(By the way, I love how this blog has played out like a cumulative course in FA 101. I wish I could bring in guest lecturers, just like a real course! Or that I was actually qualified to disseminate any of this information. But thanks for reading. -The Phat Ally)
Okay, there's this one retort that you, my disbelieving loved one, have.
That being fat is bad for you. It's SCIENCE!
Okay, this mentality may be a result of years of conditioning or brain washing or whatever you want to call it, but it actually can be credited with almost all our fat hatred: from well-intentioned, condescending "interventions" towards friends to whispering-behind-our-hands, this-gossip-is-justified-because-that-fat-person-has-brought-it-upon-themselves type reactions.
One thing I have definitively learned: the multi-billion dollar industry exists for the purpose of maximizing profit at the expense of the mental health of millions of people, especially women. So be careful when you read studies. Are they trying to sell you a diet, with a side of low self-esteem?
Enough talk. I always talk too much. This time, I'll let more qualified people do the talking. With studies that I feel are rigorous and refreshingly free of the weight bias that colors so many other studies.
I hope to keep adding to this list. Also, links may appear either blue or grey. I wish I knew how to standardize that, sorry!
On Advocating for a Health at Every Size (HAES) public
health model:
"Healthy Lifestyle Habits and Mortality in Overweight and Obese Individuals"
Source: Medical University of South Carolina, Department of Family Medicine
"Healthy lifestyle habits are associated with a significant decrease in mortality regardless of baseline body mass index."
"They all work...when you stick to them": a qualitative investigation of dieting, weight loss, and physical exercise, in obese individuals:
Source: Medical University of South Carolina, Department of Family Medicine
"Healthy lifestyle habits are associated with a significant decrease in mortality regardless of baseline body mass index."
"They all work...when you stick to them": a qualitative investigation of dieting, weight loss, and physical exercise, in obese individuals:
Source: National Institute of Health
"Public health approaches to obesity must engage and consult with those currently living with obesity, if patterns of social change are to occur."
Source: US Dep of Agriculture
"'For obese folks who can’t find a healthful weight-loss regimen that gives them lasting results, this alternative to conventional dieting may offer greater and more sustainable improvements to several key indicators of their health.'"
Source: UC Davis
"Encouraging size acceptance, reduction in dieting behavior, and heightened awareness and response to body signals resulted in improved health risk indicators for obese women."
Source: National Association for Physical Education in Higher Education
"Because traditional weight loss programs have poor long-term efficacy, a nonweight-centered paradigm might be more effective for improving the health of individuals considered overweight or obese."
Source: University of Iowa
"As he has ably pointed out in his accompanying article, there are numerous biological, behavioral, and environmental paths to overweight. It is not surprising that the more or less “one size fits all” approaches that have been taken in past behavioral interventions have been less than impressive."
On weight cycling being worse for you than maintaining a constant weight:
Source: The New York Times
"The effect of weight cycling on blood lipids and blood pressure in Multiple Risk Factor Intervention Trial Special Intervention Group"
Source: International Journal of Obesity
"RESULTS: Men who weight cycled did not have the predicted smaller improvements in total cholesterol, HDL, the ratio of total cholesterol to HDL, or diastolic blood pressure, compared with noncyclers."
"Genes take charge, and diets fall by the wayside"
Source: The New York Times
"'It is entirely possible that weight reduction, instead of resulting in a normal state for obese patients, results in an abnormal state resembling that of starved nonobese individuals.'"
"Confronting the failure of behavioral and and dietary treatments of obesity"
Source: PsycNET
"The stigmatization of obesity, the overstatement of health risks, and the pervasive influence of the lucrative diet industry have maintained public demand for dietary treatment. However, much evidence suggests that maintenance of high but stable weight is safer than weight fluctuation. "
Pathways from weight fluctuations to metabolic diseases: focus on maladaptive thermogenesis during catch-up fat
Source: International Journal of Obesity
"In particular, Debray et al noted that the early increase in the weight of prisoners transferred from German concentration camps to a Paris hospital in a condition of severe starvation was largely due to the accumulation of fat rather than to the rebuilding of muscles...These findings led Keys et al to describe such preferential fat accumulation and fat overshooting as ‘post-starvation obesity’."
Dieters Put on Weight in the Long Run: Study
Source: Reuters
"'The majority of people -- up to two thirds -- regained all the weight they had lost, plus more. We concluded most of them would have been better off not going on the diet at all. Their weight would be pretty much the same, and their bodies would not suffer the war and tear from losing weight and gaining it all back,' said Mann."
"Does Exercise Really Keep Us Healthy?"
Source: The New York Times
"But before you turn to a fitness program as the solution to your particular health or weight concern, consider what science has found...Exercise alone has not been shown to bring sustained weight loss."
NYT: "Our Absurd Fear of Fat" by Paul Campos
"The study, by Katherine M. Flegal and her associates at the C.D.C. and the National Institutes of Health, found that all adults categorized as overweight and most of those categorized as obese have a lower mortality risk than so-called normal-weight individuals."
Weight loss studies tend to be biased:
"A meta-analysis of the past 25 years of weight loss research using diet, exercise or diet plus exercise intervention."
Source: US National Library of Medicine, National Institute of Health
"Weight loss research over the past 25 y has been very narrowly focused on a middle age population that is only moderately obese, while the interventions lasted for only short periods of time."
"Medicare's Search for Effective Obesity Treatments: Dieting is Not the Answer" (PDF)
Source: UCLA
"It is clear that dieting does not lead to sustained weight loss in the majority of individuals, and additional studies of the effects of dieting on weight are not needed...We recommend that researchers conduct long-term randomized studies on the effects of dieting on health outcomes, with a specific focus on whether the short-term health benefits of weight loss persist after the weight is regained...These studies must make every effort to minimize the biases that led to overly optimistic reports of the success of diets."
I will close with a quote from Michelle Allison, the incredible Fat Nutritionist:
"I am comfortable with the fact that, yes, there is a clear association between higher levels of weight and ill health...I am comfortable with the fact that, yes, behaviour contributes to weight...I am comfortable with the fact that, yes, many people do not find fat people sexually or aesthetically attractively...None of these facts shakes my conviction that It Is Not Okay to Engage In Appearance-Based Discrimination, to deny rights or enforce unfavourable social policies on people because of their appearance.
"These facts also do not preclude the peculiar theory to which I subscribe, that people can be healthy and happy at a variety of weights by focusing on self-care instead of weight loss, and that, in my opinion, this is a preferable policy to the destructive and ineffective "War on Obesity" we have waged for the last decade."
