The War on Fat Kids Spreads to the Library
Last week, a reader named April, who’s a children’s librarian, sent me a note about The Gulps, by Rosemary Wells. Here’s what she has to say about it:
I read the book when it arrived at my library and was appalled. The story is about a family called the Gulps, and it’s one of the most fat-hating, stereotype-reinforcing things I have ever read. The Gulp family is fat and they are shown as eating constantly. They are also depicted as hating vegetables and eating only junk. They are also very lazy, saying that mostly all they do is watch TV. The early part of the book features multiple instances of vehicles, slides, etc. breaking under their weight, with lots of scorn directed at the family. Then they meet another family that teaches them to eat well, and the Gulps all lose weight.
And the first review on Amazon lauds this book for its “realistic message.”
The second review is from me:
A realistic message would be that nutrition and physical activity are important for good health, but not everyone will lose weight from eating green foods and exercising. Another would be that bodies are different, and there are both naturally thin and naturally fat people. The message that fat people are completely ignorant about nutrition, eat massive quantities of junk food, and will become thin as soon as they discover vegetables is anything but realistic.
And a more appropriate message for a children’s book might be that ridiculing people because of the way their bodies look is cruel and unacceptable.
Please appreciate my restraint. I think you all know what I really meant was, ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING ME?
Now, I’m not encouraging you to go flood the reviews with Health at Every Size information or anything, but… I totally am.
It’s such a shame……Marc Brown is the author of the Arthur books, which are well loved by myself and my kids, we read one practically every night. The messages in those books are often about accepting differences in other situations (such as when one of the group wets the bed, and differences in religion and income amongst Arthur’s friends). And Rosemary Wells also writes the Max and Ruby books, also very much loved by my kids. How sad that they have decided to waste their considerable talent on such nonsense.
Oh, man, Marianne. I don’t have kids, so I didn’t even twig to Marc Brown being the Arthur guy! My niece and nephews LOVED Arthur.
And you’re so right that those books and so many other kids’ books are about accepting differences — yet we can’t extend that to fat.
I worked in a library during high school and I sought out the few fat positive books in the children’s section so I could keep them prominently displayed. Its disheartening, though hardly surprising, that a book promoting fat prejudice would now be on the market. Fat fear is on the rise and parents feel the need to scare children about fat people more directly than ever before. This is really nothing but discouraging. Yet more, “Maybe they didn’t hear us” thinking from the anti-fat crowd.
Marianne – we have the same name! I love it when that happens.
The Arthur books really are great, so it is sad to see their message of acceptance get twisted into something so faux-educational as the Gulps. I think this highlights, however, that our society is all about preaching tolerance only for a limited set of things. And fat just isn’t part of that set yet. *sigh*
The Rotund –every time I see a comment from that Marianne, I think, “Has Marianne [i.e., you] started using her real name?” Then I look at the URL/e-mail and realize it’s a different one. It’s a common enough name, but my brain still thinks there can only be one of you.
I’ve also noticed a lot of Kates in the fatosphere, and when I pointed that out to one of them, she said, “Maybe it’s a risk factor.” Hee!
A risk factor….that’s awesome! And (other) Marianne, you are right, I guess most of the time kids are taught to only be tolerant of certain things and not others…..when I stopped to think about it, there aren’t any fat characters on Arthur, the books or the tv show, other than Binky Barnes, a character which started out as a bully and evolved into a nice guy. But to my knowledge, they have never written a show about accepting Binky’s size, although they did do a show about him needing a nightlight, with the message that everyone, even big strong bullies, is afraid of something.
I miss Judy Blume. I don’t remember the details of Blubber (like, maybe at the end she started dieting or something), but the book was about the children’s cruelty toward someone different.
(And the book was against, not for, that cruelty.)
I remember Blubber well. (I re-read it as an adult; I happen to like YA fiction and will read it for my own pleasure.) The book was actually written from the POV of a thin “normal” fifth-grade girl named Jill who was kind of an observer/peripheral participant in the tormenting of Linda (Blubber) until it went too far and she objected, and then Jill became the bully-target (with Linda gleefully pitching in). We really didn’t get Linda’s POV very much, nor were the “reasons” for her weight really discussed, but she certainly wasn’t portrayed as stuffing her face constantly.
The book of Blume’s that rankles me from the weight standpoint is Just As Long As We’re Together, which came out about 15 years later. Stephanie, the book’s protagonist, comes home from school complaining that a boy called her “El Chunko,” and her mother responds by telling her, “You have gained weight,” then purging the house of all the “junk” foods and recommending that she take Stephanie to the doctor for a “sensible” diet (“but not one of those fad diets that ruins your health”). When Stephanie’s brother asks what Mom is going to do with all their “junk” food, Mom replies that she is going to give it to a cousin who is “as thin as a flagpole.” (Which makes it OK for him to eat crap??) It should be noted that Stephanie is in 7th grade, a bit older than the Blubber protagonist, and described as only “a little bit overweight,” but does tend to eat for emotional reasons. But it still irritated me.
