Our lovely diet culture-loving pals over at Weight Watchers – which has recently rebranded itself as WW – has released a weight-loss app called Kurbo, aimed at children between the ages of 8 and 17. No, that’s not a typo. Here’s why I think that’s a disgusting idea:
Upon furiously Googling ‘Kurbo’ after discovering its release, I was taken aback by the amount of negative press it has received – I was surprised not by the backlash itself, but rather by the fact that this app is still available to download. Once I’d found the website, I was two clicks away from the ‘member stories’ page, where I was horrified to discover that children as young as 10 had praised the app.
In one of the more concerning testimonials, a 13-year-old girl claims that she “[keeps] setting higher goals” for herself – eerily echoing the never-good-enough cyclical disordered thoughts that anyone with an eating disorder will be all too familiar with. The scary testimonials don’t end there; 12-year-old Gracie lost 11 pounds and feels great; 10-year-old Sami lost 11 pounds and magically eliminated stress from her household! The wording of these testimonials is sensationalised and dangerous. Weight loss is not a magic cure-all and we shouldn’t teach children that it is. Many people who suffer from eating disorders can recall their disordered behaviour being present since childhood – why is WW so desperate to instil these thoughts and feelings in children as young as 8?
[Screenshot from Kurbo https://kurbo.com/member-stories/]
The app, which was released in August, features a traffic light system which divides foods into green (“great to eat anytime”), yellow (“watch your portions”), and red (“just stop and think how to budget them in”). Its website boasts over 30 years of research and (allegedly) science-based claims about how family-based behaviour change programs really work. This traffic light system won’t teach kids how to make healthy choices; it will teach them that some foods are ‘bad’. It’s as simple as that. Really, the traffic light system, which limits ‘yellow’ and ‘red’ foods, is just a sugar-coated points system. You know, like the system they use in the grown-up version of Kurbo?
Once an account has been set up, children can set goals for themselves like “make parents happy”, “lose weight”, and “feel better in my clothes”. In a statement released by the National Eating Disorders Association, they stated that “Children at the ages targeted by the app are preparing to enter puberty and are supposed to be growing. Specifically, they are supposed to gain fat. Interrupting the growth process, especially at such a critical time of development, is irresponsible. Indeed, there is evidence it can cause irreparable harm.”. A child whose BMI falls into the ‘underweight’ category could still set a weight loss goal for themselves using this app, which is undeniably ridiculous. WW is at risk of creating an entire generation of young people with unhealthy relationships with food and their bodies, which eventually becomes an entire generation of adults with lots of money to spend on weight loss products and services. Clever.
Did I mention that this app is also a money grab? From $69 a month, kids can be paired with a ‘certified coach’, someone they can message and video chat with once a week to discuss their plan and how they’re getting on. These coaches are, apparently, trained to spot the signs of disordered eating behaviours though it’s not clear how thorough this training is or how they’d notice. Eating disorders are often very easily hidden and often the realisation that someone is struggling comes far too late. Sure, there’s a box for parents to check that says that their kids don’t induce vomiting or use diuretics to lose weight, but I’m sure I’m not the only one who’s ever ticked a box without reading the fine print. It’s all too easy for a child with disordered eating habits to use Kurbo as an excuse. While encouraging kids to make healthy choices is (almost) never a bad thing, which appears to be the main focus of the app, a child with symptoms of orthorexia could easily have their disorder go unnoticed for years. A child may even develop orthorexia as a result of this constant pressure from the app to eat ‘clean’, ‘pure’ foods. Children are often picky eaters at the best of times, but Kurbo’s traffic light system could cause children to become phobic about eating other types of food which don’t fall within the ‘green light’ category.
[Screenshot from Mobihealthnews https://www.mobihealthnews.com/news/north-america/kurbo-ww-takes-contentious-childhood-obesity-challenge-stressing-holistic-health]
For too long, young and impressionable children have been convinced that their bodies are problems to be solved – quick fixes to non-existent issues are advertised everywhere. We should be teaching our children to be intuitive eaters, not to deprive themselves of certain foods because they are ‘bad’. It is heart-breaking that companies like WW is still getting away with this and causing so many broken relationships with food and our bodies; it’s outdated. It’s not fair that WW is pushing this idea that weight loss and thinness are to be celebrated. We are more than our weight, and it’s about time we started telling our kids that, too.
Sources
Neda statement
Kurbo website
Quoted testimonial