Customer Reviews

The Gulps

5 star:		(6)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(14)

 

 

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.

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!

Would Amazon sell a book that so blatantly uses cultural stereotypes of any group other than fat people?

The author, illustrator (Marc Brown, how could you) and publishers should be ashamed of themselves for reinforcing our deeply-ingrained societal prejudices about body size. As another reviewer said, it's a good thing to promote healthy eating and exercising by people of all sizes; I'm all in favor of eating fresh fruits and vegetables. But it's no more healthy for my slim nieces and nephews to eat nothing but french fries, ice cream and chicken fingers than it is for the Gulps to do the same. I suspect that most kids will read this book and think "gee, it's a good thing I'm not fat so I can eat whatever I want." And I doubt that's what the author had in mind.

I was alerted to this book by a children's librarian who was appalled at its message, and I'm right with her. 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.

A book full of hateful stereotypes and fat jokes is "realistic" for children 4-8???

I was a heavy child. Did I eat junk? Yes. Did I eat healthy food? Yes? Was I fit? Absolutely. In fact, I was a very fast runner and I won a class competition on sit-ups (my score was even better than the boys!).

What a disgusting book. The author should be ashamed of herself. What kind of person perpetuates filthy stereotypes and hatred in a children's book???

Don't buy this book.

My daughter, age 5, loves Rosemary Wells' and Marc Brown books. She is a fan of the Max & Ruby series, as well as Arthur. I am appalled that these authors have come together and created such a stereotypical book. Imagine how an overweight child would feel if this book were read to his class in school? They have exhibited no sensitivity to the issue of weight.

This book is especially out of character of the works of Rosemary Wells. To get this from the author who brought us "Yoko" and "Timothy Goes to School" where being nice to others is encouraged is really shocking. Painting overweight people as a bunch of lazy junk food eaters in the eyes of children, not nice at all!

I love the work of both Marc Brown and Rosemary Wells, and that's why I am so very disappointed at this joint effort. These artists are the last ones I would have expected to produce such an unimaginative and ill-informed book. The message here is that fat people are lazy, gluttonous slobs who could very well "fix" their obesity by getting off the couch and eating a few veggies. Hello, have either of these folks read Gina Kolata's new book? Or any of the actual research on obesity? This book is guaranteed to make kids even more self-conscious about their weight and "healthy eating"--which in my very sad personal experience is a perfect recipe for creating eating disorders. As my grandmother would have said, this book is a shanda--a shameful thing.

I won't even get into the message sent by the book, that being overweight is a moral ill caused by laziness and gluttony and nothing else whatsoever. That's been well-covered already.

What really gets me is that that message is covered in a very patronizing way. The family doesn't just not have time to exercise, doesn't just occasionally have bad food choices (a fairly realistic scenario) - they're too lazy to get off the couch to turn on their TV and eat nothing but junk ever. The quote "We don't eat GREEN things!" comes to mind. (Their thin daughter, as I recall, is portrayed as a reader, thus linking weight and intelligence.)

When they get stranded on somebody's farm (having been literally too heavy for their poor old car - NOT a realistic scenario at all, but played like one), the "thin" daughter runs around and learns to do new things and is generally helpful - weight has now been linked not just to intelligence, but to general good manners as well.

Once they've all lost their weight and become unstranded they find themselves literally unable to eat burgers, even once. (Because just that one time will make them fat again...?)

The whole message could've been condensed into just a few pages, or even the full 32 pages with little text, but instead it's a long, LONG book. It's not enough to simply *tell* kids to exercise and eat well, nor even to *show* them the Dire Consequences of doing otherwise - no, kids need that message hammered into their brains or otherwise they'll never, ever, ever, ever, ever make the right choices. And this is the only place they'll ever hear that message, too!

Right.

Even if I agreed with the message, the medium is so off-putting that I would simply not buy it. It's not a fun book to read, and it really is *insulting* to the reader.

I can only imagine that Wells and Brown were forced to write this dreck at gunpoint, because it doesn't really feel like either of their books normally do.

As a longtime fan of Rosemary Wells and Marc Brown, I am completely shocked and disappointed that they would even consider creating a book like this with its message that fat people are greedy and lazy and stupid or ill-informed about good eating habits and exercise. There is so much research out there that shows that diets do not work, that healthy eating and exercise do not make people thin, and bad eating habits and a sedentary lifestyle do not make people fat, that fat people are no more unhealthy than thin people, and that fat can actually be healthy. We live in a fat-hating society, however, and it is incredibly sad that these two, with all of the cache that their names have, would create a book exposing small children to messages of body-hatred and telling them that it is OK to make stereotypical assumptions about fat people, rather than lending their names to a much more positive, body- and fat-accepting message.

It's very disappointing that this talented author-illustrator team would use their skills to produce something promoting hatred, and to children yet. I can't think of a more-disturbing (and just plain wrong) message to give to children then 'fat people eat junk and don't exercise'. I hope this book promotes the same kind of outcry that racist and sexist stereotypes in children's literature have.