# Sad! Another BBW is killed by extreme dieting!



## joswitch (Jul 28, 2009)

So I'm sure everyone here is sick to the back teeth of the "obesity epidemic" BS... At worst the upshot of the constant barrage of hatred, blame and 
misiniformation aimed at big folks is DEATH.
Yeah I'm not exaggerating.

I'm cross posting this from my Facebook today... it's a bit "soundbitey" compared to my usual stuff, but the refs are there...

Today an inquest found that a talented young mother starved herself to 
death on diet of soup and water 
Source: www.dailymail.co.uk
Helen Anderson, 26, a talented musician and mother, was found dead in 
bed by her mother at her home on April 6. Her body was so starved of 
sugar it began to eat into its own reserve of fat. The inqest found she 
died of ketoacidosis.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1202501/Young-mother-starved-death-diet-soup-water.html

So another woman dies on an extreme diet / anorexia! :sadface:
Helen Anderson was by no means the first - anorexia kills 5 to 20% of 
sufferers, making it the mental illness with the highest fatality rate.

http://www.webmd.com/a-to-z-guides/features/anorexia-body-neglected


At least two other women: Jacqueline Henson and Mathilda Callaghan have 
died on the "doctor-approved" "Lighter Life" Very Low Calorie Diet 
(VLCD) in the last couple of years :angryface:

http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/top-st...line-hits-out-at-lighterlife-115875-20963727/

http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qn4161/is_20061105/ai_n16828564/

"Professor John Garrow, one of the UK's leading experts on obesity, 
criticised the 500-calorie-a-day diet as "dangerous". 

Steer clear folks! If you wanna be healthy go for the Health At Every 
Size (HAES) approach instead:
http://www.lindabacon.org/HAESbook/


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## exile in thighville (Jul 28, 2009)

anorexia and dieting, no matter how extreme, are very different things, and i really don't see the point of this thread.


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## fffff (Jul 28, 2009)

Really what was the point, telling everyone that dieting is going to kill them? 

I don't think anyone here needed a thread telling them that only consuming water and soup for several months is a bad idea.


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## LoveBHMS (Jul 28, 2009)

Anorexia is an eating disorder, it's not about dieting.


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## Cors (Jul 28, 2009)

Precisely what LoveBHMs said! I suffered from anorexia nervosa in my teens and have lost good friends to the disease, and I hate it when people imply that we are just vainpots who want to lose 10lbs for prom. 

Going on a starvation diet and losing a huge amount of your body weight, while dangerous does NOT make one clinically anorexic unless they have a BMI under 17, stop menstruating naturally, have a distorted body image and an intense fear of gaining weight. These women, if anything will be diagnosed as ED-NOS (Eating Disoder Not Otherwise Specified), which is sadly not taken seriously by many medical professionals. 

However, many of the fatalities associated with anorexia nervosa (including ketoacidosis) _can_ happen if one has been starving for quite a while and have lost a significant amount of body weight. If I am not mistaken, one of the fattest men in the world died from malnutrition and starvation while he was still morbidly obese.


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## joswitch (Jul 28, 2009)

exile in thighville said:


> anorexia and dieting, no matter how extreme, are very different things, and i really don't see the point of this thread.



Main point - people are dying BECAUSE of the fat-hatred at large in society / media / medical profession / govts.... I'd say that's a pretty damn important point wouldn't you?

Secondary point:
Actually there's a nasty grey zone between dieting and anorexia.
The first is often gateway to the latter.
Most anorexics start off by going on a "diet".
Whether or not someone is diagnosed as anorexic has a great deal to do with the fatness or not of a person. 

Thin person eats 500 cals a day for any length of time - people are rushing to get them help.

Fat person is *pushed* by doctors to eat only 500 cals a day and put into a diet plan/support group to keep them on it. (I prefer to call those groups "cults" - behaviours approved of by the group and used by the group to keep their adherents are very similar to cults... see also I think it was Kate Harding's critique on Weight Watchers)

As far as nutrition is concerned there's not much difference between the intake of an anorexic and someone on a VCLD... harm is done by both...

Further many of the "abberant" food behaviours associated with anorexia are also exhibited by people who are (semi) starved (i.e. dieting) - for evidence see here (for starters) - those behaviours - "Semi Starvation Neurosis" seem to be part of the physio / phsychological response to starvation.... http://www.dimensionsmagazine.com/forums/showthread.php?t=62089

You might say it's miltant to liken the two, but the evidence points that way.


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## joswitch (Jul 28, 2009)

fffff said:


> Really what was the point, telling everyone that dieting is going to kill them?
> 
> I don't think anyone here needed a thread telling them that only consuming water and soup for several months is a bad idea.



Perhaps *you* didn't.. but as there's thousand of people out there in the world who are doing/thinking of doing VCLD and maybe some of them are lurking around here wondering if it's actually all that good an idea... well then maybe this thread will give those people pause for thought... :bow:


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## Blackjack (Jul 28, 2009)

joswitch said:


> Main point - people are dying BECAUSE of the fat-hatred at large in society / media / medical profession / govts.... I'd say that's a pretty damn important point wouldn't you?
> 
> Secondary point:
> Actually there's a nasty grey zone between dieting and anorexia.
> ...



I'm calling you General Izayshun from now on.

...Sir.


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## joswitch (Jul 28, 2009)

Cors said:


> Precisely what LoveBHMs said! I suffered from anorexia nervosa in my teens and have lost good friends to the disease, and I hate it when people imply that we are just vainpots who want to lose 10lbs for prom.



I know you're exaggerating for effect, but I wasn't implying that... Cos most people on VCLD (that killed these three women) are trying to lose 80 - 100lbs plus... and even the bonkers organisations that profit from it say it's ONLY for people who are trying to lose over 40lbs...



> Going on a starvation diet and losing a huge amount of your body weight, while dangerous does NOT make one clinically anorexic unless they have a BMI under 17, stop menstruating naturally, have a distorted body image and an intense fear of gaining weight. These women, if anything will be diagnosed as ED-NOS (Eating Disoder Not Otherwise Specified), which is sadly not taken seriously by many medical professionals.



Well you've partly made my point for me here - lack of / incorrect diagnosis does not signify lack of problem... BMI of 17 is an arbitrary cut off... I'm assuming that most people reading this will be aware that BMI is pseudoscientific garbage? and is *not* a true health measurement (except at it's wildest extremes) - here's just one article that tears into it http://www.spiked-online.com/index.php/site/article/7181/ see also Tad's thread on "Get Fat - Live Longer" on this board and the links I posted in there....
Aaaaand see also my link in post just above to the breakdown of the Minnesota Starvation experiment in which Semi Starvation Neurosis was shown to include *exactly as you specified* "_distorted body image and an intense fear of gaining weight._"



> However, many of the fatalities associated with anorexia nervosa (including ketoacidosis) _can_ happen if one has been starving for quite a while and have lost a significant amount of body weight. If I am not mistaken, one of the fattest men in the world died from malnutrition and starvation while he was still morbidly obese.



Bingo! That's exactly what I'm talking about. Thankyou Cors.
Do you have a reference for that?

Are you referring to some of these people? who are listed here as dying / their deaths being contributed to from / by (semi) starvation...
http://www.dimensionsmagazine.com/dimtext/kjn/people/heaviest.htm


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## joswitch (Jul 28, 2009)

Blackjack said:


> I'm calling you General Izayshun from now on.
> 
> ...Sir.



Ahahaha! Took me a minute to get that!


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## exile in thighville (Jul 28, 2009)

far more people have died from obesity-related symptoms than diet-related ones. it's just a bad soapbox to climb on, lecturing people on a size-positive forum about eating disorders, when the world would generally consider most of this place to have one. you're biased towards one, they are another. you can't have it both ways.


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## Cors (Jul 28, 2009)

I think it is Michael Edelman (featured in Dimension's 900 Club) and possibly Walter Hudson too.


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## fffff (Jul 28, 2009)

joswitch said:


> Main point - people are dying BECAUSE of the fat-hatred at large in society / media / medical profession / govts.... I'd say that's a pretty damn important point wouldn't you?
> 
> Secondary point:
> Actually there's a nasty grey zone between dieting and anorexia.
> ...



Are a registered dietician, a medical doctor, psychiatrist, bariatric specialist? 

I know somewhere you posted about having a phd in biochem but that does not make you qualified to post junk science and sweeping generalizations in the guise of some sort of groundbreaking research. 

We get it. You think dieting is evil and it's a personal afront to you whenever a woman dares to lose weight. All woman should be fat, losing weight is evil blah blah blah. 

I guess all the woman who have had health problems because of their weight and lose weight and kept it down through.... dieting  are just satanic outliners.


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## TraciJo67 (Jul 28, 2009)

joswitch said:


> Fat person is *pushed* by doctors to eat only 500 cals a day and put into a diet plan/support group to keep them on it. (I prefer to call those groups "cults" - behaviours approved of by the group and used by the group to keep their adherents are very similar to cults... see also I think it was Kate Harding's critique on Weight Watchers)



I don't think that anyone with the title of M.D. behind his/her name would ever push a patient into a 500 calorie a day diet based only on the need to lose weight, joswitch. I know that my father, who was not overweight, was actually on a severely calorie/liquid restricted diet towards the latter end of his life because he had health conditions that made it impossible for his body to absorb and efficiently process food as fuel. Any deviation at all, even a few ounces of liquid or a few extra bites of food could cause heart failure or aspiration pneumonia. He was on what I would call a starvation diet, but it had nothing to do with his weight at all. And since he was bed-ridden, he wasn't expending much energy anyway. This is pretty much the only example that I can think of where a doctor would ethically prescribe such a low calorie diet. 

