More than 82,000 people have signed a petition online calling on WW, formerly Weight Watchers, to remove its new app aimed at children ages eight to seventeen. Many critics think the app could encourage eating disorders.
WW released the app, which is based on Stanford University’s Pediatric Weight Control Program, on August 13. The program’s goal is to help youngsters to “make lifestyle changes while receiving guidance around sustainable healthy eating, physical activity, and mindfulness habits.”1
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In a press release about the app, Gary Foster, Ph.D., Chief Scientific Officer at WW, said the app helps target the problem of childhood obesity. He said:
Alongside a distinguished group of leaders in pediatric health and nutrition, we’ve carefully developed this platform to be holistic, rewarding and inspirational, so kids, teens, and families get the tools and guidance they need to manage their environment and build and sustain healthy habits.1
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However, the app has drawn criticism from some parents and nutritionists who fear the app is too geared to weight loss and could hurt kids’ relationship with food. Holly Stallcup, the woman who started the Change.org petition and who says she is in recovery from an eating disorder, said:
The story that you are hearing over and over again is all of us who started struggling at the age that this app is targeted for saying it was already bad enough without an app
If we had had this app in our hands to literally log every bite of food to eat, we know that some of us would have actually died from our diseases because it would have so enabled our unhealthy, mentally-ill thinking.1
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The petition on Change.org argued that the app encourages an environment that facilitates the development of eating disorders. It cites adolescence as a crucial phase of development when children are vulnerable. The petition reads:
At least 30 million people of all ages and genders suffer from an eating disorder in the U.S.,” the petition read. “Eating disorders have the highest mortality rate of any mental illness, every 62 minutes at least one person dies as a direct result from an eating disorder. This app will literally kill people.1
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