Your Child Is Not Their Weight: Parenting in a Size-Obsessed World

If you've been told your child needs to lose weight, you know how hard it can be. You love your child just as they are and want them to feel good about themselves and their body. But, you may also have very legitimate concerns about weight-related bullying, anti-fat bias, and possible long-term health issues. While there are no easy answers, Your Child Is Not Their Weight offers compassionate and realistic parenting advice to help improve your child's overall health without compromising their happiness or self-esteem. Leading pediatric obesity medicine specialists, Joey Skelton, MD, MS, MD, and his team, Dara Garner-Edwards, MSW, LCSW, and Melissa Moses, MS, RDN, LDN, have in-depth medical expertise as well as decades of practical, hands-on experience working with families like yours in their clinic. Their family-focused approach acknowledges that body weight is a complex issue, that diets almost always fail, and that eating disorders are a real risk--even, and maybe especially, for children in bigger bodies. But, they also share exactly how you can make a big difference for your child by focusing on healthy habits, outdoor play, and your own unconditional love for your child. You will be empowered to address weight concerns while making sure your child never doubts that they are loved and wonderful, regardless of the unrealistic body images and weight bias that the world so often perpetuates. Your Child Is Not Their Weight will help you discover a better way forward, together.

Author: Joey Skelton MD MS
Publisher: American Academy of Pediatrics
Published: 03/17/2026
Pages: 240
Binding Type: Paperback
Weight: 0.75lbs
Size: 8.90h x 6.00w x 0.50d
ISBN: 9781610028547


Review Citation(s):
Publishers Weekly 01/12/2026

About the Author
Joey Skelton, MD, MS, FAAP, is a professor of pediatrics, and of epidemiology and prevention, at Wake Forest University School of Medicine. He is the founder and director of Brenner FIT(R) (Families In Training), an interdisciplinary pediatric obesity program. He is also the director of the Center for Prevention Science in Child and Family Health, vice chair of research for the department of pediatrics, and serves as editor in chief of the journal Childhood Obesity. He is the father of two young adults and lives with his wife in North Carolina. Dara Garner-Edwards, MSW, LCSW, is associate director of Brenner FIT and a family counselor at Atrium Health Wake Forest Baptist Hospital in Winston-Salem, North Carolina. Melissa Moses, MS, RDN, LDN, is the lead dietitian and Brenner FIT teaching kitchen manager at Atrium Health Wake Forest Baptist Hospital in Winston-Salem, North Carolina.