Anne M. Fletcher, MS, RD, LD

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contact: Taryn Roeder
Assistant Director of Publicity
(617) 351-3818
taryn_roeder@hmco.com

“Regardless of how they may appear on the outside and how content they might seem to be, the majority of overweight teens deal with a lot of emotional anguish. It will almost always be hidden, but it’s there.” – Taylor S, from Weight Loss Confidential

“There are millions of reasons to lose weight. Find one, go with it, stick with it, and believe in yourself. It took years for me to find the inspiration, but when I finally got it, there was no stopping me. If you want it enough, you will lose weight.” – Aaron T, from Weight Loss Confidential

“I became motivated to do something about my weight because I started to hate looking in the mirror. I wanted more confidence, didn’t like not being able to wear fashionable clothes, and wanted to run faster. Some of my peers made fun of me. I stay motivated to keep off 45 pounds by just thinking about how much happier I am now.” – Erin D, from Weight Loss Confidential

Can teenagers lose excess pounds in a healthy way? How can parents support their teens without sabotaging their success? Who better to answer these questions than the teens and parents who have “been there” – and succeeded?

For her award-winning bestseller, Thin for Life, nationally known author and registered dietitian Anne Fletcher went straight to the experts: hundreds of regular people who had lost weight and kept it off. Now, for her new book, WEIGHT LOSS CONFIDENTIAL: How Teens Lose Weight and Keep It Off – and What They Wish Parents Knew, she’s uncovered the success strategies of more than 100 formerly overweight teens from across the United States and Canada. Their average weight loss is 58 pounds, and some of them lost as much as 75 to 100 pounds.

Many of the teens overcame “heavy” odds – a number of them had been overweight for a long time and most had at least one overweight parent. Their motivation to turn things around came from numerous places: wanting to look better, improve their health, feel better about themselves, attract the opposite sex, and end the teasing and ridicule. Through their clear voices and poignant experiences, Fletcher informs both parents and teens about what works and what doesn’t work for long-term weight management.

The teens in Weight Loss Confidential are a diverse and inspiring group:

• Joyelle T gained more than 80 pounds in eighth grade (bringing her weight up to more than 200 pounds). With the help of a weight loss program and through healthy eating and exercise, she lost 55 pounds in tenth grade. She also inspired her father to lose more than 100 extra pounds of his own, and now they are planning a bike trip together.
• Tyler D was 5 feet 4 inches tall and weighed 185 pounds in seventh grade when he got fed up with being overweight and getting teased about it. He joined the middle school football and track teams, lost 20 pounds (and grew 9 inches), and is currently a healthy, active college student.
• Shanisha B at age 12 was 5 feet 7 inches tall and weighed 210 pounds. She wanted to be able to run, walk, and play without stopping frequently to rest. She joined a comprehensive weight program, had tons of support from her mother, and lost 40 pounds.
• Jorgey W says that before she lost more than 100 pounds at age 13, “every day [she] would come home crying.” She remembers being chased around the playground with her pursuers yelling, “Run, Fatso, run,” and was harassed on the Internet and by phone because of her weight.
• Anne Fletcher’s own son, Wes G, weighed 270 pounds and stood 6 feet 1 inch in eleventh grade. During his senior year in high school, he decided he wanted to look good in time for college. He lost 65 pounds by keeping track of everything he ate in a daily planner, weighing himself once a week, and playing pick-up basketball.

In fact, it was Wes’s weight loss that inspired this book. He lost the weight after meeting another teen who had slimmed down. That’s when Fletcher realized that teens listen more readily to their peers than to their parents – even if their parents, like Fletcher, are weight experts.

In Weight Loss Confidential, teens and their parents explain how families can help: what works, what won’t work, and, perhaps most importantly, what may actually backfire by making a teen rebel and gain even more weight. Tom C’s mother says, “We should not have told him he looked good when he did not. He eventually resented us for lying to him.” Parents also understood that, as Richie C’s mother says, “Telling Richie not to eat something was counterproductive. I’d have to say to myself, ‘Don’t be the food police.’” One of the keys to success is to create a healthy home food environment for the entire family. As Sid J’s mother points out, “If a child is constantly relying on someone who says ‘Don’t eat this’ or ‘Don’t eat that,’ it doesn’t work. At some point, he has to begin to own his own eating habits. This happens when you give them choices.”

Fletcher’s research challenges myths about teen weight loss and addresses both practical and controversial aspects of weight management for young people – from dieting and dealing with body image to the role parents play in the process. Her findings are bolstered by the latest studies and advice from leading experts in the field.

Everyone’s talking about our national weight problem. Finally, in Weight Loss Confidential, we have solutions from people who have “been there.” Solutions that will actually work. In a society where one out of every three children and adolescents, ages 2 through 19, is overweight or at-risk for being overweight – and the numbers keep growing – we can’t afford not to hear what the teens in this book have to say.

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