Were you referring to WLS-enforced "diets", or do you have knowledge that doctors are actually prescribing 500-calorie plans to people who have not had their insides surgically altered?


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## LoveBHMS (Jul 28, 2009)

I liked BlackJack's name for you.

The bottom line is there are a shit ton of variations in the human body, both as far as size and how they function. There are also a shit ton of worthwile opinions of doctors/scientists/dieticians regarding Very Low Calorie Diets, Health at Any Size, whether you can be fat and fit, etc.

Some people are healthy and mobile at 400 pounds, some are miserable and suffer from all sorts of problems. Some underweight people have thin hair and pasty skin and some look terrific and just happen to be skinny. There are no doubt many people on VLCDs who feel good and believe they are making the right choice for their health. We have many fat people on this board who intentionally gain weight and also feel good and feel they are making the right choice---in many cases they are fulfilling their sexuality and enjoy great mental health and increased self confidence because of it.


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## joswitch (Jul 28, 2009)

exile in thighville said:


> far more people have died from obesity-related symptoms than diet-related ones.



References for your assertions please!
And I mean references to the actual science not the lobbyist / government spin.

If you've been following my science threads and my response posts to other science threads e.g. Tad's "Get fat Live Longer" and Olwen's (I think it was who she who started it) "Does stigma motivate weight loss? The science says no!" then you'll see that there's a *great weight of evidence *(no pun intended) *that trashes even the correlations commonly made between obesity and morbidity*... see these two links which break down Flegal et als analyses of the data from the massive NHANES studies
http://junkfoodscience.blogspot.com/2007/11/fat-and-long-life-obesity-crisis-is.html
http://junkfoodscience.blogspot.com/2009/04/does-it-really-matter-how-your-numbers.html
Flegal et al's 2005 paper here 
http://jama.ama-assn.org/cgi/content/full/293/15/1861
supported by more recent work in Japan 
http://www.smh.com.au/lifestyle/wel...rweight-people-live-longer-20090618-cm13.html
and Canada
http://junkfoodscience.blogspot.com/2009/06/even-obesity-paradoxes-cant-excuse.html



> it's just a bad soapbox to climb on, lecturing people on a size-positive forum about eating disorders, when the world would generally consider most of this place to have one.



This is a bizarre paragraph. 
It's almost classic doublespeak.
I don't follow what your getting at here. 
Other than just plain disapproving of what I'm saying....




> you're biased towards one, they are another. you can't have it both ways.



I'm not biased towards any eating disorder.
And I'm not "hav(ing) it both ways."

I've consistently argued that semi-starvation is harmful.
I've drawn a link between societally approved semi-starvation i.e. dieting
and societally disapproved semi-starvation i.e. anorexia
And I've done that on the basis of scientific evidence which demonstrates strong psychological and physiological paralells - which I have provided references for here. (Go back through my threads and posts for even more)

Further I've consistently advocated for folks to abandon weight-loss for a Healthy At Every Size approach. Again with references to supporting scientific work that shows health benefits of this approach. HAES is the opposite of an eating disorder. HAES is intuitive listen-to-your-own body, take-joy-in-your life eating and activity.

There's no inconsistency in what I'm saying.
And I've backed up everything I've said with real-world evidence.


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## joswitch (Jul 28, 2009)

Cors said:


> I think it is Michael Edelman (featured in Dimension's 900 Club) and possibly Walter Hudson too.



Yep! More people who've suffered from innappropriate, ill-informed "medical" intervention.


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## joswitch (Jul 28, 2009)

fffff said:


> Are a registered dietician, a medical doctor, psychiatrist, bariatric specialist?
> 
> I know somewhere you posted about having a phd in biochem but that does not make you qualified to post junk science and sweeping generalizations in the guise of some sort of groundbreaking research.




BA (Cantab), MA (Cantab), PhD, PGCert, CELTA
that's my full academic qualifications at least dating from graduating uni the first time. (the last two aren't relevant but here for completeness) My first degree was broad- based Natural Sciences at Cambridge University hence "Cantab"* (that's Cambridge UK. not Ma, USA)... For the first two years the course I did was shared 70% with the medics... 
My PhD in Biochemistry was with the University of Reading, grad. '96... a PhD is a vocational qualification.... I'm qualified as a *research scientist* so what I trained for SIX years to do was to design, 
carry out, and 
*assess* the quality and significance of 
the results of scientific research.... 

So yeah I'm qualified.
More so in fact than medics... whose training is very largely about absorbing *all* the existing consensus and how-to apply it.
You want someone to splint your foot?
I'll have a go, but a medic would do better.
You want someone to read and critique a scientific paper.
That's me.

Well, you did ask.

And yes, it's unfortunate that one of the most useful info. sources on the web - written with great scientific scepticsm by Sandy Szwarc - is called with deliberate irony "Junkfood Science". Actually her critique is pretty solid.
Did you bother to READ any of the references by the way?
From the speed of your response I assume not.
I'll ask that you go and read them before flinging anymore mud.


*{that's also why it's a "BA" (odd Cambridge tradition not to differentiate BSc vs. BA... at least it still was when I graduated in '92)}





> We get it. You think dieting is evil and it's a personal afront to you whenever a woman dares to lose weight. All woman should be fat, losing weight is evil blah blah blah.



Ah, no you don't "get it".
Don't put words in my mouth.

How I "feel" is irrelevant here.
I leave my "personal feelings" at the door when I'm assessing quality of research.
Perhaps you could try and do the same?

And good/evil = moral concepts.
We're talking science and evidence here.
This thread is about what's going on out there in the world.
What? do you think I made all these papers up?




> I guess all the woman who have had health problems because of their weight and lose weight and kept it down through.... dieting  are just satanic outliners.



Nice personal rhetoric there.
I'm not "having a go" at anyone who choses to diet.
I'm presenting the evidence here, together with my interpretation.
So people can read and think about it.
And decide for themselves.

Or, do what you have, and ignore the evidence and jump straight to a conclusion.


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## joswitch (Jul 28, 2009)

TraciJo67 said:


> I don't think that anyone with the title of M.D. behind his/her name would ever push a patient into a 500 calorie a day diet based only on the need to lose weight, joswitch.



"Lighter Life" is a G.P. (General Practitioner) approved scheme over here in the UK. People on it are under monthly G.P. assessment. It's a 450 Calorie-a-day plan. There's a lot of them.



> I know that my father, who was not overweight, was actually on a severely calorie/liquid restricted diet towards the latter end of his life because he had health conditions that made it impossible for his body to absorb and efficiently process food as fuel. Any deviation at all, even a few ounces of liquid or a few extra bites of food could cause heart failure or aspiration pneumonia. He was on what I would call a starvation diet, but it had nothing to do with his weight at all. And since he was bed-ridden, he wasn't expending much energy anyway. This is pretty much the only example that I can think of where a doctor would ethically prescribe such a low calorie diet.



That is, I agree, an ethical instance of such. And I'm sorry to hear about your dad. 



> Were you referring to WLS-enforced "diets", or do you have knowledge that doctors are actually prescribing 500-calorie plans to people who have not had their insides surgically altered?



I wasn't referring to WLS specifically. 
Although WLS generally has the result of effectively imposing VLCD (and I'd expect it to present at least the same problems plus others) there's so much more going on with WLS that I'm reluctant to (publicly) voice an opinion on it until I've done more reading, so I can form an informed opinion strongly backed by evidence. 
And of course I'd post that over on the WLS board.:bow:

Re. doctor's involvement with non-WLS VLCD in the UK see above


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## exile in thighville (Jul 28, 2009)

joswitch said:


> References for your assertions please!
> And I mean references to the actual science not the lobbyist / government spin.
> 
> If you've been following my science threads and my response posts to other science threads e.g. Tad's "Get fat Live Longer" and Olwen's (I think it was who she who started it) "Does stigma motivate weight loss? The science says no!" then you'll see that there's a *great weight of evidence *(no pun intended) *that trashes even the correlations commonly made between obesity and morbidity*... see these two links which break down Flegal et als analyses of the data from the massive NHANES studies
> ...



i could write it on my blog and link you there 

this is an insultingly stupid line of discussion (what have more people died from, anorexia or obesity??) and even i'm not happy to play devil's advocate about this one. except oh wait it's not playing devil's advocate. let's do this instead of me listing everyone who's died from stuff: what is there more of in the world, people considered medically obese or people with anorexia? one is a size, the other is a disorder. the disorder's infamous and popular but it ain't the majority of my country

there's no point in posting "real-world evidence" because you can find any statistic that proves anything anywhere and you've already discredited my theoretical sources as mainstream hooey because you're so desperate to be right


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## joswitch (Jul 28, 2009)

LoveBHMS said:


> I liked BlackJack's name for you.



Me too. Was funny snark. 



> The bottom line is there are a shit ton of variations in the human body, both as far as size and how they function.



Leaving out the term "shit ton" (I'd prefer something more quantitative  ) I broadly agree. Many biological variations in a population describe a bell-shape curve... Most people clustered in the middle and a few at each end... the bell may "skew" one way or another...



