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Author Details Public Ordeal of Helping Her Overweight Daughter Lose Weight

By John Ostapkovich

NEW YORK, N.Y. (CBS) -- No good deed goes unpunished, they say.

So it was for a New York mother of an overweight child, who couldn't win for losing.

Although a freelance writer and producer, Dara-Lynn Weiss was not a household name, nor an Internet villain, until she wrote in Vogue magazine about putting her heavy young daughter on a diet.

heavy thumb"You are subject to criticism and judgment for having an overweight child, and then you are subject to everyone's emotional advice and judgment for intervening with the problem," she says.

Weiss is out with a memoir, The Heavy, detailing her stumbling efforts to rein in her girl's eating -- and the blowback that resulted.

"I am more concerned that parents are scared of missteping and therefore don't take any steps at all, so I'm very honest in the book about things I wish I had done differently, done better."

She hopes her success, and her daughter's, inspires others.

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