughter from eating a salad because it was overly dressed.
“She did everything we recommend people don’t do,” Lynn Grefe, president of the National Eating Disorders Association, told Time. “To us, diet is a four-letter word.”