> There are also a shit ton of worthwile opinions of doctors/scientists/dieticians regarding Very Low Calorie Diets, Health at Any Size, whether you can be fat and fit, etc.



Actually - no.
A *scientific opinion* (and medicine is meant to be a branch of science) must be *based on the evidence*.
So if Doctor A disagrees with Doctor B.
And the evidence supports Doctor A.
Doctor A is right.
Doctor B is wrong.

And that's why I've presented a whole "shit ton"  of supporting evidence for my opinion here. By all means have a read through it. 



> Some people are healthy and mobile at 400 pounds,



Which is great!



> some are miserable and suffer from all sorts of problems.



Which is not great.
And I've presented a weight of evidence here in counter to the massively pervasive idea that this ill health is _always_ due to their weight.

As long as medical practice is obsessed with this, then research into the true underlying causes of illness will be neglected. 
In a similar way that medicine based itself on a group of unfounded dogma during the dark ages (the "theory of the 4 humours") that led to all sorts of barbaric practices (such as bleeding patients). It was not until these theories were called into question in the Renaissance and people began (again) to look at what was *actually* happening that progress in medicine began.

Also in this thread I call into question the wisdom of (semi) starvation as a "health" treatment per. se. http://www.dimensionsmagazine.com/forums/showthread.php?t=62089



> Some underweight people have thin hair and pasty skin



And may suffer from serious ill health. 
I personally know of people like this.
And you know what? Some of them are semi-starving themselves too.
Have you never heard a size 6 woman (who suffers continual ill health) complain about her tiny-to-non-existent post-partum belly and go on about the diet she is on to lose it?? Cos, you know, I have... 

And yet it is rare for a medic to recommend to an underweight (or low-normal weight) person that they gain weight. Despite the strong evidence showing that underweight people suffer earlier mortality (on average) than normal or overweight people! And that overweight people live longer than both normal and underweight people.... (see links above)



> and some look terrific and just happen to be skinny.



And if their health is good well woop! for that!



> There are no doubt many people on VLCDs who feel good



On the one hand I accept that there *may* be some people who, in among the lottery of genetics and circumstance _somehow_ obtain an overall (health, esteem, positive strokes from society, the whole she-bang) favourable result. Statistics deal with averages and lets us know what most people might expect.

btw... "feel good" has many connotations - including:

*Semi Starvation Induced Hyperactivity*
from
http://randyschellenberg.tripod.com/anorexiatruthinfo/id45.html

"The phenomenon of impulsivity, irritability, and hyperactivity may be interpreted by the therapist as a manifestation of obsessive-compulsive disorder or depression, when in fact these behaviors are likely normal adaptive responses to starvation honed by millions of years of natural selection. Normal individuals facing severe dietary restriction develop an obsessive preoccupation with obtaining and consuming food, and this shapes impulsive behavior such as hoarding, bingeing, or stealing food. This healthy adaptive response would give a greater certainty of securing nutrition, and thus survival. Of course, for the individual who cannot eat due to medical illness, all these behaviors may be present, yet the consumption of sufficient food remains an impossibility. 

The phenomenon of excessive exercise, agitation, and restlessness observed in many anorexic patients may also be a normal adaptive response to caloric restriction. *Most mammals become restless and agitated when experiencing hunger, and most increase foraging activity when food supplies dwindle. In the research lab, this restlessness is called "semi-starvation induced hyperactivity." Researchers working with rats on calorie-restricted diets noticed that those eating less daily ran between 2.8 and 5.3 miles more than the other rats. Some of the rats on restricted diets ran themselves to death. *This response to starvation would increase the liklihood of survival in famine conditions where competition for resources would be intense. In the lab rat's situation, if no food is added to the cage, the increased activity does not result in acquisition of nutrition. In like fashion, for the anorexic patient with a digestive disease, the hyperactivity does not lead to food intake, since the underlying disorder has either suppressed the appetite or produces gastrointestinal distress paired with food intake"

This tallies with the Minnesota Starvation experiment data in humans.



> and believe they are making the right choice for their health. We have many fat people on this board who intentionally gain weight and also feel good and feel they are making the right choice---in many cases they are fulfilling their sexuality and enjoy great mental health and increased self confidence because of it.



Yes, absolutely.
I agree.
It's *always* your choice what to do with your body.
Whether that's healthy or not.
But I'm a great believer in freedom.
And *you CAN'T make a FREE choice if you're not well informed*.
So I'm presenting evidence here, for people to read.

What people do with that knowledge 
and their own bodies and lives is up to them.
Not me.
Not their doctor.
Nor their government.
Not the ***hole who shouts at them from a passing vehicle.
Not their lover.
Nor their mother.
Or anyone else.
It's. Their. Own. Choice.
:bow:


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## joswitch (Jul 28, 2009)

exile in thighville said:


> i could write it on my blog and link you there


ok why not



> this is an insultingly stupid line of discussion (what have more people died from, anorexia or obesity??)


Stupid or not it gets brought up a lot.
Just like...
Oh, you did!



> and even i'm not happy to play devil's advocate about this one. except oh wait it's not playing devil's advocate.


What??
No offense, but are you drunk?
Goddess knows I need a beer right now... 
I'm hungry too...



> let's do this instead of me listing everyone who's died from stuff: what is there more of in the world, people considered medically obese or people with anorexia?



It's a false comparison because



> one is a size, the other is a disorder.



That's right. "obesity" is a false medicalisation of a size.
It's a pseudoscience term.
Because it contains an assumption that big = bad.
Which in itself may cause observer bias in experiments.



> the disorder's infamous and popular but it ain't the majority of my country
> 
> there's no point in posting "real-world evidence" because you can find any statistic that proves anything anywhere



but there's ways/tests of ascertaining which are more meaningful



> and you've already discredited my theoretical sources as mainstream hooey



Then you need better sources.
Get digging.
I did. 
I've been digging into the actual science for months now.

You need 
1) primary sources (original research papers, published in peer reviewed journals)
2) secondary sources - reviews of 1) published in journals or elsewhere... these contain references back to 1)
3) tertiary sources - articles that refer, traceably back to 1) or 2)
This is standard in scientific debate.
Only with a traceable reference path can accurate critique occur.

Press releases that have been spun by government agencies, lobbyists or special interest groups (e.g. pharmaceutical companies and their "front" organisations) are unreliable sources. To put it kindly.

Oh and it's always handy to know who or what funds an institution or it's research.

Don't come crying to me cos your sources are inadaequate and it's _hard_ to find the actual science among the shit storm of spin and rhetoric.

Prove your assertions.
Support them with evidence.
I have.



> because you're so desperate to be right



Psssch...
Don't assume I'm desperate to be anything.
Get digging and quit whining.


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## James (Jul 28, 2009)

exile in thighville said:


> (what have more people died from, anorexia or obesity??)



I think a lot of people still have the 1999 Allison et al study in mind when they think about fatness and mortality. The headlines that this study generated were along the lines of "hundreds of thousands of people a year were dying from being fat"... the "current generation will be outlived by its parents" etc. etc. had a pervasive cultural impact. This was a diet industry-funded piece of fluff that should never have been published in the JAMA. It contended that all people who were over a certain BMI score died _because _they were over that BMI score (regardless of the actual cause of their death)...

So the answer to Dan's rhetorical is anorexia... or at least when you delve deeper, it really starts to look like this _might _be the case? The number of US deaths per year that are solely attributable to being of a very low weight are, in actuality, greater than those that are solely attributable to being a very high weight. 33,000 to 26,000 - Flegal et al 2005). 

Being fat does postively correlate with many negative health outcomes but it is only in the cases of joint damage, uterine and breast cancer where this correlation is causally linked, beyond any doubt, with the fat itself. What is often mistaken for a correlation between fatness and disease is actually poor diet and disease or poor fitness and disease... Aversion to seeking healthcare providers who display prejudice also influences the rate at which diseases are diagnosed (often slower for fat patients and thus resulting in worsened prognoses once finally diagonosed). The problem is, as many of you already know, the fact that BMI conflates a whole bunch of factors that are discrete. You can be fat and fit, thin and unfit, fat and unfit or thin and fit.... The factors are, to a large extent, not fixed.

Its because of this that I grow increasingly convinced that in order to make progress towards size acceptance on a societal level we must seriously think about incorporating HAES into any emerging ideas/doctrines for the purposes of getting fitter and eating better.  



[FONT=&quot]Allison, D. et al. 1999. “Annual Deaths Attributable to Obesity in the United States,” Journal of the American Medical Association 282: pp 1530-1538[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]Flegal, K., et al. 2005. “Excess Deaths Associated with Underweight, Overweight and Obesity,” Journal of the American Medical Association 293: pp 1861-1867 [/FONT]


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## mithrandirjn (Jul 28, 2009)

exile in thighville said:


> far more people have died from obesity-related symptoms than diet-related ones. it's just a bad soapbox to climb on, lecturing people on a size-positive forum about eating disorders, when the world would generally consider most of this place to have one. you're biased towards one, they are another. you can't have it both ways.



Right: have to point out the dangers of both to be fair. 

Some posters here sometimes forget that most people who are obese don't arrive there A) by choice, or B) by anything but unhealthy means. We know many posters here who gain, but who do so while not doing serious damage to their health, and I think it colors some posters' perceptions that all gainers are like this. Simply untrue. 

