This just horrifies me beyond comprehension. I can see how the woman got to this point. She has a son who is 30 pounds overweight. And she wants to help him. But she's overweight herself. So one thing she surely does know is the trouble diets can cause.

Imagine you're a kid. You go along, eating what you want, not really thinking about it. Then, one day, someone tells you you're fat. You're shocked and hurt. You'd suspected it, but hoped no one else had noticed. You go home and cry to your mom. And your mom takes you to Weight Watchers.

It's great, she thinks. A new start. You'll be slender in no time - and by the time you get to high school, no one will ever know you were fat to begin with. You'll have a chance. But it doesn't work out quite like that. By the end of the year, you've gained another 10 pounds. Fast-forward 20 years, and you're obese.

Huh? How'd that happen?

We all know how diets can mess with our heads. Imagine, then, how much worse that effect could be for a child. This is what happens when you take a child to a diet club:

He sits there and listens to everyone panicking about their weight. He gets infected. He realises weight is super-important in life. If you're not slim, you're nothing. And he is not slim. He feels inferior, as though something about him is wrong - even though all he's done to get to this point is eaten what his parents have given him.

He is given his diet books. He goes home and what he can eat has suddenly changed. He is taken on long walks and to swim lengths - no more Playstation with his friends. He is hungry and tired, but he is also losing weight. He is showered with praise. He knows he's done something very, very good.

But then he starts to notice he isn't eating the same things as his friends or even his family. He watches his sisters tuck into fudge cake after dinner. And he's absolutely starving - he's growing, after all. And he could just fancy some cake, or any of the other foods that are now banned. So he sneaks a chocolate bar on the way home from school.

Now he feels terrible. He is a Big Fat Failure. He'll never be like the other kids. So he eats another chocolate bar. And another one. All behind his mom's back - he doesn't want to get in trouble, and he doesn't want her to go back on all that praise. Eating stuff he isn't supposed to have - the nice stuff - makes him feel wonderful and terrible at the same time.

Mom can't understand why the child is gaining weight back. Or she can if she really thinks about it - she knows an entire tub of ice cream disappeared from the deep freeze while she was out - but she doesn't know what to do about it. She tries to get him to eat healthier meals, is in fact quite strict about what he is and is not allowed to eat. Occasionally, she feels really bad for him, and she'll treat him to a chocolate bar or ice cream. This confuses him even more.

He no longer exercises much. His dad, exasperated, has long since given up trying to get him even vaguely interested in team sports. Whatever his parents try, the weight just keeps piling on. And now he's being bullied at school. Every so often, he'll go back on a strict diet and lose a bit, and they'll both feel hopeful. But it always goes back on, and more. It continues throughout his formative years and into his adult life. He has periods where he is happier, and slimmer, and periods where he is depressed and heavy. But the underlying behaviours remain the same. And now the all-or-nothing habits, the bingeing for comfort, the shrivelled self-confidence, are so ingrained it would take years of therapy to break the cycle.

Ok, so all these things might not happen in every case, but in my experience it is a lot more common than not. Of course, there are no easy answers. Parenting is very hard. But please....don't ever put your child on a diet.

Your child learned his or her eating habits and attitude to food in the family. And that is where they need to start changing them. That means any changes you make as a parent need to be geared towards health, not weight, and they need to be changes for everyone in the family. Don't single your overweight child out. If adults in the family can't manage it, how is the child supposed to?

Don't do everything too quickly. Make changes slow and manageable, so that family members barely notice from one week to the next. Make healthier versions of their favourite meals. Take out a little cheese. Add in a few more vegetables. Make treats out of healthy foods - a huge fruit salad and a smaller plate of cookies. Switch them to diet soda. Little things add up - and no one feels too deprived to cope.

Make sure your child is getting enough food. Most older kids need to eat more than adult calorie allowances. They are growing. Five apples won't make them fat. Don't suddenly reduce your child's intake of or access to their favourite foods. Reduce the amount of junk food you buy slowly. And don't stop serving it altogether - serve a tasty full-fat dessert once a week, bake or buy cookies once. Deprivation = rebellion.

Don't use food as a reward or to relieve upset. Don't even serve it as a treat - serve it purely and simply as what you eat. Never make a child eat when they aren't hungry.

Encourage exercise, but make sure it is presented not as exercise but as something fun to do. Don't nag about it. Exercise together as a family, encourage your child to try out things they are interested in.

Be an example to your child. I'm not saying have perfect eating habits, or miraculously get rid of all your own issues around food. But you are responsible for building up your child's confidence - don't talk about how fat you are, or how bad fat is, in front of them. Teach them that fat or thin doesn't matter to good people. Hard as it may be, don't praise any weight loss they have, and don't criticise weight gain - focus on health.

And keep an eye on your child's habits. If your child were getting thinner and thinner, you would do something. But chronic bingeing is also an eating disorder. If you suspect your child is bingeing - if foods disappear without explanation, if they put on a lot of weight in a short space of time - do something. Now. Bring them to a doctor. Binge eating problems can be solved much more easily if they are treated early - they do not go away, in fact, they always, always get a lot worse over time if they are left unaddressed.

Ok, I am starting to sound really preachy now. This is an issue I feel really strongly about. But I shall stop with the suggestions! My main point is that as a parent, it's so, so hard. It's hard to know what's right. But one thing we EPers surely all know is that Diets Do Not Work. And to impose them on a child is a recipe for disaster.

Rach xxx