Pushing my dieting button
Sep. 9th, 2005 10:24 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
sarahmichiganIf you see me post articles or rants about my anti-diet views, don't be sure that I'm directing them at you in particular. I know of at least three people on my friends list who are on Weight Watchers, and at least a few others who are doing various things to maintain or lose weight.
I may scroll through your posts about your diet plan, or I may comment occasionally if I feel compelled, too, but make no mistake: I do not support your diet. I won't try to sabotage your efforts, but I will state here and now that I think you are doing something that can potentially have very bad effects on your mental and physical health.
Dieting doesn't work. The odds are 9-1 against you that you'll keep the weight off and there's a good chance that you'll end up fatter. Chances are that you'll have to keep going on diets to maintain your weight or lose the weight you've re-gained, and yo-yo dieting is extremely unhealthy.
You may think you deserve to know what it's like to be in a thinner body, but it's most likely a pipe dream. There's no good evidence that you can modify your body shape to a signifcant extent (more than about 10 percent of your original body weight) and maintain that new shape. (For the record, I've been on Weight Watchers twice. The first time, I lost 41 pounds. The second time, I lost 36 pounds. I gained it all back.)
Health gurus are always going on about the conditions that are exacerbated by excessive weight, and they assume that losing weight will improve the condition. But there are NO good studies about whether long-term weight loss will improve your health because such a tiny minority of people who lose a large amount of weight are able to keep it off for more than a year or two.
There are, however, many studies that show that chronic dieting makes your heart health, blood pressure, and other measures of health WORSE.
Dieting causes compulsive eating habits. A weight-loss diet is just a doctor-approved eating disorder. I would not try to aid you in your efforts to be a bulimic or an anorexic, and I do not support your efforts to develop an eating disorder, which is what weight-loss dieting is, when you strip off all the pretenses.
Everyone I've ever known who has gone on a weight-loss regimen has become completely obsessed with food. Weighing food, measuring food, thinking day and night about what fits the plan and what doesn't. It's just like the mentality of the friends I've known who are anorexic and are constantly measuring what they eat and thinking all day about what they can and can't eat.
Do I support teaching yourself more about nutrition? Sure! Do I support the idea that Americans have a distorted sense of what a reasonable portion of food is? Sure! Do I support improving your eating habits to include more fiber, fruit, and vegetables and less processed food? Sure! But if your focus is on losing weight regardless of how the method will affect your long-term health, I can't support that.
I'm especially leery of commercial weight-loss plans, because it is not in their best interest to see you succeed, because then you will not keep paying them your hard-earned money. Their bottom line is making money, not your health. Did you know that Weight Watchers has a policy that if you're five pounds over your MINIMUM weight, they will help you lose weight? That means if they decide your optimum weight range is 108 to 128 pounds, and you come in weighing 113 pounds, they will help you lose weight until you're 108 pounds. If health was their focus, they would tell a woman who is 120 pounds and who wants to be 114 pounds to see a psychiatrist about her distorted body image instead of telling her they can help her lose those "last six pounds."
I'll continue to post anti-diet rants and articles about studies which point out the destructiveness of dieting, so if that bothers you, you may want to scroll on through. . .
I may scroll through your posts about your diet plan, or I may comment occasionally if I feel compelled, too, but make no mistake: I do not support your diet. I won't try to sabotage your efforts, but I will state here and now that I think you are doing something that can potentially have very bad effects on your mental and physical health.
Dieting doesn't work. The odds are 9-1 against you that you'll keep the weight off and there's a good chance that you'll end up fatter. Chances are that you'll have to keep going on diets to maintain your weight or lose the weight you've re-gained, and yo-yo dieting is extremely unhealthy.
You may think you deserve to know what it's like to be in a thinner body, but it's most likely a pipe dream. There's no good evidence that you can modify your body shape to a signifcant extent (more than about 10 percent of your original body weight) and maintain that new shape. (For the record, I've been on Weight Watchers twice. The first time, I lost 41 pounds. The second time, I lost 36 pounds. I gained it all back.)
Health gurus are always going on about the conditions that are exacerbated by excessive weight, and they assume that losing weight will improve the condition. But there are NO good studies about whether long-term weight loss will improve your health because such a tiny minority of people who lose a large amount of weight are able to keep it off for more than a year or two.
There are, however, many studies that show that chronic dieting makes your heart health, blood pressure, and other measures of health WORSE.
Dieting causes compulsive eating habits. A weight-loss diet is just a doctor-approved eating disorder. I would not try to aid you in your efforts to be a bulimic or an anorexic, and I do not support your efforts to develop an eating disorder, which is what weight-loss dieting is, when you strip off all the pretenses.
Everyone I've ever known who has gone on a weight-loss regimen has become completely obsessed with food. Weighing food, measuring food, thinking day and night about what fits the plan and what doesn't. It's just like the mentality of the friends I've known who are anorexic and are constantly measuring what they eat and thinking all day about what they can and can't eat.
Do I support teaching yourself more about nutrition? Sure! Do I support the idea that Americans have a distorted sense of what a reasonable portion of food is? Sure! Do I support improving your eating habits to include more fiber, fruit, and vegetables and less processed food? Sure! But if your focus is on losing weight regardless of how the method will affect your long-term health, I can't support that.
I'm especially leery of commercial weight-loss plans, because it is not in their best interest to see you succeed, because then you will not keep paying them your hard-earned money. Their bottom line is making money, not your health. Did you know that Weight Watchers has a policy that if you're five pounds over your MINIMUM weight, they will help you lose weight? That means if they decide your optimum weight range is 108 to 128 pounds, and you come in weighing 113 pounds, they will help you lose weight until you're 108 pounds. If health was their focus, they would tell a woman who is 120 pounds and who wants to be 114 pounds to see a psychiatrist about her distorted body image instead of telling her they can help her lose those "last six pounds."
I'll continue to post anti-diet rants and articles about studies which point out the destructiveness of dieting, so if that bothers you, you may want to scroll on through. . .
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no subject
Date: 2005-09-09 08:36 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-09-10 08:27 am (UTC)I also prefer women with curves. Then again, my top is a skinny size 2 women. But most of my girlfriends and lovers were larger sized.