Of course, the issue of people driving themselves to "diets" that basically involve starvation and such nonsense due to the stigma of fat and weight in society can't be ignored, either. But, like you said, you have to be truthful about both sides of the coin.


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## Cors (Jul 28, 2009)

joswitch said:


> And yet it is rare for a medic to recommend to an underweight (or low-normal weight) person that they gain weight. Despite the strong evidence showing that underweight people suffer earlier mortality (on average) than normal or overweight people! And that overweight people live longer than both normal and underweight people.... (see links above)



This is not the case for me. 

My current BMI is 16.5 or so. This is a natural and healthy weight for me (Asian, small frame) and I actually have a significant amount of body fat - my period doesn't actually go away until I hit a BMI of 14 or so, compared to many girls who stop menstruating at much higher BMIs. However, doctors here are skeptical and like to lecture me about thinness and blame every health problem I complain about on that. They constantly pressure me to gain weight, sometimes to the point of prescribing supplements and making hospitalisation threats. This happens with most doctors I go to outside of Asia and even the ones who don't know my medical history are still so paranoid and probably treat me like how they might treat an overweight patient.


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## fffff (Jul 28, 2009)

joswitch said:


> BA (Cantab), MA (Cantab), PhD, PGCert, CELTA
> that's my full academic qualifications at least dating from graduating uni the first time. (the last two aren't relevant but here for completeness) My first degree was broad- based Natural Sciences at Cambridge University hence "Cantab"* (that's Cambridge UK. not Ma, USA)... For the first two years the course I did was shared 70% with the medics...
> My PhD in Biochemistry was with the University of Reading, grad. '96... a PhD is a vocational qualification.... I'm qualified as a *research scientist* so what I trained for SIX years to do was to design,
> carry out, and
> ...



So no, you're not a medical doctor or a psychologists and when you state things like diets are gateways to eating disorders you're entirely pulling that out of your ass. 




> What? do you think I made all these papers up?



No, I think you have an obvious and clearly states agenda. Personally I would never turn to anyone with even a slight FA preference to give me medical advice. There are girls here intentionally gaining hundreds of pounds of fat which is NEVER healthy but you're trying to introduce an argument here about the "danger" of extreme dieting.  
Of course you never actually defined what a diet is. There's a pretty huge difference between dieting and starvation.


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## 1300 Class (Jul 28, 2009)

> What is often mistaken for a correlation between fatness and disease is actually poor diet and disease or poor fitness and disease... Aversion to seeking healthcare providers who display prejudice also influences the rate at which diseases are diagnosed (often slower for fat patients and thus resulting in worsened prognoses once finally diagonosed). The problem is, as many of you already know, the fact that BMI conflates a whole bunch of factors that are discrete. You can be fat and fit, thin and unfit, fat and unfit or thin and fit.... The factors are, to a large extent, not fixed.
> 
> Its because of this that I grow increasingly convinced that in order to make progress towards size acceptance on a societal level we must seriously think about incorporating HAES into any emerging ideas/doctrines for the purposes of getting fitter and eating better.


Very well said.


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## Geektastic1 (Jul 28, 2009)

joswitch said:


> "Lighter Life" is a G.P. (General Practitioner) approved scheme over here in the UK. People on it are under monthly G.P. assessment. It's a 450 Calorie-a-day plan. There's a lot of them.



Seems extreme at best, fatal at worst. I glanced around a bit at their website. Perhaps the counseling part of the program is beneficial (looks like they do Cognitive Behavioral Therapy for stress-reduction skills and emotion management, etc--doesn't sound too bad), but I can't see how an MD could approve such drastic calorie restriction (unless in an extreme or special case, with of caution and supervision.) This "lose weight at any cost" mentality is insane. I just don't see the point of risking ketoacidosis, whacking out your electrolyte balance, or damaging muscle tissue in order to lose weight quickly. I'd much rather keep my mild OSA instead, use CPAP, and excercise to improve insulin resistance (unfortunately, type II diabetes runs in my family, and I tend to put on weight in the middle).

Thanks for posting the links to the studies that support HAES--I appreciate your work in digging them up.


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## olwen (Jul 28, 2009)

TraciJo67 said:


> *I don't think that anyone with the title of M.D. behind his/her name would ever push a patient into a 500 calorie a day diet based only on the need to lose weight, *joswitch. I know that my father, who was not overweight, was actually on a severely calorie/liquid restricted diet towards the latter end of his life because he had health conditions that made it impossible for his body to absorb and efficiently process food as fuel. Any deviation at all, even a few ounces of liquid or a few extra bites of food could cause heart failure or aspiration pneumonia. He was on what I would call a starvation diet, but it had nothing to do with his weight at all. And since he was bed-ridden, he wasn't expending much energy anyway. This is pretty much the only example that I can think of where a doctor would ethically prescribe such a low calorie diet.
> 
> Were you referring to WLS-enforced "diets", or do you have knowledge that doctors are actually prescribing 500-calorie plans to people who have not had their insides surgically altered?



Unfortunately Traci, they can and do. I've had doctors tell me just that more than once. 

And Jo, I didn't start that thread.


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## exile in thighville (Jul 29, 2009)

mithrandirjn said:


> Right: have to point out the dangers of both to be fair.



right, or not pointing out the dangers of either because it's an exercise in trite dead echoes for both. getting back to my original point (joswitch - i'm not digging up shit, it's your field and i'll let you have it - i want you to be right!) which is that competition between fat and skinny health risks is negative reinforcement; you can't scare people into losing weight, you can't scare them out of anorexia or dieting either. if you want to focus on the doctors' incompetence in this case, sure, that's a problem. but you framed it as dieting=death, which is about as effective as the more widespread fat=death campaign, and your citations i don't feel like checking out prove you could have some rich papers to unleash on the scientific community if you didn't generalize like you're gunning for a peta spokesmanship. there really is a lot in this thread to be considered and you don't particularly need to posit somewhat misleading shock value like you're the new york post to get attention. 

also responding to posts line by line is fucking irritating


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## 1300 Class (Jul 29, 2009)

> right, or not pointing out the dangers of either because it's an exercise in trite dead echoes for both. getting back to my original point (joswitch - i'm not digging up shit, it's your field and i'll let you have it - i want you to be right!) which is that competition between fat and skinny health risks is negative reinforcement; you can't scare people into losing weight, you can't scare them out of anorexia or dieting either. if you want to focus on the doctors' incompetence in this case, sure, that's a problem. but you framed it as dieting=death, which is about as effective as the more widespread fat=death campaign, and your citations i don't feel like checking out prove you could have some rich papers to unleash on the scientific community if you didn't generalize like you're gunning for a peta spokesmanship. there really is a lot in this thread to be considered and you don't particularly need to posit somewhat misleading shock value like you're the new york post to get attention.


I agree with you here. +1.


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## Russell Williams (Jul 29, 2009)

I hvae heard or read this is several venues. "the current generation will be outlived by its parents" 

It continures to intrigue me that some sources in our society can spout the above opinion and also maintain that social security pension system is in danger.

Russell Williams


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## mergirl (Jul 29, 2009)

There was a scientific experiment where a 400lb+ man didn't eat any food for over a month and lived only on his fat. He was monitored closely and was totally fine. I can't find any evidence of this but i watched a documentary on it. Hmm actually i think it was part of the documentary that said "fat was catching"! Anyway, this either proves that its a lot of shite or that it is dependent on how fat the person is to begin with or that sometimes science isn't always right EVEN when it gives you some sort of answers. Scientific 'facts' can always be manipulated to support pretty much anything that a particular person/group subscribes to.


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## joswitch (Jul 29, 2009)

fffff said:


> So no, you're not a medical doctor or a psychologists and when you state things like diets are gateways to eating disorders you're entirely pulling that out of your ass.



Your low opinion of PhDs is not shared by the NIH http://www.nih.gov/ 

Even back in 1967 the majority of medical research science (that received grants from the NIH) was carried out by PhDs (53%) contrasted with 43% by M.D.s (yes that leaves 4% "other")... there's been a steady trend of greater involvement of PhDs and less by M.D.s - *in 1997, M.D.s were awarded about 2,100 i.e. 29% of grants as compared to about 5,200 i.e 71% for Ph.D.s. *(ignoring grants that might have been awarded to "others")
http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/articlerender.fcgi?artid=408393


I haven't pulled anything out of my ass... Besides the evidence I've *already posted *in support of the strong reciprocal link between semi-starvation and anorexia / semi-starvation neurosis...

Here's some more
The author lists a number of underlying physical disorders which may be misdiagnosed as anorexia nervosa because the patient may develop semi-starvation neurosis due to their malnourished status..
http://randyschellenberg.tripod.com/anorexiatruthinfo/id1.html
he tells his story here of how his daughter was misdiagnosed with anorexia nervosa when in fact her anorexia was due to gallbladder disease
http://randyschellenberg.tripod.com/anorexiatruthinfo/id14.html
this is an example of how a better and more widespread understanding of the physio / psychological link between starvation and anorexia benefits everyone, fat or thin.