UGH, Meowser. I had no idea that second Judy Blume book existed. So much for loving her.
Oh, and another thing about Blume: She once said that she was very skinny as a kid in an era when “thin was NOT in,” and was razzed for it constantly. But yeah, this trend of kids being encouraged to be mean to other kids “for their own good”? I bet we’re going to see LOTS of psychiatric disorders arising from this. Whatever “health care money” they think they’ll be saving by eliminating a few cases of type 2 diabetes, will just be plowed back into psychiatric care and then some.
Judy, Judy, Judy.
I remember reading Blubber in the fourth grade. I haven’t thought about that book in a long time. That and “Nothing’s Fair in the Fifth Grade” are two of the only books I can remember featuring big girls like myself. Thank God there was nothing like “The Gulps” back then, or my life would have been more miserable than it already was. It would have been like giving my classmates the green light to be even more openly hostile.
Kate, everytime I see the name pop up I am all, OMG I posted ehre! But then I didn’t actually. *grin* It’s actually a name, if you look at the dates on that chart, a name that has lost a lot of popularity since the 50s. I have run into other Mariannes on the internet, but never met another one in real life.
I have noticed a few Kates in teh fatosphere and it always throws me becasue YOU are Kate to me. *grin*
It’s a shame that difference isn’t being put forward as a good thing in more children’s lit. Differences of all kinds. I love children and YA books but they DO tend to follow hot topic trends. So, really, I’m not surprised that books with a negative view of obesity are coming out. It’s totally a respnse to this EPIDEMIC that we are in the midst of. *snort*
To defend Judy Blume, she tries to be as realistic as possible in her writing, something I find very noble and artistically valuable. I don’t think Blume has ever promoted dieting, nor has she denigrated fat people, even if her books have broached these subjects. It’s important to note that the point of Blubber isn’t health, nutrition or fat acceptance–it’s about uncovering how absolutely clueless teachers and parents are about bullying, and how kids can be arbitrarily cruel. Just As Long As We’re Together is largely about the protagonist and her ability to cope with her parents’ divorce and the confusion of adolescence. The negative mention of fat is entirely secondary, and is something that rings true to the junior high experience.
The gestalt of Blume’s books is entirely different than the purpose and message of a book like The Gulps (which is focused on perpetuating fat stereotypes), and I think it’s a bit bizarre to dismiss Blume for describing how people truly act and feel. She never asks anyone to emulate her characters!
I saw this book recently but did not think of writing a review until I read this post. Here is what I submitted (it’s not “up” yet on Amazon):
“I am simply appalled at the message in this book. At a time when scientists and doctors are starting to realize that DIETING is more dangerous than being overweight and that the psychological damage being done to overweight children who are teased and forced to diet all the time becomes a lifelong self-hatred, why would any author want to reinforce the stereotype with children? Fat-hatred is still an acceptable prejudice in this culture because of the prevailing ideology that “fat people are just lazy and eat junk food while watching TV” – the same message in this book! I like the author, so I got the book and then I was heart-sick reading it. Books like this just contribute to the problem – they don’t solve it or help it at all.”
If it makes you feel better, that wasn’t a real review, it was a promotional blurb. Click on the reviewers name, she has thousands of reviews, and they’re all five stars and they all read more like promotional material than actual reviews.
It is terrible about the book though. Fat kids feel badly enough about themselves with other kids taunting them about their weight, without being made to feel bad by the books they read too. Especially since even if they are eating unhealthy foods, what are they supposed to do about it? They eat what their parents feed them.
I’m new to your site by the way, and love it =)
Roses, I suspected that was straight PR-speak, actually (having briefly been a book publicist myself), but regardless… bleh.
And thanks. :)
Hey, I have a past life as a publicist too! Maybe it’s a risk factor.
I’m not surprised that Wells and Brown are going for the money — the imaginary epidemic is such a hot topic that you can get book deals, promotions, and potentially even grants out of it — but I am certainly disappointed. We should all be writing fat-pos kiddie books. I can’t think of ANY… I did read Nothing’s Fair in Fifth Grade, but the girl in that was emotionally damaged and certainly did eat all the time. Besides, by the time they’re reading YA, I suspect it’s already too late.
I’m a children’s book editor at a publisher that does a lot of “special needs” books, and we’ve gotten so many horrifying proposals and manuscript submissions that attempt to address The Serious Problem of Childhood Obesity. Because never mind that a children’s book on this subject wouldn’t really be for kids, since they don’t control the factors that make them fat—people just love the idea of having a BOOK for every supposed problem, because if an issue has its own BOOK, it’s legitimate, right?
