No, just no, on the losing weight. I have seen insane eating disorders and methods utilized (often promoted by the parent) in my CPs time in cheer. If you ask my CP who was one of those flyers who moved to beast base when she grew, she would tell you that it often isn't the "size" of the flyer as much as it is body control. She would take a stout strong flyer who can really pull herself up than a skinny string bean wet noodle. In fact she once had one such (stout) flyer who she said practically felt like she was self levitating.
As another poster suggested, I think with any group of adolescents it is better to just discuss healthy eating habits vs weight loss, and it should be with everyone, not just the flyers. Kids this age of all sizes are already usually very aware of every perceived "imperfection" real or not.
Yes. The first paragraph for sure, especially the part about having good body control and the wet noodles. You see a lot of the latter at level 1 especially when you have a mish-mosh junior team of 8-13 year olds. Now, that I have typed this you know this topic can easily feed into the crazy gray area age ranges per division except for senior which I think now has a clear top and bottom. Finally, maybe they should not use the word "flyer" until you are at a more higher level IDK say Level 3 with more technical extensions, because let's face it, at level 1 the "flyer" is only the "flyer" because they are the smaller people on the team. It has nothing to do with skill just "I have this cool pyramid I want to put up and you guys are small so let's do this" The "flyer" is really not "flying" but just behind held - up long enough to hit. By then it is too late the CP is now Gabi Butler in their head while not realizing they got the gig because they were the smaller of the group at that time... So yeah maybe the cheer world should find a new term for that position until after puberty is done. IDK