I want to write about something that upset me initially when I heard about it but upset me even more when family members of mine supported it. That’s right, it’s the dreaded ‘Kurbo’ app by Weight Watchers/ WW.
I just want to have a bit of a rant and write down all the reasons why this app is SO messed up. I understand that childhood obesity all over the world is quite high, and I completely get that this can be dangerous, however shouldn’t we be looking at the reasons behind this and trying to prevent it with healthy measures? If a child is at risk of becoming severely overweight, or is overweight, you’d like to think that their family/school/health care professionals would pick up on this and put a plan together?
A child could be overweight for several reasons, not just because they are eating ‘bad foods’ or as Kurbo calls them ‘Red Foods’- which brings me to a point on traffic-lighting food. If you are teaching a child to traffic light their food and track their weight, it puts the notion in a child’s head that their self-worth is based on their weight and their look- which 100% not the case. You wouldn’t tell a child they were unworthy of love/friendship/life etc based on their weight, would you? Also, traffic-lighting suggests that there is such thing as GOOD and BAD food, which again, is not the case. Your body needs a balanced diet, and that means consuming lots of different types of food, which are all used in the body in different ways to help you survive!! If you eat food in proportion, what is the problem? Traffic-Lighting food teaches children that food is the enemy, when in fact, it is there to keep you alive. Studies show that when people start trying to avoid these ‘bad’ foods, the more likely you are to crave them, and therefore cave on the diet and binge on these foods, which is a lot worse for your health.
“Most food, if not all foods, when consumed in excess will cause discomfort- even broccoli!” (https://eu.poughkeepsiejournal.com/story/life/2019/05/14/labeling-foods-can-have-negative-impact-what-we-eat/1164028001/)
Personally, I believe that children, at the young age of 8, should be playing with their friends, learning about the world and enjoying being a child. They shouldn’t be obsessing over their diet and/or their weight. However, Kurbo plays directly into diet culture, making these children believe there are achieving things by avoiding certain foods.
Why is this app untrustworthy/crap?
Kurbo has not done enough research into child development. I know this because, if they had, they would know that restriction on foods and dieting without professional guidance while a child is growing, can be very dangerous for their development.
Kurbo say that they have qualified coaches to help the children and say that they are qualified to pick up on disordered eating. However, when I looked at the qualifications these coaches had, they included degrees in subjects such as ‘business’, ‘economics’ and ‘tourism’. Not really a health care professional, are they?
If WW/Kurbo had done research, they would know that dieting is the single biggest predator for Eating Disorders… ¼ of people who engage in dieting behaviour in their lifetime, will at some point develop an Eating Disorder.
WW keep saying that the app is science based, but they are yet to give evidence to support this. This doesn’t sound very trustworthy to me but idk…?
‘Make parents happy’ is one of the options children can choose on the app as their goal. This is SO unhealthy! If the option was ‘Make my partner happy’, there would be uproar, so why is this any different?
So, what can be done instead of putting kids on dieting apps?
The American Academy of Paediatrics states this:
"Adolescents who were more satisfied with their bodies were more likely to report parental and peer attitudes that encouraged healthful eating and exercising to be fit, rather than dieting; they were less likely to report personal weight-related concerns and behaviours,"
So first of all, encouraging positive body image. This has to be the most important, and so much research backs this up! If children are taught to love and accept their bodies for the way they are, they’re more likely to respect their body too. Bodies come in all shapes and sizes, not everyone was born to look the same! Some people are naturally a size 8, and others are naturally a size 16!
Second of all, encouraging healthy eating/ a balanced diet. Parent’s need to take responsibility. Someone said to me ‘the app is good for lazy parents who cannot be bothered to tackle healthy eating with their child’. NO. An app is not a substitute. It kind of boils down to lack of education and other factors such as parents not being able to afford healthier food (which is the governments fault completely). It is not the child’s fault, so why does this app make the child feel like it is?
Other options include:
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Cooking lessons for parents/children
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More mental health support for families
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Better education in schools
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CHEAPER ‘HEALTHY’ FOOD!!!
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More affordable sports for children and parents.
I genuinely could go on and on about this, I am so angry but I’m going to leave it here for now. Overall, I certainly don’t believe a dieting app for CHILDREN/for MINORS is the way forward, and if you do, then you clearly haven’t done your research on the success rate of diets and their negative consequences. (95% of all diets fail btw- Source: Statistics on Weight Discrimination: A Waste of Talent, The Council on Size and Weight Discrimination ).
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| I'm not sure on the source of this photo, I just saw it on twitter |
Have a lush day,
Dais xo
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