International No Diet Day - May 6, 2010

Take the Pledge!




I Pledge:

* That I will not diet for one day, on May 6, International No Diet Day.

* Instead of trying to change my body to fit someone else's standards, I will accept myself just as I am.

* I will feed myself if I'm hungry.

* I will feel no shame or guilt about my size or about eating.

* I will think about whether dieting has improved my health and well-being or not.

* And I will try to do at least one thing I have been putting off "until I lose weight."

Signed,
Jean C

Nonsense for the Diet Season

Nonsense for the Diet Season
By Sandy Szwarc
Published 01/26/2005
TCS

After ringing in the New Year, the party's over. The diet season has begun and so do our resolutions to diet and exercise, quit smoking and begin a new life. "Yup, it'll be All Bran all the time in 2005," said food writer Gwyneth Doland.

Just in time to accompany the weight loss advertisements that beset us every year at this time, a new report claims to provide the evidence that dieting and attaining a trim figure are imperative. Women must be "toned and trim," we're told, because no amount of exercise can offset the risks of dying prematurely when overweight. The bearers of those gloomy tidings are researchers from the Harvard School of Public Health, in a report published in the New England Journal Medicine. They claim to have studied 116,564 women for 24 years and found that even exercising 3 1/2 hours a week, fat women have a 91% greater risk of premature death as compared to lean women.

This veritable death threat left women feeling angry and hopeless that their fat was going to kill them regardless of what they did. The latest comprehensive review of the nation's top ten diets by University of Pennsylvania researchers confirmed, yet again, that there is no diet that offers "more than glossy ads and dramatic testimonials when it comes to promising long-term results."

But despite this Harvard study's claim we must shed body fat or else, closer examination reveals that it deserves nothing more than a good belly laugh and to be tossed out with all the fad diets.

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Hey, Feds, Weight a Minute...

Hey, Feds, Weight a Minute...
By Sandy Szwarc, RN, BSN, CCP
Published 10/26/2004 TCS

The federal government recently ruled that taxpayers will foot the bills for weight loss surgeries and other weight loss treatments for Medicare patients, if medical evidence can demonstrates their effectiveness. This is the door opening to broader obesity-related coverages, as a September 30th New York Times article revealed. According to Karen Ignagni, president of America's Health Insurance Plans, the national health insurance trade organization, everyone's premiums will be impacted if, as expected, private and employer-based health insurance plans follow suit. It's anticipated that as coverage becomes more readily available, more Americans will seek the surgeries and the numbers performed will skyrocket from this year's estimated 144,000 surgeries. So will the costs.

The American Obesity Association, whose sponsors include bariatric surgical groups, weight loss drug companies and weight loss programs like Weight Watchers and Jenny Craig, already succeeded in April 2002 getting the IRS to designate weight loss treatments, including weight loss surgeries, as tax deductible and hence government sanctioned. As our nation faces rising healthcare costs, concerns over troubled Medicare and social security programs and an aging population, many are asking if our healthcare dollars are best spent on these surgeries and where's the proof they're beneficial?

The "proof" appeared to come last week as headlines announced a new study which "validates" obesity surgeries and found them "beneficial" and "can save lives."

The "study" found nothing of the kind. But it did point out how deadly and costly it can be to base healthcare policies and healthcare decisions on bad science.

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Obese Women Start Diets Young

Obese Women Start Diets Young
Research Indicates that Semi-Starvation Leads to Weight Gain

BY Allison Young
Contribution Writer
Wednesday, September 1, 2004

A fat person is not necessarily a lazy person.

A recent study by Joanna Ikeda, co-director of UC Berkeley’s Center for Weight and Health, indicated that of 149 women surveyed, all of whom are considered clinically obese, two-thirds had been on their first diet by the age of 14.

This dispels the myth that the condition of overweight people is caused by laziness and inattention to their health and appearance. In fact, those who had gone on more diets tended to have higher body mass indexes.

A person is considered obese if hisbody mass index (BMI) is 30 or above. An index of 18.5 to 24.9 is considered normal.

The women who participated in this survey had BMIs of 55 to 70 and ranged from 250 to 600 pounds.

“Many of these women started out at weights that were not necessarily considered overweight. By reducing their calorie intake to levels of semi-starvation, they were able to temporarily reduce their weight,” Ikeda said. “However, because your body cannot maintain itself at calorie levels below 1400, many women end up bingeing on food, returning their weight to its original level, and often, even increasing on their original size.”

This creates a vicious cycle of yo-yo dieting, often ultimately propelling the individual’s weight far beyond its original level.

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A Simple Plan

A Simple Plan

By Sandy Szwarc
Published 08/08/2003

The goal of this series was to encourage all of us to critically question the vernacular precepts about obesity and (weight loss) dieting....and to reveal the facts we never hear. The current war on obesity has caused more harm than good. The simplistic myths and answers it promotes are not supported by the evidence. Obesity is complex and the result of multiple interrelating factors that scientists may never completely figure out.

Thinness has been a cultural fad, growing increasingly extreme, for more than forty years now. With other fashion trends, such as smoking and tanning, our government and healthcare providers make sure the health dangers are well-known. When it comes to the obsession with thinness, however, its very real dangers are never spoken. There are no splashy headlines: "If your dress size is under four, you have the highest risk of dying young!"

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The Diet Problem

The Diet Problem

By Sandy Szwarc
Published 07/18/2003
TCS

Looking back 40 or more years, the movie stars and bathing beauties we admired were healthy full-figured gals with plenty of jiggle and cellulite. The nation didn't have a "weight problem." The difference between then and now is that "diet" wasn't in our vocabulary and being thin wasn't a cultural obsession.

But as dieting has become increasingly more widespread in America, body weights have increased, the January/February 1999 issue of Healthy Weight Journal, after an extensive examination of the evidence surrounding dieting, reported.

In fact, dieting is a predictor of fatness. Among girls who diet their risk for obesity is 3.24 times greater than for nondieters. Dieting among adults is similarly associated with an increased risk of long-term weight gain, according to studies by Allison Daee, R.D., and colleagues at the University of Missouri.

An overwhelming body of research has demonstrated the link between dieting and obesity. The problem is that evidence flies in the face of the reigning orthodoxy in the current battle of the bulge, which cannot afford to acknowledge that the decisive consequence of dieting is ... obesity.

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