Kurbo by WW (Weight Watchers) Reviews

Please please please do not use Kurbo or encourage your children to use Kurbo.
When seeing Kurbo release, I was outraged. I paused, calmed down, opened my mind and tried Kurbo for myself. My conclusion is Kurbo is dangerous, propagates weight stigma, encourages a diet mentality and could lead to a poor relationship with food and food intake, disordered eating, or eating disorders.
I am in eating disorder recovery, and I confidently say Kurbo would have been devastating to me, had I found it when I was young or in my disorder.
A healthy relationship with food can not be obtained, when you look at food as good or bad, healthy or unhealthy, green or red. Labeling food and controlling intake at this minute level is a breeding ground for a disordered relationship with food.
Teach your kids that food is food, that their health is not directly related to their weight. Teach them to eat when they are hungry and stop when they are full. Teach them talk about what they are feeling, recognize emotion, and healthy outlets for emotions and movement. Show them that they don’t have to live by color categorized foods, a diet and exercise plan, a burn to earn mentality or a number on a scale. And for the love of all things good in this world do not teach them that raisins, Apple juice, pistachios, chocolate milk and peanut butter are food to be afraid of! (All red foods in Kurbo - that according to my plan I was only allowed to have 5 of).

I’m trying to keep track of my 5-year-old’s nutrition and weight, as she was classified as overweight at her last appointment. Setting up Kurbo as a parent, I created her profile but it automatically assigned her my last name even though she has her dad’s last name, and it just named her “Kid1”. I don’t know if I missed something when I made her profile, but regardless, there is no way for me to edit her name. I thought perhaps logging onto the site on a computer would let me edit it, but it doesn’t. So now I’m stuck with a profile that says “Kid1”, no buttons that allow me to delete or add profiles, and a clunky user interface with very limited options, which would be fine for a kid using Kurbo but which isn’t so great for the adult trying to use it. I have used WW off and on, and since this app is an offshoot of WW, you’d think Kurbo would be up to speed, but the WW app is light years ahead. The concept of Kurbo is wonderful. Kurbo layout and features is severely lacking and until it is updated, I will have to find something else to help me track my daughter’s nutrition.

We have decades of evidence suggesting that dieting behavior is the most powerful predictor of developing at eating disorders / disordered eating behavior. Dieting behavior also predicts higher weight and health concerns that have been linked to weight instability/ weight cycling. Kurbo encourages kids as young as 8 to engage in harmful behaviors that are more likely than not to lead to ill health-mental and physical- for a lifetime.
The food: Why is skinless chicken a “yellow” food? What about whole grain bread? Almonds?! What, exactly, do you then propose a child eat?!
The “motivation”: If a child selects the option to engage in this diet to “make their parents happy,” it should RED FLAG them. Maybe even connect them to a hotline to report the psychological abuse they’re enduring. ANYTHING BUT allowing them to continue the diet.
The lies: WW has written boldfaced lies in its FAQ page. Kurbo is not safe. It directly contradicts position statements from the American Academy of Pediatrics and other medical and research groups about the harms of child dieting. Parents, please listen to us, the MDs and PhDs who have spent decades rigorously studying this issue. Do not use Kurbo, and please do not allow your children and teens with tech access to use it on their own.

Hi, I came to Kurbo because I didn’t feel good about myself. My mom brought it up in a dinner conversation and I decided to try it I got a coach it was amazing I haven’t met my coach yet but I’m really really excited to meet him. I’ve been using Kurbo for A week now and it’s already improving so much! So you get Kurbo you have a choice to pay for a coach or to not pay for a coach. Do you wanna know about how you track your food, well then keep reading! A green light food is like vegetables and fruits yellow foods are like pasta wheat anything with wheat in it. And red light foods are foods with sugar and stuff like that. For example a red light food could be a Coke a cookie and what I learned bacon is a red, because it has a lot of fat in it so anyway Kurbo helped a lot and I hope it can help you to download Kurbo for free and then only pay a little bit of money for a coach I swear it is worth every penny.

