Parents are often at a loss when faced with an overweight child. Is it appropriate to talk about dieting in relation to a young child? Is television to blame? What health risks are incurred by overweight adults?
This is a highly readable, practical book, teeming with common-sense advice and the necessary information to help parents help their children stop being “too fat”. The author’s advice includes the following points:
The first step is to check that your child really is overweight.
You should make sure your child has the motivation to lose the extra pounds.
You should stop asking why your child is overweight and concentrate on how he or she become that way.
Forget about making your child follow a slimming diet.
The overweight child must learn to control his or her eating habits. This can be done by giving the child a few simple rules to follow. The child should also be made to walk for half an hour every day.
The method proposed by Vincent Boggio is based on a physiological, bio-energetic approach (which shouldn’t be confused with the questionable therapy known as bioenergy). This approach — based on the study of how energy is transformed in living organisms — is a far cry from the moralistic attitude inherent to “nutritionally correct” diets which, by labelling some foods as taboo, unnecessarily complicates the child’s relationship to nutrition. In addition, Boggio’s approach, by refusing to worship thinness, avoids some of the risks involved in encouraging an obsession with weight loss among emotionally fragile teenage girls.

Vincent Boggio is a lecturer in physiology at the University of Bourgogne, and is on the staff of Dijon’s university hospital.