And my assertion of diets as a "gateway" to anorexia was additionally based on reading innumerable testimony from anorexia sufferers which almost always feature a diet or diets as one of the first steps or triggers.... 
WARNING - LINKS FROM * TO * ARE POTENTIALLY TRIGGERING!
ALSO HELLA SAD!
*
http://www.associatedcontent.com/ar...ith_anorexia_a_personal_testimony.html?cat=51
http://caringonline.com/feelings/byvictims/mary.htm
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/a...ing-Britain-allows-just-500-calories-day.html scroll down to Christina Massingham's anorexia story
*
That last link not only contains more information on the harm done by Lighter Life that falls short of fatal (including it's role in triggering Christina's anorexia) but also contains testimony from:

"leading obesity expert Professor John Garrow http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Garrow was unequivocal: *he blamed Matilda (Callaghan)'s death on her rapid ten-stone weight loss which, he said, reduced the lean tissue in her heart.*

Matilda Callaghan died after losing 10st in six months on the LighterLife diet
Professor Garrow says: 'Studies show semi-starvation diets deplete the protein and muscle of internal organs, resulting in an increase of heart arrhythmias among obese people following them.

Sadly for Sarah (Barker_), such health warnings are too late. 'The double vision suddenly became worse. My doctor referred me to a neurologist. I was devastated - I couldn't stop crying.
'When I explained the programme to my *neurologist he was shocked that it was legal. He explained that anything under 800 calories a day may cause damage to both the peripheral and central nervous system - that is the brain and the spinal cord. I was horrified: I had been on 500 calories a day for nine months.*'"

given what we know about semi-starvation neurosis and how it causes psychological changes in people without previous underlying psychiatric disorder READ THE FRIENDLY REFERENCES I posted above esp. re. Minnesota Starvation Experiment... It would seem likely that semi-starvation neurosis would exacerbate any underlying anorexic tendency




> No, I think you have an obvious and clearly states agenda. Personally I would never turn to anyone with even a slight FA preference to give me medical advice.



And your personal identification as a person-who-has-lost-weight-and-is-furious-at-anyone-who-doesn't-think-weight-loss-is-great is coming through loud and clear too.

Tell me fffff.
Assuming you went to consult a doctor before or during your weight loss -
Did you ask the doctor what size of partner they preferred to date, if any?
If they had told you "thin" would that have made you respect their professional opinion more?

You're so busy accusing me of bias that you are ignoring yours.



> There are girls here intentionally gaining hundreds of pounds of fat which is NEVER healthy



You know what - you've slandered my integrity as a independent scientist but you have not supported ONE of your assertions with any damn evidence at all. Why should I take what you're saying seriously?

I've not looked into the health consequences of rapid and extreme weight gain yet, although from what I've seen so far + my background knowledge would lead me to guess it would probably be unhealthy in a number of ways. But I won't pronounce an opinion on that 'til I've examined the evidence (just like I won't pronounce on WLS until same)... If only you were so real-world oriented in your arguments.



> but you're trying to introduce an argument here about the "danger" of extreme dieting.



Are you implying that those few women who are actively gaining have somehow missed the endless shit-storm of propaganda out there in the world that says OMG YOU WILL DIE OF THE FATZ?

I've asserted the dangers of extreme dieting and provided evidence - that you've ignored.

I'm doing this because this evidence very rarely makes it into the media so most people are completely unaware of it.
I'm doing this because there's a pressing need to counter the gov't / media blitzkrieg that is making fat folks miserable and is screwing up their lives and health unecessarily and in some cases killing them.

READ THE FRIENDLY REFERENCES.

And quit with the personal attacks, already.
I get that you have a big old hate-on for me.
And I suspect you have a big old hate-on for any FAs, not to mention any fat folks who dare to be healthy and happy without losing weight.




> Of course you never actually defined what a diet is. There's a pretty huge difference between dieting and starvation.



 everyone's trying to split this hair - see my answer below


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## joswitch (Jul 29, 2009)

James said:


> I think a lot of people still have the 1999 Allison et al study in mind when they think about fatness and mortality. The headlines that this study generated were along the lines of "hundreds of thousands of people a year were dying from being fat"... the "current generation will be outlived by its parents" etc. etc. had a pervasive cultural impact. This was a diet industry-funded piece of fluff that should never have been published in the JAMA. It contended that all people who were over a certain BMI score died _because _they were over that BMI score (regardless of the actual cause of their death)...
> 
> So the answer to Dan's rhetorical is anorexia... or at least when you delve deeper, it really starts to look like this _might _be the case? The number of US deaths per year that are solely attributable to being of a very low weight are, in actuality, greater than those that are solely attributable to being a very high weight. 33,000 to 26,000 - Flegal et al 2005).
> 
> ...



*applause*

Flegal's '05 paper provides the all-cause mortality figures for the four different categories and I've number crunched them to be intelligble to the layperson as part of this post here:
http://www.dimensionsmagazine.com/forums/showthread.php?t=60961

"_the following extra, absolute risk of death expressed as a percentage over the 20 year period of the study/ies
- "under"weight = an extra 1.4% chance compared to normal weight category 
- "over" weight = 3.7% LESS chance compared to normal weight category
- "obese" = an extra 4.8% chance compared to normal weight category
and even given this modest increase in risk for "obese" folks - almost all (19/20) of that increased risk fell in the BMI greater than 35 category.._"

It's astonishing, when you look at the real figures here -given the endless anti-fat publicity - that overweight actually confers *lower *mortality risk and even !OMG OBESITY! has such a modest risk increase c.f. "normal"

The recent Japanese and Canadian studies back this up.
Flegal et al '07 give the breakdown of the differnt mortality causes in their '07 paper.
I've linked to articles on those in #16 of this thread.


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## joswitch (Jul 29, 2009)

Cors said:


> This is not the case for me.
> 
> My current BMI is 16.5 or so. This is a natural and healthy weight for me (Asian, small frame) and I actually have a significant amount of body fat - my period doesn't actually go away until I hit a BMI of 14 or so, compared to many girls who stop menstruating at much higher BMIs. However, doctors here are skeptical and like to lecture me about thinness and blame every health problem I complain about on that. They constantly pressure me to gain weight, sometimes to the point of prescribing supplements and making hospitalisation threats. This happens with most doctors I go to outside of Asia and even the ones who don't know my medical history are still so paranoid and probably treat me like how they might treat an overweight patient.



Damn. I stand corrected on this point, Cors.

btw - putting aside the whole Mr Science thing for a minute.

I've read a bunch of your posts and I wanted to say - I really feel for you on both this^ (having got a bunch of "thin-hatred" growing up myself).... and also on your having got extreme "stick" from both sides in the "Great BMI Wars"...
*hug*


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## joswitch (Jul 29, 2009)

olwen said:


> Unfortunately Traci, they can and do. I've had doctors tell me just that more than once.
> 
> And Jo, I didn't start that thread.



Ooops! My bad! Sorry!:blush:


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## mossystate (Jul 29, 2009)

It really is too bad that that people mock those who are ' too thin ', and some of those ' too thin ' people can't find the self- love they need to not change a thing about themselves...screw society, and the people who would have folks change. That is such crap pressure.


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## exile in thighville (Jul 29, 2009)

fffff said:


> Personally I would never turn to anyone with even a slight FA preference to give me medical advice. There are girls here intentionally gaining hundreds of pounds of fat which is NEVER healthy



with apologies to joswitch, this is the dumbest thing in the thread and incredibly offensive. this is like saying you wouldn't turn to a gay person to watch your child. and don't think that the opposite of an fa preference doesn't make reluctant and complacent doctors biased in exactly the way you're claming either, except they'd laugh at any request to reevaluate something seen so much as conventional wisdom and so before their time that it might actually be due for the sort of reevaluation joswitch is peddling, though not in so many gotchas.


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## joswitch (Jul 29, 2009)

exile in thighville said:


> right, or not pointing out the dangers of either because it's an exercise in trite dead echoes for both. getting back to my original point (joswitch - i'm not digging up shit, it's your field and i'll let you have it - i want you to be right!) which is that competition between fat and skinny health risks is negative reinforcement; you can't scare people into losing weight,



Dude, if I had £1 for every single time I've read - "my doctor told me to lose weight or die in X years/ months" OR "I wanted to lose weight so I could watch my children grow up" etc. etc. as the opening to a weight-loss testimony*, well then my secretary would be typing this while I dictated.

(*of course these testimonies never follow up on the frequent regain, natch)



> you can't scare them out of anorexia or dieting either. if you want to focus on the doctors' incompetence in this case, sure, that's a problem.



Well I disagree with your first point, and agree with your second. But I notice you ignored my positive message about HAES - prominently at the end of the post - which rises above negativity and "trite dead echoes" with a look-here's-a-weight-neutral-route-to-bettter health!



> but you framed it as dieting=death, which is about as effective as the more widespread fat=death campaign, and your citations i don't feel like checking out prove you could have some rich papers to unleash on the scientific community if you didn't generalize like you're gunning for a peta spokesmanship. there really is a lot in this thread to be considered and you don't particularly need to posit somewhat misleading shock value like you're the new york post to get attention.



1) Gimme a break here, the top post went up as a link on facebook. I had limited characters to work with. Bam Bam Bam was all I had room for.

2) Actually the crazy amount of heat this thread has drawn, in contrast to all the careful, sober science threads I've posted over the last two months (which were verrrry coolly received) tells me that I do need to make out like the New York Post - at least sometimes / to get people "in the door" - if I'm hoping to fight the power of Big Media. Sorry, chap - but you've played a big part in proving yourself wrong on this point.