Kurbo is a step in the right direction. It’s more important than ever to give kids a healthy and nutritious foundation. Thank you for this in-depth and well made app! We need this more than ever.
Many of the people leaving one star reviews don’t even have kids to begin with. Just think: we can teach our kids healthy habits so they won’t have to diet as adults. Letting your child balloon in size and eat unhealthy without constraint is child cruelty. Most 3 year olds don’t know the difference between health and unhealthy. They just know that skittles taste good and look cool.
Please, give Kurbo a chance and respect your children and others. Just because you don’t want to eat healthy doesn’t mean you should force that on others.
I had an eating disorder when I became a teenager and can say, with full confidence, Kurbo would’ve saved me. There’s no calories, just a clean focus on nutrition and overall health. 10/10 would recommend.

this app is an amazing app. It doesn’t encourage “eating disorders” or “fat phobia”. It more encourages being more cautious about what you eat, and trying not to eat unhealthy foods so often. Kurbo isn’t going to criticize someone for not being skinny as a stick.

That’s what I don’t understand. People provide no explanation to how this app promotes that type of eating. Eating disorder is a real issue, but this app doesn’t promote it. People don’t know what they’re talking about, because this is truly an amazing app.

I mentioned my weight to my coach, as I was proud of myself for losing 4 pounds, and she said that healthy lifestyle matters more than the weight on the scale. After all, it really is just a number. Nothing more.

I can’t seem to figure out why people are saying that young children, as young as 4, are developing anorexia nervosa. That is completely untrue. People may already have eating disorders, for example anorexia, when they start Kurbo. Maybe that’s why it gets worse?

My advice is that, if you have a problem with healthy eating, don’t download Kurbo . If you think you will develop an eating disorder from being encouraged to eat a bit healthier and stay away from unhealthy foods, don’t download it. That’s all I have to say.

Overall a great app, but the community who writes the reviews? Some of them, not so great.
xoxo,
Staralina

coming from someone trying to lose weight, Kurbo doesn’t promote anything like fatphobia. and this is coming from a fat person myself. Kurbo doesn’t promote eating disorders. rather, it encourages healthier eating. if you’re struggling with body issues and feel you HAVE to do this, then Kurbo probably isn’t for you. Kurbo has some motivational messages and not once does it say being overweight is actually bad. and the “food is food” approach isn’t really always gonna work. it’s just overall better to be eating healthier things. Kurbo isn’t saying never have red foods, it’s saying don’t eat them TOO OFTEN. and that’s something doctors would say, and if you start thinking your doctor is wrong, i truly don’t know what to tell you. If you feel Kurbo will impact your mental health or if you’re recovering from an eating disorder, simply don’t download Kurbo 🤷🏽‍♀️

Kurbo promotes negative body image, fatphobia, and disordered eating + eating disorders in youth. Parents: let you children know that you love them, spend time with them, hug and cuddle them, provide them with a wide variety of foods to eat (including fruits, veggies, grains, proteins, starches, sugars, whole foods, processed foods, etc.), and encourage them to listen to the hunger and fullness cues their bodies send them. Remind your kids that food will always be available to them but that they can eat something when they’re craving it and that their body is healthy for sending signals of what it needs (hunger/fullness cues and cravings). Restricting your child’s food intake leads the body to respond as if it’s in famine, which will lead to binge eating, feelings of insecurity and body insecurity, and weight GAIN. If your fear is that your child will gain weight by being unrestricted, 1st: examine your personal fatphobia and discriminatory mentality; 2nd: read Health at Every Size by Dr. Linda Bacon; 3rd: your fatphobia aside, do NOT allow your child to download Kurbo, because restriction literally causes more weight gain, which is what you didn’t want in the first place.

Kurbo from WW is a DIET- it is NOT nutrition education. I don’t care how you package it- it’s not teaching kids nutrition information; it even tells them that 1% milk is a “yellow light food”. Kids, on average, do not drink enough milk and most do not get the recommended amount of calcium. Now they are going to encourage kids to not drink it?! Kurbo teaches kids about earning foods based on the exercise they’ve done, tracking everything they eat, and encourages them to lose weight with before and after photos. This goes directly against recommendations from the American Academy of Pediatrics’ recommendations to NOT push weight loss for children. Again- this is NOT an educational tools for kids to learn about nutrition. This is a DIET focused on weight loss. The research is overwhelming that putting kids on diets leads to disordered eating and full blown eating disorders. It also sets them up for weight cycling (which has detrimental health consequences) and subjects them to weight stigma (which again has health consequences). Kurbo is not acceptable for children and parents should not allow their children to use this!

