this mother kept me up last night

The email I sent to talkingback@Vogue.com at 6am:

  re: April issue, "Weight Watchers"

I was horrified reading "Weight Watchers" in your April issue. Withholding healthy food from a hungry seven-year old is emotional abuse. Not allowing a hungry child to eat salad? green beans? Calling her "fat" and forcing her to watch her brother eat food that she wants, but doesn't get?

Ms. Weiss does not care about childhood obesity, or her daughter's health. She is vain and selfish and wants a skinny little girl to appear beside her in photos. My almost-4 year old has never had sugar, and I've dodged cupcakes at pre-school parties, and completely agree that the food in our schools is a nutritional nightmare. But I bring a banana or unsweetened applesauce for my little girl to enjoy instead of sugary, fat-laden treats. Because her nutrition is the priority, not a DIET.

I hope, for Bea's sake, that the author is pulling a Rush Limbaugh here and just trying to shock us (her mediocre writing certainly isn't going to garner her any attention). And I hope she's saving money for her daughter's therapy and eating disorder treatment.

It is so disappointing to see you glorify this by giving it coverage in your magazine (anorexic models on your pages is one thing; highlighting this emotional abuse of a child is quite another).

Angela Broderick Bedell
Leawood, KS

Remember my sugar-free birthday parties?  My daughter's health is a priority, and I am hell-bent on keeping toxic, sugary, addictive junk away from her.  But I  do it by keeping GOOD food in front of her and dodging the bad stuff.  
I am amazed that a mother would, in the day and age, treat a child this way.