The Evidence Is In-Time to Stop Telling Fat People to Become Thin

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I think I’ve probably been watching my weight most of my adult life.  It’s primarily because every doctor you talk to, and every study you read, tells you that thin is better and fat is not.  It seems that idea is changing.

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From Slate.com:

If you’re one of the 45 million Americans who plan to go on a diet this year, I’ve got one word of advice for you: Don’t.

You’ll likely lose weight in the short term, but your chance of keeping if off for five years or more is about the same as your chance of surviving metastatic lung cancer: 5 percent. And when you do gain back the weight, everyone will blame you. Including you.

This isn’t breaking news; doctors know the holy trinity of obesity treatments—diet, exercise, and medication—don’t work. They know yo-yo dieting is linked to heart disease, insulin resistance, higher blood pressure, inflammation, and, ironically, long-term weight gain. Still, they push the same ineffective treatments, insisting they’ll make you not just thinner but healthier.

In reality, 97 percent of dieters regain everything they lost and then some within three years. Obesity research fails to reflect this truth because it rarely follows people for more than 18 months. This makes most weight-loss studies disingenuous at best and downright deceptive at worst.

One of the principles driving the $61 billion weight-loss industries is the notion that fat is inherently unhealthy and that it’s better, health-wise, to be thin, no matter what you have to do to get there. But a growing body of research is beginning to question this paradigm. Does obesity cause ill health, result from it, both, or neither? Does weight loss lead to a longer, healthier life for most people?

Studies from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention repeatedly find the lowest mortality rates among people whose body mass index puts them in the “overweight” and “mildly obese” categories. And recent research suggests that losing weight doesn’t actually improve health biomarkers such as blood pressure, fasting glucose, or triglyceride levels for most people.

So why, then, are we so deeply invested in treatments that not only fail to do what they’re supposed to—make people thinner and healthier—but often actively makes people fatter, sicker, and more miserable?

Read more at Slate.com.

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Professor Mike

Professor Mike is a left-leaning, dog loving, political junkie. He has written dozens of articles for Substack, Medium, Simily, and Tribel. Professor Mike has been published at Smerconish.com, among others. He is a strong proponent of the environment, and a passionate protector of animals. In addition he is a fierce anti-Trumper. Take a moment and share his work.
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Ross Kardon
9 years ago

Order online from Amazon a copy of the 1982 “The Dieter’s Dilemma” or just google the words “diets fail, genes take over”.

There are the points I will make perfectly clear in my comment:

1. At this point in time, there is only one safe, guaranteed way to be thin: have thin parents.

2. The lives of people struggling with the genetic disease of obesity are infinitely more important more than the lives laboratory mice!

Contrary to popular myth, people are not fat or thin, because of how much or how little they eat. People are fat or thin because of what genes they inherit.

When fat people try programs like Weight Watchers or Jenny Craig, the best they can do is temporarily abate maybe 40 or 50 pounds, but then despite their best efforts, the weight always returns, often with even more weight gained.

This is because fat people have inherited the wrong “thrifty gene”. For fat people, their bodies outwit their best efforts to lose weight by slowing down their metabolisms, to make sure the lost weight returns, and often with even more weight gained. Because of the thrifty gene, the bodies of fat people do not know the difference between a famine, and dieting weight loss programs.

At the other extreme, there are lucky people who eat the equivalent of a chocolate-covered elephant every day and never gain a single pound. This is because for these lucky people, they were fortunate enough to inherit the right thinness gene. As someone who has a lifelong struggle with obesity myself, I rage with envy for these lucky people!

Just maybe if the general public was aware of the scientific facts about the real cause of obesity that the dieting industry does not want you to know, there would be a decline in bigotry against fat people. Just as bigotry against gay people has declined in the last thirty years.

Unfortunately, this does not appear to be the case from my own experience. Many times, on Huffingtonpost and other websites, I have posted similar messages like this one explaining how dieting does not work and the real genetic cause of obesity. But unfortunately, so far not one reply have come from anyone being willing to do something as simple as researching online what I am commenting about. So far, I have only gotten negative replies from people being willfully ignorant and refusing to believe me. As if that was not bad enough, I even got one nasty reply from an idiot who thinks mice are more important than people!

let me explain. Scientists are using mice in necessary medical experiments to delete the obesity gene. This means there is hope that a real cure for the genetic disease of obesity may happen someday. This idiot I write about sent me a nasty reply complaining that animals have to lose their lives and suffer, “so that lardies don’t have to put down that fork”! Nothing could be further from the truth. All these scientists are doing is experimenting on mice that are already fat to delete the obesity gene. That vast majority of fat people do indeed watch what they eat, but as I explain in my comment, their bodies outwit their efforts.

The solution to the problem of cruelty to animals in necessary medical experiments is not to stop them as animal rights activists would want, but to have veterinarians supervise these experiments to see they are conducted as humanely as possible. The solution to the problem of animals in medical laboratories being kept in poor conditions is to have professional animal care experts see to it that these animals are properly cared for.