So I’m not surprised that someone finally came up with The Gulps. After seeing so many other really truly crappy and even more mean-spirited attempts, I will give them a little grudging credit–first, for not targeting a fat kid (the protagonist is the youngest Gulp, who loves vegetables and helps the rest of her family eat better. (yeah, it’s like that)), and second, for trying to acknowledge that the “problem” is fast food and sedentary living. Though of course, that point quickly gets lost among all the fat jokes.
And then even the cultural critique part is misguided. I just read The Omnivore’s Dilemma, so I know that the Gulps motorhome would probably NOT break down near a nice family vegetable farm—they’d be a hundred times more likely to break down near a vast industrial farm growing commodity corn to be made into corn syrup and processed food. Or else they could wind up near a massive cattle feedlot with lagoons full of shit! I mean, if they’re going to critique the American way of eating, why not go all the way?
Then again, maybe they think fat people are scarier and more disgusting than an industrial cattle feedlot.
Then again, maybe they think fat people are scarier and more disgusting than an industrial cattle feedlot.
I’d put money on it. Sigh.
Oh, I know the “El Chunko” stuff is only a few pages in a book that’s nearly 300 pages long (and pretty good otherwise). And I did appreciate the fact that she stood up and announced that the boy who called her El Chunko was “the class asshole.” (They were introducing themselves to a substitute teacher.) That showed she wasn’t totally rolling over and playing dead for body shame.
Towards the end of the book someone notices that she has lost a few pounds and she says she’s “not as hungry any more,” and says she thinks it is because “my hormones are adjusting.” (There were a few mild episodes of binge eating earlier in the book, which seemed to be related to family stressors.) Nothing about a “great new diet” she’s on or anything. So at least the point wasn’t belabored. I just mentioned this book because people often mention Blubber as being size-unfriendly, whereas Just as Long seems relatively unknown.
(Slightly OT) I loved “The Cat Ate My Gymsuit” by Paula Danziger. It’s about a girl who is incredibly shy due to her body and all the pressures put upon her by everyone else (mother, father, teachers, other students). I thought it was a pretty realistic look into a “fat” girl’s head.
Does anyone remember The Bearnstein Bears book, called Junk Food. That was a great book, it was reasonable. Sure, there was a joke about Papa bear getting hurt by a caliper-measurement thing. However, it enforced eating healthier and exercising. It wasn’t a rediculous caricature telling children, make fun of fat people, cause it’s funny and they’re below you.
It’s sad when children’s authors side with bullies, to make a few bucks.
Oh, yeah “The Cat Ate My Gym Suit” was a really good one….I’d forgotten all about that book!
If you want to read great, somewhat kid-friendly books with characters who just happen to be fat, check out Daniel Pinkwater. He features plenty of everyday protagonists who just happen to be fat. They are engaging, active, and eat just like everyone else. No judgments, except where they come from pitiable antagonists. It’s wonderful!
I also like the Elvin character in Chris Lynch’s books Slot Machine and Extreme Elvin. The former is about a summer camp where kids of all sizes are put through punishing exercise routines “for their own good,” and Elvin gets his own little unexpected form of evening the score. In the latter, he gets a girlfriend who is “chubby” herself, and who is also portrayed as sassy and confident. Although some mention is made in this book of Elvin’s size and the fact that he likes to eat (what teenaged boy doesn’t?), it’s pretty secondary to everything else that happens.
I just worry, in the current climate, of books like this becoming extinct as fat kids come under relentless pressure to diet, diet, diet. I’m sure they’ll be written, but will they be published?
Never teh Bride, I was going to mention Daniel Pinkwater. In fact, I am going to go review that crappy book and do some name dropping.
And onceupon/therotund/Marianne, this post makes me grateful for the editing activism you did awhile back. To the trenches!
One of my favorite children’s books is The Hefty Fairy It truly is a Fat Acceptance story.
I just posted this:
Holy mother of all that is over-simplified, socially irresponsible and blindly bigoted. If there was a patron saint for this book, it would be the pious, over-schmaltzed offspring of Richard Simmons and Pat Robertson. I realize that simplifying concepts for children is the way to help them establish a baseline of understanding, but come ON. What fat child, seeing his or herself in these pages, regardless of the eating or excercise habits of his or her family, is going to walk away with any feeling other than self-loathing? Wouldn’t a better example be to show children of all sizes, shapes, colors and abilities, engaging in enjoyable physical activity together? I agree that healthful activity and a diet (as in, the sum total of what we eat, not as in an unsustainable and doomed-to-failure system based on deprivation) that includes leafy greens is a wonderful thing. But what of the families who can’t afford a well-rounded menu? What of children who *are* active, and who *do* eat their veggies, and who *don’t* over-induldge and who are *still* fat?
