Health at Every Size

Most people are probably not familiar with the Health at Every Size / Fat Acceptance movement. One of the central pieces to this movement is the book Health at Every Size by nutritionist Linda Bacon. In it Bacon dispels the myths that overweight people have higher mortality and that losing weight is a simple matter of dieting that anyone can accomplish.

The book is based on solid science and I’m surprised the information within it is not more widespread. In my own limited research (using Google) to determine the long term benefits of dieting, I was unable to find any evidence that dieting led to long-term weight loss or to improved health measures.

Although I found some mixed messages and things that don’t correspond with my understanding of the science of nutrition, these inconsistencies were minor. The central message of the book is as powerful and necessary as ever. And I especially like that Bacon takes the medical community, the media, and the rest of us to task for how we really treat obesity: as a thinly veiled excuse for judgment and prejudice.

Not everyone will like the central message of this book: that you need to accept who you are right now and there’s no solid evidence dieting is effective for weight loss (or improved health) long term.

Having gone through that, I would like to add my personal statement on why nobody should be judged for being overweight. Obesity is a complex disorder and not directly related to amount of food intake. It involves factors such as stress level, emotional connectedness, nutrient quality, type of exercise (not quantity or duration), previous diet (famine) history, and others. The simple fact is that energy balance, just like water balance, internal temperature, or glucose levels, is hormonally regulated. An imbalance in any of these systems does not itself indicate the root cause of the problem. Trying to force one of these systems out of its current balance simply induces unwanted side effects and forces the body to compensate.

Most of us are not only growing up in a nutritionally depleted environment, many of the foods available to us are damaging in ways that promote poor health and obesity. On top of that, the advice we get on how to lose weight and be healthy could not be more counter-productive. At this point I could segue into several other topics, so I will end here. Below is the usual list of references and father reading.

http://www.lindabacon.org/HAESbook/
Website for the book. Also links to the HAES community.

http://www.rachelcosgrove.com/
Rachel Cosgrove coaches women on how to achieve their ideal body composition by dropping the cardio and doing the exercises that cause the adaptive changes most women desire. This is the different than simply being skinny-fat.

http://www.gabrielmethod.com/
Man that lost a massive amount of weight by giving up the diet mentality and focusing on simply nourishing his body and his mind. Although it may not work for everyone, it is definitely a first step. A lot of the messages he promotes are centered at removing our own internal judgments and getting us back in tune with our bodies so that we can listen and respond to its needs. This is from a person who had previously tried almost every diet imaginable.

http://fatfu.wordpress.com/
An almost militant attack on the poor science, perceptions, and judgment pervasive in our culture and all the pain it causes. Exposes a lot of the attitude in our culture for what it really is, just plain pure prejudice. This blog is worth a good perusal.

http://janetto.bol.ucla.edu/index_files/Mannetal2007AP.pdf
Where would I be without this gem? The result of my own short stint of Google “research”. If you want proof that dieting does not cause weight loss or improved health, look no further.