What Families Should Do

摘要

It doesn't really both- er Janelle Marino, 10, that she packs 140 pounds onto her 4-foot-2-inch frame. True, she has difficulty catching her breath when she climbs stairs, and her eyes once welled up when she didn't look as sleek in her dance costume as her slimmer sister did. Still, "my friends are very nice to me," says the soft-spoken little girl, who lives in Slidell, La., takes dance lessons twice a week and swims throughout the hot Cajun summer. "Nobody really notices my weight." Actually, at least two somebodies do. Her mother has put Janelle on umpteen diets, and recently hauled her to a weight-loss specialist. For the last four years her father, who was an overweight child himself, has been warning Janelle away from the sugar-dusted Mardi Gras cakes and other junk foods she loves, and telling her in no uncertain terms, "You've got to lose weight." At this, the little girl cries.