There have always been fat people. There will always be fat people. The “one of these things is not like the other” system of compare and contrast only continues to create divides between communities, and within our own selves. And just as many thin folks live sedentary lives as fat folks. Fitness and Fatness are NOT mutually exclusive.
Parents – LOVE your children. Encourage them in positive ways to be active and to treat themselves and their bodies lovingly. Nurture positive eating habits. Do not SHAME your children. Do not shame yourself in FRONT of your children! Lead by a positive example of self-love and empowerment. Do not villainize food – this only creates compulsion! And most of all, do NOT buy this book!
Anybody else catch the cover illustration from Amazon.com? The whole family is so happy it’s frightening. Maybe Big Food is lacing their snacks with some kind of addicting happy drug.
And why is the only thin kid also the only redhead? Maybe Mrs. Gulp gets around a bit…
… I’m awful. Check please!
And why is the only thin kid also the only redhead? Maybe Mrs. Gulp gets around a bit…
Heh.
There’s a rather unfortunate sequel to The Cat Ate My Gymsuit titled There’s a Bat in Bunk Five, where Marcy goes off to be a camp counsellor. Only now she’s not insecure because she’s lost weight, and she starts dating (I think) another counsellor and worrying about whether he’ll find out she used to be a fattie, and she only eats one small slice of pizza at the camp party because “no way is she ever going to get fat again”.
I read this when I was 12 or so, and combined with a fat-negative family environment and plenty of other “You’ll only be truly happy when you’re thin” media messages, it rather helped screw me up.
The late Paula Danziger, who wrote both Gym Suit and its sequel, as well as many other books, was a very large woman herself, FWIW. Or at least she was by the time I met her; I don’t know what size she was when she wrote those books, as I met her about 20 or so years after that. But one way or another, it’s possible that creating a “formerly fat” protagonist was her way of trying to “inspire” herself to lose weight (or keep it off). In fact, I remember being surprised that she was plus-sized, because I don’t recall any other books of hers that had fat protagonists or that mentioned weight in any meaningful way, and I had read a bunch of ‘em.
You all, I just got a chance to go over to Amazon and review this book…and I found out something I didn’t know. Customers can TAG books. I have taken the liberty of putting in several appropriate tags and I encourage you to do the same.
The worst children’s book I ever read – and this was probably back in the very early ’90s when I was about 11 – involved a chubby, clumsy boy who made a bet with his friend that he could go an entire summer without injuring himself. If he lost he had to kiss the fat girl in front of everyone on the first day of school. Of course he exercised and lost weight in an effort to “be less clumsy” (yeah, I’m sure that’d turn be into a genuine ballerina), but got hurt anyway. But fortunately, the fat girl had lost weight over the summer herself! HOTT!
The terrible thing is that it all struck me as perfectly natural at the time – I didn’t realize how truly awful it was until years later.
withoutscene, “stigmatizing children” is a particularly apt tag for this book… bravo.
If I remember correctly (and it’s been years since I read it), “Bat in Bunk Five” seemed to push the message that Marcy (her name?) wasn’t any more comfortable in her skin since she had lost weight. That losing weight wasn’t the miracle panacea she once believed.
Man, I forgot about how good “Blubber” and “Cat Ate My Gymsuit” are!! When you read something and cringe because it’s so true to life, the author has done her job.
When Paula Danziger died a couple years back, I wrote a blog entry about reading The Cat Ate My Gymsuit and how I was fascinated by the cover of the 70s paperback edition. Depressingly, the covers for more editions of the book depict a decidedly thinner Marcy, if they even sho her at all.
Uh, that should read: Depressingly, the covers for more recent editions of the book depict a decidedly thinner Marcy, if they even show her at all.
Doy.
In the words of Chandler Bing, “You don’t get a lot of ‘doy’ these days.” Nice.
^^^^^^^^ YES. That. I see this constantly. Children are getting the generational fatphobia message loud and clear.
I remember loving Michael Ende for his objecting to the film version of Neverending Story. The whole point of the book is that Bastian is fat and he’s the hero of his own story. He is the one who ends up saving the magical kingdom, not the skinny bullies who terrorize him. Ende, reportedly livid that the actor who portrayed Bastion was slender, wanted his name removed from the project. He was very vocal about the entire point of the book’s being that the fat kid is the hero, and removing that detail destroys the message of the book. That made him my hero.
Good lord, this book is disgusting.
Do you know of any size-positive children’s books to counter this message? I would love to donate some to the local library.