Does Calling Chubby Girls "Fat" Make Them Grow into Overweight Women?

What is the likelihood that parents, teachers, or  friends would drum into the head of a skinny ten year old that she was "too fat"?  Not much.  That is why I'm having so much trouble understanding the latest pediatric study that has just been published in the Journal of the American Medical Association. According to an article in the Los Angeles Times:

In a letter published Monday in JAMA Pediatrics, researchers at UCLA report that 10-year-old girls who are told they are too fat by people that are close to them are more likely to be obese at 19 than girls who were never told they were too fat.

I appreciate the good intentions of the researchers.  Obesity is, after all, one of the most serious health problems in America. The authors' point is that shaming children into losing weight doesn't work. But what they failed to acknowledge was that not shaming them doesn't work either.  

However, the authors claim that the act of telling a chubby ten year old that she is fat creates a cause and effect relationship leading to adult obesity. So. . . I would like to propose my own research project. I'm sure it can be conducted for $10 million or so.  I will line up six overweight American ten year olds, but only say to Test Subject #1:  "Darling, you're too chubby."

As for the other five, this is what I'll say to them: 

 Test Subject #2 - I'll translate the same comment I made to the first one, but into Mongolian

 Test Subject #3 - I'll translate the same comment into Swahili

 Test Subject #4 - I'll translate the same comment into Russian

 Test Subject #5 - I'll translate the same comment into Zulu

 Test Subject #6 - I'll translate the same comment into Hungarian

In nine years, I will re-weigh each of the children.  If the hypothesis presented in JAMA Pediatrics has validity, then the only child who was chubby at 10 who is overweight at 19 will be the one who heard the message in English.  But if the other children are also over weight nine years later even though they heard the message but in a language they didn't understand, then the researchers' hypothesis will need to be ditched.

My personal opinion is that childhood obesity begins in the womb.  Regrettably, pregnant women have never been sensitized to the connection between what they eat and how the biochemistry of cravings is constructed in their unborn child, which will not become manifest until their infant is much older.   The notion that individual will power through dieting and exercise can change  the fate of most overweight people is a cruel and ugly fiction borne out by almost all statistics on dieting and weight control.  It is regrettable that so many strides have been made in medical science over this century with so little progress in the one area, weight control, that has the greatest effect on human health.  Bariatric surgery is being shown to cause severe complications.  Perhaps pharmacology may offer a temporary answer to the essential problem rooted in the toxicity  of America's food supply.