The first thing you see on Kurbo is a little drawing of a street light and it pretty much says “eat more veggies, less meat and bread, and STOP to think before having treats like cookies and whatnot. This isn’t appropriate for children in my opinion. Kids shouldn’t have to think about things like that. I downloaded Kurbo to see what it’s about, and there’s potential for something that could be a good tool for children to have access to info about nutrition. But a simple message of “STOP and think before you eat that cookie” does more harm than good. The real goal should be awareness, education and moderation.

I struggled with an eating disorder as a teen and it all started with simply starting to watch what I would eat and my goal was to eat healthier. I counted calories on weight watching apps and worked out as much as I could. And it just kept getting more intense and took my mind away from things that I should’ve been focused on at that age. I eventually got very sick and depressed and I still struggle to this day.

There has to be a better way to teach children about healthy eating.

I grew up with my parents costantlt trying new diets. At every holdiay the adulta at the table would discuss what they were avoiding, portion control and points. So when my lifelong desire to loose weight bloomed into anorexia nervosa, I just thought I was just doing what every adult in my family was compelled to do. My grandparents tries weight watchers when i was 5 or 6 and my parents followed when I was 12 and are still doing it. So my anorexia
was ww-esque. I didn’t skip meals but rather shaved off little bits from here and there and copied my parents “portion control” strategies. Same thing when I relapsed 4 years later. I am recovering and living at home with my ww parents this summer has been a minefield. They comment on everything they eat. They comment on what the other and even my sister and I eat. They talk to strangers about what they eat. Ww is just one company in this multi-million dollar industry but they are directly responsible for my eating disorder and my parents’. I want my childhood back. I can’t imagine the dammage explicitly encouraging a child to do this would do. Shame shame shame.

Kurbo is amazing and is really easy to use. The only problem is on the game red raisins, there is a couple questions that are hard to answer. One of them asks you to pick if the food is red or yellow, and it doesn’t show what food it is. So you have to just guess. Another one shows you two little people and one looks tired and the other looks calm. You have to guess to pull a character into the game box based off if the activity is light (calm) or hard (tired). The problem is, it doesn’t show the picture. But besides that it is great!!!

this app is just...wow! After being on it for just a few weeks, we already were seeing results. It is a safe,fun,healthy way of getting your health and weight under control. You don’t feel deprived, because you can eat everything in moderation. You have support 24/7 with a personal coach, motivational quotes and cool tips and recipes. Kurbo is fun to use, easy and just brilliant. You’re child can still go to parties and have holidays without feeling depressed and deprived, and we felt motivated and excited from the moment we started! ( and it lasted!)
WE LOVE this app!
BTW, whoever is saying things such as ‘this can cause anorexia and eating disorders’ you obviously haven’t actually used this app. The whole thing is done in a very safe way, and your eating is being monitored, so it is nearly impossible to develop an eating disorder on this app.

I first perceived myself as “fat” in 5th grade and was then exposed to the whole good vs bad food notion by my parents in their attempts to help me feel better about myself by loosing weight, in 5th grade. I developed and have been struggling with anorexia since eighth grade and I am now a junior in college. Kurbo is disgusting and dangerous to young children like I once was, the first few pounds you lose feels good , but next thing you know you’ve lost 30lbs without even realizing it, your menstrual cycle disappears (or heck some of the young girls may not even have theirs yet) you can’t go out to eat with your family, your heart rate is so low your body can’t fall asleep because fear of not being able to wake up, and your quality of life doesn’t feel worth it. It’s important to teach children about balance and listening to their bodies, but Kurbo telling them red foods should be restricted is such a dangerous mentality. Sure not everybody who diets develops an eating disorder , but anorexia has the highest mortality rate among mental illnesses for those who fall victim.