> also responding to posts line by line is fucking irritating



Then write shorter posts with fewer points.... or organize your writing with less run-on between ideas!  Multi-quote saves me typing!  I HATE typing!


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## joswitch (Jul 29, 2009)

exile in thighville said:


> with apologies to joswitch, this is the dumbest thing in the thread


Are you apologising to me cos you're de-throning me as your sayer-of-dumbest things in favour of ffffff??


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## joswitch (Jul 29, 2009)

fffff said:


> Of course you never actually defined what a diet is. There's a pretty huge difference between dieting and starvation.



I know what you're getting at here and you're splitting hairs.
Sure, someone with a peanut allergy will (very rightly) be on a peanut-free "diet". 
Someone with coeliac disease will be on a wheat-free "diet".
etc. etc.

But! These articles are aimed at the layperson. And what most people think of as "dieting" is *reduced calorie intake - below recommended norms* (allowing for a little "wiggle room" for individual variation) *i.e. partial starvation aiming at weight loss. *

So in this context there is no difference between "dieting" and semi-starvation. And I'd've thought the context of my article made that clear, which is why I didn't bother "defining".


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## Wild Zero (Jul 29, 2009)

What's so hard about people doing what they please with their bodies and diet?


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## joswitch (Jul 29, 2009)

Wild Zero said:


> What's so hard about people doing what they please with their bodies and diet?



plsreadthreadkthxbi 

sod this, I'm off down the pub.


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## fffff (Jul 29, 2009)

exile in thighville said:


> with apologies to joswitch, this is the dumbest thing in the thread and incredibly offensive. this is like saying you wouldn't turn to a gay person to watch your child.



Exactly how is that in any way similar? 




> And my assertion of diets as a "gateway" to anorexia was additionally based on reading innumerable testimony from anorexia sufferers which almost always feature a diet or diets as one of the first steps or triggers....
> WARNING - LINKS FROM * TO * ARE POTENTIALLY TRIGGERING!
> ALSO HELLA SAD!



I spent my first two years at University only studying psychology and nutrition and worked throughout both years at an in-patient clinic reserved for people with eating disorders. And I had a eating disorder. 
So now, I don't have any bullshit blogs, daily mail news blurbs, or web posts, what I learned came almost entirely from research and field work. 

But saying that diets are gateways to eating disorders is so conveniently simplistic and ridiculous it could only be said by someone who knows nothing about the psychology behind anorexia. That's how I know you're pulling it out of your ass.


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## Blackjack (Jul 29, 2009)

fffff said:


> I spent my first two years at University only studying psychology and nutrition and worked throughout both years at an in-patient clinic reserved for people with eating disorders. And I had a eating disorder.
> So now, I don't have any bullshit blogs, daily mail news blurbs, or web posts, what I learned came almost entirely from research and field work.
> 
> But saying that diets are gateways to eating disorders is so conveniently simplistic and ridiculous it could only be said by someone who knows nothing about the psychology behind anorexia. That's how I know you're pulling it out of your ass.


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## katorade (Jul 29, 2009)

joswitch said:


> I know what you're getting at here and you're splitting hairs.
> Sure, someone with a peanut allergy will (very rightly) be on a peanut-free "diet".
> Someone with coeliac disease will be on a wheat-free "diet".
> etc. etc.
> ...



Too bad that isn't the definition of diet(ing). It simply means that you are eating a _regulated _sequence, amount, or type of food. This could mean anything from reducing a caloric intake, to raising it. 

There are many, MANY diets out there that do not involve eating a very low calorie diet, rather they focus on training people to eat nutritionally sound foods at the proper intervals and getting the most value for their calories. People lose weight because they start metabolizing food as they're meant to, not because they've severely reduced their intake (unless their caloric intake was incredibly high to begin with).

All you're doing is promoting the exact opposite of those who purport that simply being fat will kill you. People will read this crap and just think it's another reason to not even bother to try and eat a healthy, balanced diet, or that all diet plans are miserable and rely on starvation. * It simply isn't true.*


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## pani (Jul 29, 2009)

I understand why you posted. The immediate responses are why I rarely frequent Dimensions anymore. But I have long suspected some posters are not quite what they seem. And yes, dieting does both kill and damage many people. In fact, studies don't usually separate the health risks of weight loss and risky weight loss practices from obesity. It always amazes me how people parrot the obesity is deadly propaganda, but they are clueless as to how the studies are done. Thanks for posting!


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## pani (Jul 29, 2009)

And YES diets are a gateway to eating disorders. At least many eating disorder therapists who actually know what they are talking about and have years of research on the subject have come to that conclusion. Not just anorexia but also the diet/binge phenomena. Diets (and everyone knows we are talking about calorie restricted diets, not healthy eating) are definitely a risk factor is disordered eating.


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## imfree (Jul 29, 2009)

pani said:


> I understand why you posted. The immediate responses are why I rarely frequent Dimensions anymore. But I have long suspected some posters are not quite what they seem. And yes, dieting does both kill and damage many people. *In fact, studies don't usually separate the health risks of weight loss and risky weight loss practices from obesity.* It always amazes me how people parrot the obesity is deadly propaganda, but they are clueless as to how the studies are done. Thanks for posting!



That part has always bothered me because most obese
people have dieted many times and many different ways
by middle age. I seriously wonder, myself, how much of
the health risks attributed to obesity are actually caused
by improper dieting, weight-cycling, and poor self image.
Hatred of fat whether on one's own body, or on someone
else's body may be more dangerous than the fat. IMHO:bow:


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## LoveBHMS (Jul 30, 2009)

pani said:


> *And YES diets are a gateway to eating disorders. At least many eating disorder therapists who actually know what they are talking about and have years of research on the subject have come to that conclusion.* Not just anorexia but also the diet/binge phenomena. Diets (and everyone knows we are talking about calorie restricted diets, not healthy eating) are definitely a risk factor is disordered eating.



If somebody is predisposed to an eating disorder, for whatever reason, the "diet" may just be the first step towards disordered eating of whatever kind, be it bulimia, anorexia, binge eating disorder, or any EDNOS.

Many people enjoy a few drinks after work, wind down at night with a cocktail, or enjoy a pitcher of beer and pizza at a pub while watching a sporting event. Most of them don't wind up alcoholics who lose their homes and families and jobs. However if you take an individual who is in AA or in an inpatient treatment facility for alcoholism, s/he will inevitably say that "it all started with a few cocktails after dinner". In other words, if you're predisposed to being an alcoholic, you can trace the active part of your disease to those few cocktails, whereas somebody who is NOT an alcoholic can just have those cocktails or that pitcher with pizza and have no problems.

Innumerable people can suddenly notice their belt is a little tight or that they've gained a few pounds, cut back on the fast food or desserts for a bit, lose the weight and get on with their life. For much of the population, weight gain or loss is not a big deal. If one is already predisposed to an eating disorder, the loss of a few pounds may trigger the disease. Or to put it metaphorically, nature loaded the gun and environment pulled the trigger.


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## pani (Jul 30, 2009)

10 Top Reasons Not to Diet
http://www.healthyweightnetwork.com/top10.pdf

by Francis Berg was has spent her entire career dealing with this issue!


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## Your Plump Princess (Jul 30, 2009)

Quoted from Wikipedia -


> Dieting is the practice of ingesting food in a regulated fashion to achieve or maintain a controlled weight.




While Anorexia Nervosa, on the other hand, is an Eating Disorder.


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## 1300 Class (Jul 30, 2009)

> Too bad that isn't the definition of diet(ing). It simply means that you are eating a regulated sequence, amount, or type of food. This could mean anything from reducing a caloric intake, to raising it.
> 
> There are many, MANY diets out there that do not involve eating a very low calorie diet, rather they focus on training people to eat nutritionally sound foods at the proper intervals and getting the most value for their calories. People lose weight because they start metabolizing food as they're meant to, not because they've severely reduced their intake (unless their caloric intake was incredibly high to begin with).
> 
> All you're doing is promoting the exact opposite of those who purport that simply being fat will kill you. People will read this crap and just think it's another reason to not even bother to try and eat a healthy, balanced diet, or that all diet plans are miserable and rely on starvation. It simply isn't true.


Quoted since my main points were pretty much this. +1. 



> 10 Top Reasons Not to Diet
> http://www.healthyweightnetwork.com/top10.pdf
> 
> by Francis Berg was has spent her entire career dealing with this issue!


All that indicates is that a potentially bad and poor Diet is bad for you. Why are people so obsessed with seeing things in Black and White only? That article doesn't pprove jack-shit.


----------



## thatgirl08 (Jul 30, 2009)

joswitch said:


> Dude, if I had £1 for every single time I've read - "my doctor told me to lose weight or die in X years/ months" OR "I wanted to lose weight so I could watch my children grow up" etc. etc. as the opening to a weight-loss testimony*, well then my secretary would be typing this while I dictated.
> 
> (*of course these testimonies never follow up on the frequent regain, natch)



this thread has



joswitch said:


> Well I disagree with your first point, and agree with your second. But I notice you ignored my positive message about HAES - prominently at the end of the post - which rises above negativity and "trite dead echoes" with a look-here's-a-weight-neutral-route-to-bettter health!



to be one of



joswitch said:


> 1) Gimme a break here, the top post went up as a link on facebook. I had limited characters to work with. Bam Bam Bam was all I had room for.
> 
> 2) Actually the crazy amount of heat this thread has drawn, in contrast to all the careful, sober science threads I've posted over the last two months (which were verrrry coolly received) tells me that I do need to make out like the New York Post - at least sometimes / to get people "in the door" - if I'm hoping to fight the power of Big Media. Sorry, chap - but you've played a big part in proving yourself wrong on this point.



the most annoying threads



joswitch said:


> Then write shorter posts with fewer points.... or organize your writing with less run-on between ideas!  Multi-quote saves me typing!  I HATE typing!



on dims right now.

