Abstract
This study analyzes online reader responses to Dara-Lynn Weiss, whose controversial Vogue article and subsequent memoir, The Heavy, described how she put her seven-year-old daughter on a strict diet. Readers responded to Weiss in the context of ideas about the “tiger mother” approach to success-oriented parenting; and of beauty ideals. The research revealed how expectations around mothers’—but not fathers’—responsibilities for controlling their daughters’ weight are increasing and intensifying. Having generally embraced these responsibilities, the readers studied here used various websites to express their anxieties about successful parenting and to contest dominant media constructions of “good” mothers.
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