Food for Thought in the Health at Every Size Eating Plan

In If Diets are Harmful and Don’t Even Work, What Should the Overweight Do? , I said I believe there is some food for thought in the HAES (Health at Every Size) plan.

There is a lot of "blame the victim" mentality in our society’s attitude toward the overweight and obese. The Nutrition Journal article by Drs. Linda Bacon and Lucy Aphramor to which I have been referring is titled Weight Science: Evaluating the Evidence for a Paradigm Shift .

The article challenges many long-held beliefs. Among them:

1. Assumption: Obesity poses significant mortality risk.

Evidence: Except at statistical extremes, body mass index (BMI) only weakly predicts longevity and, while obesity is associated with increased risk for many diseases, it is not necessarily the cause.

2. Assumption: Anyone who is determined can lose weight and keep it off through appropriate diet and exercise.

Evidence: Long-term follow-up studies document that the majority of individuals regain virtually all of the weight they lost on restrictive diets. Further, yo-yo dieting is deleterious to good health.

3. Assumption: Obesity-related costs place a large burden on the economy.

Evidence: Most of the cost increases cited in this argument are not "statistically different from zero." Also, the estimates fail to account for many confounding variables like physical activity, history of weight cycling and access to medical care.

The paradigm shift the authors call for is from the current focus on weight to a focus on health.

I agree with that: let’s take the blame and shame out of being overweight.

Instead of a restrictive diet that leaves you craving favorite foods and beating yourself up for every slip, why not try focusing on getting healthier by being more active and searching out healthy foods which you enjoy.

Tomorrow, I’ll talk about Improving on the Health at Every Size Eating Plan.

Please come back.

Tags: cravings, enjoy your food, holiday diet tips, avoid holiday weight gain, eat healthy for life