Like seriously joswitch, dieting isn't and doesn't cause anorexia, you're not a doctor and not to mention, you're kind of preaching to the choir here.


----------



## Wagimawr (Jul 30, 2009)

Could diets appear to be a gateway to eating disorders because the majority of people with an eating disorder such as anorexia happen to "diet"* as well?

Kinda like saying marijuana is a gateway drug because everybody who does heroin has also smoked pot at some point, isn't it?

Are we sure the cause and the effect are clearly labeled?

*Starvation is not a diet, starvation is starvation. I know that; I'm just making an argument.


----------



## mergirl (Jul 30, 2009)

thatgirl08 said:


> this thread has
> 
> 
> 
> ...



Well, if dieting wasn't a part of society there would be no anorexia. Though most likely society ie. people create dieting as a means for them to look like the people they see on tv. There was an Island where the inhabitants didn't have tv and there was no cases of anoraxia or bulimia. When they finally did get tv a year later eating disorders had went from 0% to about 15%. Dieting isn't the 'Cause' of anorexia, it is the symptom.


----------



## 1300 Class (Jul 30, 2009)

Are you referring to this: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/2018900.stm

Quite interesting actually.


----------



## mergirl (Jul 30, 2009)

Australian Lord said:


> Are you referring to this: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/2018900.stm
> 
> Quite interesting actually.



Yessum. This was the study i was talking about. I was just too lazy to find the link.. so thanks! lmao


----------



## Cors (Jul 30, 2009)

mergirl said:


> Well, if dieting wasn't a part of society there would be no anorexia. Though most likely society ie. people *create dieting as a means for them to look like the people they see on tv*. There was an Island where the inhabitants didn't have tv and there was no cases of anoraxia or bulimia. When they finally did get tv a year later eating disorders had went from 0% to about 15%. Dieting isn't the 'Cause' of anorexia, it is the symptom.



I could be in the minority but I remember losing the weight so that I can continue to play competitive sport, shut people up and more importantly, make myself look a lot less appealing and womanly so that I won't recieve as much sexual attention from men following numerous assaults. The ideal woman on TV has a BMI of 18-21 and usually looks reasonably healthy (some FAs don't think so but then they think anything under 300lbs is "gross and anorexic" ). The emaciated woman has a BMI of 14, is visibly sick and nowhere near attractive (the way people gawk and turn away in disgust when they see you should remind a girl of that) - hair falling out in clumps, paper-thin skin, sunken eyes and cheeks, downy baby hairs on places where there shouldn't be any, wasting muscles, bones that stick out sharply, bruises all over and the like. Almost every anorexic I met in the treatment facility I was in had similar experiences with physical or sexual abuse and neglect. None of them said it was just an attempt to look like say, Nicole Richie that went overboard. The youngest girl there was 7, I think, probably too young to want to emulate celebrities. I suppose it could be because I interacted with them in an impatient facility since studies have also shown that while prior child/physical/sexual abuse is not a specific risk factor for anorexia, it leads to more serious and chronic symptoms. 

I don't think that a person who just wants to lose weight for vanity reasons is likely to go that far, especially considering how fast the health consequences catch up with you and I imagine that they have less of a motivation to restrict for days. If anything, this group of people are far more likely to develop bulimia nervosa than anorexia nervosa, non-purging type (fun fact: if you meet the diagnostic criteria for bulimia nervosa but have a BMI under 17 and do not menstruate naturally, you are diagnosed with anorexia, purging type but as far as I know, people who binge and purge frequently without severe restriction usually do not meet the physical criteria). 

I guess you can say dieting may lead to anorexia in predisposed individuals. I, however dislike the word "dieting" because these days it implies that one is doing it for "beauty" or which is not always true.


----------



## mergirl (Jul 30, 2009)

Cors said:


> I could be in the minority but I remember losing the weight so that I can continue to play competitive sport, shut people up and more importantly, make myself look a lot less appealing and womanly so that I won't recieve as much sexual attention from men following numerous assaults. The ideal woman on TV has a BMI of 18-21 and usually looks reasonably healthy (some FAs don't think so but then they think anything under 300lbs is "gross and anorexic" ). The emaciated woman has a BMI of 14, is visibly sick and nowhere near attractive (the way people gawk and turn away in disgust when they see you should remind a girl of that) - hair falling out in clumps, paper-thin skin, sunken eyes and cheeks, downy baby hairs on places where there shouldn't be any, wasting muscles, bones that stick out sharply, bruises all over and the like. Almost every anorexic I met in the treatment facility I was in had similar experiences with physical or sexual abuse and neglect. None of them said it was just an attempt to look like say, Nicole Richie that went overboard. The youngest girl there was 7, I think, probably too young to want to emulate celebrities. I suppose it could be because I interacted with them in an impatient facility since studies have also shown that while prior child/physical/sexual abuse is not a specific risk factor for anorexia, it leads to more serious and chronic symptoms.
> 
> I don't think that a person who just wants to lose weight for vanity reasons is likely to go that far, especially considering how fast the health consequences catch up with you and I imagine that they have less of a motivation to restrict for days. If anything, this group of people are far more likely to develop bulimia nervosa than anorexia nervosa, non-purging type (fun fact: if you meet the diagnostic criteria for bulimia nervosa but have a BMI under 17 and do not menstruate naturally, you are diagnosed with anorexia, purging type but as far as I know, people who binge and purge frequently without severe restriction usually do not meet the physical criteria).
> 
> I guess you can say dieting may lead to anorexia in predisposed individuals. I, however dislike the word "dieting" because these days it implies that one is doing it for "beauty" or which is not always true.



yeah, i just cited the tv thing because i had recently read a 'scientific' article on it. There are undoubtedly other reasons why people develop eating disorders. You could not link compulsive overeating with wanting to look more like someone you watched on tv. I guess my point wasn't really about the eating disorders themselves but on the way 'science' delivers reasons for things and also that 'dieting/starving' was a symptom of eating disorder and not the cause, which in many cases is rooted to other issues. 
I would say that if the study i cited (well Australian lord cited) had no variables it would be conclusive. There are variables though but i still think it is compelling. While not all people develop eating disorders because they feel they cant adhere to 'tv beauty' this study shows that some invariably do. 
I could not say that this is the leading cause of anorexia/bulimia. It actually makes more sense that the chronic and deeply rooted forms of the disorder do stem from abuse of some kind. While many people may hide from thier abusers via layers of fat or by trying to stop their bodies development i'm sure there are many people with the illness that would blame the pressures of the media for them not feeling worthy in their own bodies. Then there is Body dysmorphia, which is different again. 
Its just too complex to neatly compartmentalize these types of disorders though every now and then 'scence' has a stab at it.


----------



## katorade (Jul 30, 2009)

pani said:


> I understand why you posted. The immediate responses are why I rarely frequent Dimensions anymore. But I have long suspected some posters are not quite what they seem. *And yes, dieting does both kill and damage many people*. In fact, studies don't usually separate the health risks of weight loss and risky weight loss practices from obesity. It always amazes me how people parrot the obesity is deadly propaganda, but they are clueless as to how the studies are done. Thanks for posting!




Wrong. Wrong wrong wrong. IMPROPER, irresponsible dieting does this. Just because a diet exists does not mean it's backed up by the majority of the medical community. Also, not all damaging diets are reduced or very low-calorie diets. 

Take Atkins for example. The medical community has been torn on its safety and effectiveness for years, and it's had its downfalls despite its success. It is by no means a very low calorie diet or a method of starvation. It's restrictive in that it disallows a natural consumption of carbohydrates, but the damage done to extreme Atkins dieters does not come from starvation. It comes from an intake imbalance of nutrients that can effect issues like heart and kidney disease.

The majority of promoted diets out there are nowhere near starvation levels. I have yet to see one diet that is *medically recommended* fall below 1,000 calories a day for the average woman, which is TWICE the amount of calories required to be at starvation levels. Most are around 1,200-1,500 calories (for a woman, men are typically allowed closer to 2,000).

This is not to say there are not diets out there that are incredibly stupid, like the vegetable soup diet, or the grapefruit diet, or the juice diet, or the toxin flush diet. They're called gimmicks, though. They exist in every marketed area of our lives and people that fall for them are usually looking for an easy out for their problems.

A proper diet is not just about losing weight. A proper diet is about maintaining a *lifestyle* of healthy, well-balanced eating. There is no time limit on when you go "off" of a real diet. You don't stop doing it once you've met your target, you either continue it or modify it to fit your daily life for the remainder of your days.