As an adult who was put on a very similar program at the age of ten, and developed severe disordered eating as a result, I was curious to find out if the issues I had as a child had been changed. Sadly they haven’t and Kurbo just exemplifies the problems with these kinds of diets. Kurbo will cause some children to end up with eating disorders. There are ways for children to learn and develop healthy eating habits but Kurbo is NOT one of them. The red foods make absolutely no sense and the majority of dietitians are baffled as to why some foods are considered red foods. There’s no explanation in Kurbo as to how they choose categories for foods. How is that supposed to teach children to make informed choices? All it does is teach them if this app says it’s bad than it must be bad. I implore you, if you have children, do NOT use Kurbo with them. Seek help from a professional dietitian(something not a single one of their “coaches” are) and have them help you navigate your child’s weight issues in a way that is not going to mess them up for life.

I’m not sure why there are so many negative reviews. My son LOVES candy and anything sweet. I wanted him to be more aware of the foods he was eating that were unhealthy. And that is exactly what Kurbo is doing! It doesn’t stop him from eating what he wants. But it is making him think about healthier options. My kid eats cake, candy, etc. but in moderation. Now, he is opting for fruit instead of that Halloween candy he wanted before. That’s what we are supposed to be teaching our kids! Thank you Weight Watchers! My son loves adding food into his app the same way I do. The only criticism I have is that I wish Kurbo would allow you to put in portion sizes. I know kids are all different sizes and ages, but I think they would benefit from knowing what a healthy portion size is.

If you are focused on the obesity problem and you think this is the solution, please take a moment to educate yourself. First I’d like to say that I’m jealous of you- you are blessed to not have had to deal with disordered eating or seen it in a loved one. If you had, you would understand why Kurbo is not the solution. This is not how you teach children to have a healthy relationship with food. Good/bad food (red light/green light same difference) can lead to all sorts of disordered behaviors: not just anorexia (!!) but also binge eating, etc (of course eating disorders are all unique). Not to mention, the targeted age group is already EXTREMELY vulnerable to mental health problems & especially eating disorders and disordered eating. Did you know that out of all mental illnesses, eating disorders have the highest mortality rate? Now you do. Please please please please get rid of Kurbo so we can teach our children to take care of themselves physically & mentally in ways that do not lead to life-threatening illness.

I’ve noticed some reviews that are saying it will promote eating disorders. I haven’t found this for myself. I was going down a very difficult road and I’ve always had a changing relationship with food. Kurbo has helped me to stop and think before eating something. I still have a huge appetite and eat a lot, but I eat a lot of healthy, or green light, foods and less red light foods. The coaching program is fantastic. I was thrilled when I lost ten pounds, and mentioned it to my coach, but she said it was more important about how I feel than the number on the scale. I feel healthy, I sleep better, and I’ve been able to build my stamina. I definitely suggest Kurbo for families to build healthier habits!

I keep seeing people talking about what Kurbo does to people and not how. this app has a dietary tracking system based in reds and greens. Each week you get a limited number of reds that you can consume. At first Kurbo started out at about 40 reds a week and then continually began to decrease getting down to 14 reds a week. Keep in mind reds can be anything from bread to peanut butter. I was obsessed with getting to only 14 reds a week so much so I would only eat some carrots and cucumbers for lunch and then have a small dinner. Luckily, I stopped before it got too bad because my mom found out about me throwing away my lunch at school. I was only 13 and I can definitely see how Kurbo can cause eating disorders and fat phobia. And to the person that said that the community associated with Kurbo is bad and Kurbo is great should think about other people’s perspectives before saying that it’s perfectly safe when in reality it isn’t.

Kurbo is unethical. Decades of research shows that dieting predicts weight GAIN and EATING DISORDERS. CHILDREN are born eating intuitively and should NOT be taught track everything they eat. Their bodies are growing and changing and even the American Pediatric Association now recognizes discussing weight and diets with children is actually HARMFUL and advises against it. Weight Watchers is attempting to make millions by roping the next generation of people to buy into the MYTHS of diet culture. Do not use Kurbo. Instead educate yourself on RESEARCH and teach your family to find joyful ways of moving their body and learn to listen to and feed their bodies in ways that feels good. Teach them to love and accept the natural shape of their bodies and that what matters most IS NOT their weight. I think the worst part of Kurbo is that it tells children they can “make your parents happy” by eating less. This is like handing an adolescent an instruction guide on how to develop a life long eating disorder and it is deplorable and unethical.