Who said any of these 'generally successful methods' were simple?
Losing weight is - in principle - a matter of eating less and exercising more. If it's so simple, why are people looking for new/other strategies?
The author of this piece is also the author of a book on how to raise children. There are oodles of these sorts of books, with all sorts of different and conflicting advice.
Do you think the author's children are not successful? According to her Wikipedia entry, they are: CEO of YouTube, Professor of Pediatrics and researcher, and co-founder of 23andMe.
I have not read her book to tell what she defines as successful.
Google Books preview says she regards "success" as something akin to "passion". 'I think it's time we define "success" as "passion".' (p74)
She uses it in the context of a career, of a child soloist at Carnegie hall, "personal success", "all walks of life", "at Stanford" and "citizen of the world."
Looks like pretty standard upper-income white-collar class American aspirations.
I still regard it as like a diet book - there's a bunch of these things, and lots of different audiences.
Still, certainly having the money to get an M.A. at Paris-Sorbonne University, be married to a Stanford physics professor (and sometimes department chair), and to live and raise children in Palo Alto .... probably didn't hurt.
> Do you think the author's children are not successful?
I believe the definition of success should be questioned.
> standard upper-income white-collar class American aspirations
There's no particular reason to privilege this point of view. The three people I named in my first comment on this post did not meet this standard, but I'd much rather emulate their accomplishments than be the fastest rat in the race.
My point was that even with poor parenting, there can be a 3-kid family where all three kids are successful.
That doesn't mean the parenting strategy should be widely replicated, given that there are more generally successful methods.