In order to know what I am writing about concerning necessary animal medical research,f please google and visit the website of Americans for Medical Progress.

I am all for efforts to save wetlands and other wildlife habitats from real estate developers, save the rain forests, fight global warming, save endangered wildlife species from going extinct, and other such necessary environmental efforts. I am a supporter of Rain Forest Action Network, Wild Aid, and the National Wildlife Federation. But, because medical progress is dependent of using live animals in medical research is why I oppose the animal rights movement!

As for myself, I am one of those people struggling with the genetic disease of obesity. So to the animal rights activists who are against using live animals in necessary medical research, please don’t ask me to give up hope of a real cure for obesity being discovered, just because you erroneously think mice are more important than people! That is just too much to ask!

Because of the 1982 book “The Dieter’s Dilemma”, I have known since 1983 that dieting does not work. I have often been harassed by thin members of own family when I have failed to lose weight and they refused to believe me when I have tried to tell them the truth. Other more recent annoying incidents of bigotry against fat people I have personally experienced is in the last few years, I have had grown adults who should know better, but forget the unwritten rules about what is not socially acceptable, and be rude to me in public with impunity!

In the 17th and !8th Centuries, the best doctors considered it sound medical practice to bleed people because they thought it would cause disease to come out of their patients. Today, we know bleeding people only makes things worse by lowering resistance to disease.

In the 18th Century, as in Bedlam Insane Asylum, it was considered O.K. to put mentally ill people in chains and allow the general public to come see and laugh at these unfortunate people. Today, the general public is not allowed to visit mental hospitals like hey are zoos and laughing at such unfortunate people is absolutely frowned upon.

These two examples make this point perfectly clear, it is long overdue for the general public to know the real scientific cause of obesity and come out of the Dark Ages concerning fat people!

Norman Rampart
9 years ago

I have never found a fat woman physically attractive but, on the other hand, they may well have never found me physically attractive. As a result I have never dated a fat woman, only skinny minxes who I do find attractive – petite as well.

That is just my taste.

I have a few pals who’s wives are not skinny minxes. In one case I would be extremely dead if she ever fell on top of me but each to their own eh?

Most fat people – and, whilst in comparison to FAT people I am not FAT I am, to be honest, a bit fat – are fat because they eat too much so, on that simplistic view it’s their own bloody fault.

Various medical conditions can cause people to get fat though. Depression can lead to ‘comfort eating’. Low self esteem can lead to the same.

It’s easy to say “Oi! Lard ass! Stop spilling into my seat!” on a plane or train or bus but really we need to realise that ‘lard ass’ might not be one of the greedy self centred fat bastards but one of the clinically depressed or ‘low self esteem’ people who need help and understanding and get none.

They might even have a genuine medical condition that makes them fat.

A little compassion unless you know for a fact that they are just greedy lard asses eh?

RickRayFSM
9 years ago
9 years ago

This totally aligns with what I have been saying for years and state in my book, “Fit For Free Forever.” Diets do not work and most people on them end up heavier than when they started. The yo-yo weight loss and gain is very stressful physically and mentally.

My approach is not to cut out everything you like to eat. To say, “I’ll never eat this again” is clearly a lie for most of us.

To say, “I will eat less of it” is easier. My idea is to gradually cut back on your portion size until your activity level and caloric intake are in balance. You cannot do that in a day, week, or even a month. You didn’t learn to over eat in a week, don’t expect to unlearn it quickly, either.

That doesn’t mean you should not eat a healthy diet. It also doesn’t mean you must eschew steak and cake. It does mean not to make them the centerpiece of your meal and your life. This is not a “crash program, it is a life style to keep you fit and healthy as long as possible. It also doesn’t mean rail thin. There is a point where your body is comfortable. It is likely more slender than you think, but not like an Olympic swimmer, either. Find that point where you feel right and learn to accept it.

Marsha Woerner
9 years ago

I had actually been aware of most of that, but not the type2 diabetes, although when I think about it, well, my father-in-law was not overweight at all, and yet he had type II diabetes. My parents, on the other hand, both extremely overweight and no diabetes.
Of course, the other thing coming into question medically, is the whole cholesterol issue! I learned a while ago that cholesterol intake is not related to cholesterol level, although doctors still seem to say “NO eggs! Limited shellfish!”, and the question of salt and blood pressure has been questioned for a while, also.
So why are these medical myths still so rampant? Well we all know that fat is ugly. Obviously, it has to be a cause of negative health risks and health problems! And high cholesterol? The drug companies love the doctors PRESCRIBE their products to millions of people And salt? It’s so much easier to say “your blood pressure is high because you have too much salt in your diet” than to try to figure out what is actually CAUSING the high blood pressure!
I’m sorry. I’m just feeling cynical today – about medicine, religion, politics,…

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