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Teenager who was put on diet by mum at age SEVEN speaks out

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At the age of seven, American girl Betty Kovy-Weiss was put on a strict diet by her mother after a GP told her her daughter was “obese.”

Mum Dara hit the spotlight after penning an article about it in US Vogue, and went on to write a book about it, called The Heavy.

Betty, now 17, has spoken about her mother’s imposed food restrictions in a new interview with The Telegraph.

She says her confidence is a “constant struggle” and it still tends to centre around her body weight and physical appearance.

When she was seven years old, she weighed in at just under 44kg at 134cm tall.

Mum Dara and daughter Betty in the US Vogue article.
Mum Dara and daughter Betty in the US Vogue article. Credit: Supplied

A GP said this put her into a dangerous weight category and she needed to “get some help.”

So her mother put her on a restrictive, calorie-controlled diet, halving the size of Betty’s dinners and banning her from eating all desserts.

In the Vogue article, Dara admitted to once throwing her daughter’s Starbucks drink in the bin and denying her dinner because she had had too much to eat at school.

In the process, Betty lost more than seven kilos - but she admits her self-esteem has been affected by being put on a diet at such a young age.

She says worrying about her weight remains a “constant struggle” and she feels better about herself when she is “smaller.”

When she was photographed with her mother for the US Vogue article, she says it felt “fun” and “glamorous.”

But as the story went viral, she began to feel self-conscious about her appearance and the attention on her weight.

“(I) never doubted my mum’s good intentions with either the article, the book or the diet itself,” she says.

“And I did lose 16 pounds because of this healthier eating plan - even though I think a fixation on numbers is generally unhelpful when talking about weight.”

Dara-Lynn Weiss wrote a book called ‘The Heavy’.
Dara-Lynn Weiss wrote a book called ‘The Heavy’. Credit: Supplied

When The Heavy was published, Betty’s mother said her primary concern had been her daughter’s health, and she was just going on advice from her GP.

In an interview, she said she would discuss in advance what Betty was allowed to eat at a public event, such as a kid’s party.

“We would have talked in advance that she was gonna have a piece of pizza and cake like every other kid ... If she approached the dessert table and was suddenly grabbing for a cookie, I would say, ‘excuse me, we discussed this. You’ve had your cake, you can’t eat another cookie’.”

But she denied that her daughter was “embarrassed” by her rules or that her diet rules were unfair.

Betty Kovy-Weiss is now preparing for life as a Yale University student after graduating from high school.