The Check-Up: Today’s Top Health Headlines

Ok, I know you know the statistic: One in three kids in the US is overweight or obese. That’s crazy, frightening, sad—all that. But is a children’s book that urges kids as young as four to go on a diet the right way to deal with it?

Paul Kramer, a Hawaii-based author, seems to think so. His book Maggie Goes on a Diet (true title) will hit shelves this fall, but it’s already making waves from coast to coast. The book tells the story of an overweight 14-year-old named Maggie who, “through time, exercise and hard work,” according to the summary, loses weight, gains confidence, and becomes the school soccer star. The book is aimed at kids ages four to eight, and includes cartoon-like drawings of a thinner (and happier)-by-the-last-page teenager. Kramer told Fox News that he isn’t advocating “that any child should go on a diet.” You know, despite the book’s, um, title.

More on Maggie and the rest of today’s headlines—from spray tans to Facebook pot smokers—over here.