I do have a big issue with the food industry and the medical community. The medical community shames you for being fat, yet the food that is available to most people is junk. Our dairy products, meat and produce are poisoned with toxins. To buy food that is chemical-free costs most people a half a paycheck! The only reason I am able to eat truly healthy now is because I have a household income of $140,000 per year! For two people, that is plenty of $ and my husband and I (he also has a weight problem) can afford any weight loss program we want.

Also there is a failure to define what “healthy” is. For some people 200 lbs. can be a healthy weight. I am not one of those people. My quality of life took a nose dive when my weight went over 200. I set a goal of 138, but that may be too thin. I can weight up to about 150 and be fine. I have never weighed less than 170 in my adult life so I don’t know what being that slim feels like. I may be impossible to maintain. We’ll see, I guess.

And Yo-Yo dieting with that crazy fasting or low carb programs is insane. How can someone actually believe that trying to survive on 800 calories a day or just on apples or juice is healthy! YOU NEED TO EAT ACTUAL FOOD!!!

Most people need to stop reading the latest trendy diet books and see a nutritionist. Worry about giving your body what it needs. JC helps me so that. So far I feel a lot better, which is what is REALLY important.

I don’t need to be convinced of anything you mentioned above, and I know the Junkfood Science site, too. However, if you were to say something like “most fat people die from yo-yo dieting” to anyone who needs more convincing than I do, and then, when asked to back that statement up, backtrack and say a.) well, it’s not proven because there’s a conspiracy against it and b.) well, you feel it personally to be true and c.) think of the children!, I just don’t think it’s terribly helpful. Not for you, the person you’re trying to inform, or the fat acceptance movement.

It’s definitely frustrating that people don’t understand that dieting is harmful, but I just don’t think it’s a good idea to switch up from “harmful” to “deadly” just to get a point across, especially if saying so gets farther from the known facts.

I think a lot of people out there already feel the same way you and I do, but they don’t yet have solid information to validate their experiences and give them a basis for their own self-acceptance. That’s why it’s so important to make sure the arguments we put forth aren’t as faulty as the rhetoric we’re trying to fight.

It’s really infuriating when the anti-obesity folks revert to things like “people are dying” and “think of the children” to make themselves heard and to justify their ends. When people come to the fat acceptance movement with questions, don’t they deserve better answers than that?

Sometimes a part of winning the war is first winning the small battles. It’s very difficult for people to even understand that dieting could be bad, let alone that it could be deadly. You should read the Junkfood Science blog over at:

http://www.junkfoodscience.blogspot.com/

For more about how research is unquestionably fixed to promote complete lies about being fat, just to foward the diet industry and a government looking for an easy fix to the health care problems.

I’d rather see someone live a life, rather than be concerned over if there’s enough outside proof to support what I know to be true from personal experience.

Dieting does not work.

Dieting damages a already healthy yet fat body.

You can be fat and be healthy at the same time.

Self-starvation is what dieting is. Dieting is a nicer way of saying, self induced Anorexic behavior.

You watch a documentary like Thin by HBO, or meet someone who’s starving themselves because they have felt all their life, they are horrible for being fat. Imagine how many more people will be in eating disorder centers, how many more young people like 10 year olds will be there. Trying to convince themselves it’s okay to eat.

I’m sorry if those things matter more to me, than if I’m using the same health hyperbole that the diet industry uses.

I think that childrens’ lives are more important than if I’m using the proper rehtoric to get my point across.

Well, I don’t know, I think the bariatric associations would love to have a nice alarming study on the deadliness of yo-yo dieting, the better to convince people to “lose the weight permanently through surgery.”

I do believe that a great deal of the weight and obesity research we hear about is serving diet-industry agendas, but I just don’t buy that there’s absolutely no interest in investigating fatally harmful effects of dieting.

I know that yo-yo dieting can lead to gallstones and it doesn’t do your body any favors. I don’t need to be convinced of that. But that “most fat people die from yo-yo dieting” line really gave me pause, and to be honest, I hoping to hear there was more to it besides “well, of course there’s no evidence, because everyone’s afraid to prove it.” It doesn’t feel much different than saying “well, of course diets work, but most people are too lazy/stupid/afraid to make them work.”

I’m all about fighting the claims about dieting being “healthy,” but I think it’s better to stay away from the same kind of health hyperbole the diet industry uses.

To saying dying instead of dieting at the end.

Feel free to visit this article for more on how yo yo dieting causes health problems:

http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/357639/the_dangers_of_yoyo_dieting.html?cat=51

It also is very rare, if even at all possible, for someone to be able to change their natural body size without doing something that may damage their body.

The only point to the thin ideal, and the claims that weight loss is the magic bullet that cures all ills, is to make money off those who are customers who will always return. It is easy to make money off of weight loss, because it is convincing someone to give you money to help them do the impossible. They know their customers will loose the weight, and gain it back or gain back even more weight, than they had before. They will return to the diet center again and again. Damaging their bodies in strife to acheive the impossible goal of the thin ideal.

But anyway.

I was studying for finals and told my counselor I was having a hard time not reaching for the M&M’s while I studied. She asked, “What is it about the M&M’s? Is it the sugar? The chocolate? Or is it just the hand to mouth action?” I said I was sure I didn’t know, I just knew I wanted ‘em. I acknowledged that perhaps I just wanted something to do with my hands while I sat for such long periods of time studying. She said, “Are you a smoker?” I told her no – I’ve never been a smoker. She said, “Well maybe you should take it up just to get yourself through finals. You can quit when they’re over. That will satisfy the hand to mouth thing and you won’t gain weight.” Needless to say I walked out, never walked in again.

I bought a big bag of M&M’s on the way home.

Yeah. She was all about my health…

While I think the “health” claims of diets and diet companies are pretty disingenuous and that weight isn’t a reliable measure of health, is there any kind of substantial evidence that yo-yo dieting is actually deadly? I know drastic loss through crash diets is unhealthy, but if there’s anything out there that strongly indicates that cycles of weight loss and gain has seriously harmful effects, I think I’ve missed it. If there’s a study somewhere I’d like to be able to show it to my doctor (who thinks otherwise, and I’m struggling with her on that point).