B-b-but Calories In Calories Out!

[Content Note: Fat bias; "headless fatty" imagery at link.]

Here is yet another article confirming that "it's nearly impossible to permanently lose weight."

There are a lot of problems with this article, starting with the headless fatty imagery right at its top, but it's effective at highlighting the value of a Health at Every Size paradigm and noting that the belief about people's ability to maintain permanent weight less is really rooted in anecdotal evidence about outliers.

And there's more to it than just that, of course: The media loves to feature stories about people who lost lots of weight "through old-fashioned diet and exercise," but does not love to feature stories about people who find that even "old fashioned diet and exercise," even when those "lifestyle changes" are maintained, are generally not effectively in preventing weight regain.

The article also addresses the role that "obesity researchers" are playing in maintaining the facade that permanent weight loss is possible for most people:

So if most scientists know that we can't eat ourselves thin, that the lost weight will ultimately bounce back, why don't they say so?

Tim Caulfield says his fellow obesity academics tend to tiptoe around the truth. "You go to these meetings and you talk to researchers, you get a sense there is almost a political correctness around it, that we don't want this message to get out there," he said.

"You'll be in a room with very knowledgeable individuals, and everyone in the room will know what the data says and still the message doesn't seem to get out."

In part, that's because it's such a harsh message. "You have to be careful about the stigmatizing nature of that kind of image," Caulfield says. "That's one of the reasons why this myth of weight loss lives on."

They're worried about "the stigmatizing nature" of the message of natural body diversity, but not worried about the stigmatizing nature of the message that fat people are just lazy pieces of shit whose bodies are evidence of our moral failure. Neat!

Health experts are also afraid people will abandon all efforts to exercise and eat a nutritious diet — behaviour that is important for health and longevity — even if it doesn't result in much weight loss.

Perhaps that's because fat people are routinely told by "health experts" that we can't be healthy if we're fat.

If there was as much emphasis on the message that, in fact, fat bodies can indeed be healthy bodies, fat people might be inclined to believe that there was a worthy health objective for which to strive. But we're not given that message at all. We're given the exact opposite message—that we can only be healthy if we lose weight.

"Health experts" aren't actually centering fat people's health. They're telling us that our bodies aren't worth taking care of unless they're thin, and then behaving like it's a fucking mystery that lots of fat people don't feel an incentive to care for our fat bodies unless we lose weight.

I say once more: I do fat advocacy because I care about fat people's health.

And anyone who purports to be concerned about fat people's health will stop trying to demonize our bodies and shame us for having them, and instead get on board with the idea that there is little incentive to take care of a body you hate, that fat hatred is a barrier to seeking care, that fat hatred kills.

[H/T to Shakesville Contributor and Moderator Aphra_Behn.]