----------



## exile in thighville (Jul 30, 2009)

fffff said:


> Exactly how is that in any way similar?



you said you wouldn't trust anyone as a doctor based on their sexual preference! b-i-g-o-t-r-y

you having an eating disorder makes you about as much of an expert as tooz was when she correlated being raped and being fat


----------



## Tooz (Jul 30, 2009)

exile in thighville said:


> you having an eating disorder makes you about as much of an expert as tooz was when she correlated being raped and being fat



Aren't we not supposed to reference other threads? Leave me out of this, I have had nothing to do with this thread.

ETA furthermore that is out of context, that is not what I was doing/comparing, babycakes.


----------



## fffff (Jul 30, 2009)

Tooz said:


> Aren't we not supposed to reference other threads? Leave me out of this, I have had nothing to do with this thread.



Yes, that was just completely inappropriate, tackless, and entirely irrelevant to the conversation. Not that I expected anything less.


----------



## Fascinita (Jul 30, 2009)

J, Would you go as far as saying that losing weight itself is dangerous?


----------



## thatgirl08 (Jul 30, 2009)

mergirl said:


> Well, if dieting wasn't a part of society there would be no anorexia. Though most likely society ie. people create dieting as a means for them to look like the people they see on tv. There was an Island where the inhabitants didn't have tv and there was no cases of anoraxia or bulimia. When they finally did get tv a year later eating disorders had went from 0% to about 15%. *Dieting isn't the 'Cause' of anorexia, it is the symptom.*



Right, this is mainly the point I was trying to make.



fffff said:


> Yes, that was just completely inappropriate, tackless, and entirely irrelevant to the conversation. Not that I expected anything less.



I love that you responded to the half of the post that wasn't calling you out.


----------



## Tooz (Jul 30, 2009)

thatgirl08 said:


> I love that you responded to the half of the post that wasn't calling you out.



Probably didn't find it worthwhile...not much coming out of that corner of the internet is, I reckon.


----------



## joswitch (Jul 30, 2009)

mergirl said:


> There was a scientific experiment where a 400lb+ man didn't eat any food for over a month and lived only on his fat. He was monitored closely and was totally fine. I can't find any evidence of this but i watched a documentary on it. Hmm actually i think it was part of the documentary that said "fat was catching"! Anyway, this either proves that its a lot of shite or that it is dependent on how fat the person is to begin with or that sometimes science isn't always right EVEN when it gives you some sort of answers. Scientific 'facts' can always be manipulated to support pretty much anything that a particular person/group subscribes to.



Cos of the variation inherent in biology a study of just ONE person doesn't tell us much in terms of what we might find in other/most people... That said it does represent a data set of one and I think personal experiences can be illuminating in some senses....

Also - as i general rule I don't trust anything on a TV documentary (unless maybe it's David Attenborough, and then still not much) or said by a politician!  sometimes you can track what they're saying back to more reliable / checkable sources tho...


----------



## joswitch (Jul 30, 2009)

fffff said:


> I spent my first two years at University only studying psychology and nutrition and worked throughout both years at an in-patient clinic reserved for people with eating disorders. And I had a eating disorder.



Which Uni did you go to? and what qualifications do you have?
What was your role in clinic and research?

Purely in the interests of equal disclosure... because



> So now, I don't have any bullshit blogs, daily mail news blurbs, or web posts, what I learned came almost entirely from research and field work.


1) The medium is NOT the message. It doesn't matter WHAT form the source info. comes in provided it is traceable back to reliable evidence / material. i.e. one of the three types of source I outlined upthread.
2) In matters of FACT - which is what we are discussing - the status of the reporter is irrelevant to the truth of the matter. What matters is the EVIDENCE. 

If it's daylight outside and the village idiot says "the sun is in the sky!" even if Socrates hisself says "the sun is hidden. The sky is dark." Well the village idiot is RIGHT.

So how about you get down off your oh-so-superior perch and provide some substantive argument backed with references to evidence that you - from your education and experience - must surely have? 



> But saying that diets are gateways to eating disorders is so conveniently simplistic and ridiculous it could only be said by someone who knows nothing about the psychology behind anorexia. That's how I know you're pulling it out of your ass.



You know if you were to engage in *any* serious scientific debate and say "you're wrong cos I went to Wherever and I had X experience so there." and leave it at that - you'd be laughed out of the room.

Substantive argument backed with references to evidence.
Hell, even testimony of your personal experience would carry *some* weight.


----------



## joswitch (Jul 30, 2009)

Blackjack said:


>



Don't diss the General, son.  Or it'll be dirty detail for you! With a mop and bucket down among the fap juice and sawdust!


----------



## joswitch (Jul 30, 2009)

katorade said:


> Too bad that isn't the definition of diet(ing). It simply means that you are eating a _regulated _sequence, amount, or type of food. This could mean anything from reducing a caloric intake, to raising it.



****! *I* know that! 
But that's not how the word "diet" is employed in common usage!

Picture the scene:
Average Jo(anne): Hey K hows you? what you been up to?
K: I'm good. I started a new diet.
Jo(anne): Oh, how much have you lost so far? How many calories do you get a day.
K: Oh I'm not losing weight.
Jo(anne): What? It's not a DIET then! lol!
K: Oh yes it is because "diet" simply means that you are eating a _regulated _sequence, amount, or type of food. This could mean anything from reducing a caloric intake, to blahdeblahdebalh
Jo(anne): Whaaaat? Shut up! did you swallow a dictionary? Everyone knows that diet means balahdedbalh

and BAM! you're sidetracked into a discussion of definitions of "diet"! Waste of time.

Further use of "diet" in it's "proper"/dictionary sense in the context of a discussion on extreme weightloss is so vague as to be misleading. It's as vague as this:

Jo(anne): Hey K - I know you're wanting to buy a vehicle - I've got one you can buy for $300! 
K: Oh that's wonderful! Is it in the parking lot? can I see it?
Jo(anne): sure follow me 
*footsteps*
Jo(anne): there you go!
K: ...... that's a unicycle..... I need a car!
Jo(anne): well it's a *vehicle* isn't it? and a car's a vehicle too so blahdeblah





> There are many, MANY diets out there that do not involve eating a very low calorie diet, rather they focus on training people to eat nutritionally sound foods at the proper intervals and getting the most value for their calories.



Specify please. Names at least. Prefer refs too.



> *People lose weight because they start metabolizing food as they're meant to*, not because they've severely reduced their intake (unless their caloric intake was incredibly high to begin with).


AROOGAAROOGAAROOGA
BEEPBEEPBEEPBEEP
KLANGKLANGKLANGKLANG
Whoa! WTF!? *click*switch*bip*
whew!
what a row!
sorry you set off my pseudoscience detector, the magical-thinking monitor and the quackery alarm all at once!

Please explain, specify and give mechanisms and references. kthx.




> All you're doing is promoting the exact opposite of those who purport that simply being fat will kill you.


Ah, no I'm not. I'm trashing semi-starvation and promoting HAES.



> People will read this crap and just think it's another reason to not even bother to try and eat a healthy, balanced diet, or that all diet plans are miserable and rely on starvation. * It simply isn't true.*



I disagree, I don't think your grasp of the way most folks think is that sound to be honest. A bit "ivory-tower", I reckon.


----------



## joswitch (Jul 30, 2009)

mossystate said:


> It really is too bad that that people mock those who are ' too thin ', and some of those ' too thin ' people can't find the self- love they need to not change a thing about themselves...screw society, and the people who would have folks change. That is such crap pressure.



I can't see if you're wearing your snarkypants or your sympathysweater...
I guess the pants!
am I right?
Do I win a prize? 
Maybe a goldfish?


----------



## Mathias (Jul 30, 2009)

Yes, it's sad that someone died from unsafe dieting, but that just it thought it was UNSAFE!


----------



## fffff (Jul 30, 2009)

EVERYONE WHO ISN'T JOSWITCH IS WRONG THAT IS A FACT PROVEN BY SCIENCE. 


/end of thread where are the mods when you need them?


----------



## Mathias (Jul 30, 2009)

joswitch said:


> ****! *I* know that!
> But that's not how the word "diet" is employed in common usage!
> 
> Picture the scene:
> ...



what.........


----------



## joswitch (Jul 30, 2009)

> Originally Posted by pani
> I understand why you posted. The immediate responses are why I rarely frequent Dimensions anymore. But I have long suspected some posters are not quite what they seem. And yes, dieting does both kill and damage many people. In fact, studies don't usually separate the health risks of weight loss and risky weight loss practices from obesity. It always amazes me how people parrot the obesity is deadly propaganda, but they are clueless as to how the studies are done. Thanks for posting!





imfree said:


> That part has always bothered me because most obese
> people have dieted many times and many different ways
> by middle age. I seriously wonder, myself, how much of
> the health risks attributed to obesity are actually caused
> ...



Damn good point pani and ImFree!


From the second page of my thread
*A science based response to the weightloss pusher's mantra "Calories In=Calories Out"
*
http://www.dimensionsmagazine.com/forums/showthread.php?t=61164


Of Americans polled in 2005 66% had tried to lose weight at least once and of those who tried the AVERAGE NUMBER OF ATTEMPTS WAS SEVEN!!!
http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=...30RRYbYKamy8&hl=en&ei=zY#v=onepage&q=&f=false

Unsurprisingly *only 14% of overweight Americans surveyed have never tried to lose weight. 60% had tried to lose weight three or more times.*
So of those folks who were genetically set to chubby or fat 52% of them had tried to lose weight three or more times. That's three instances of starvation response / lowered BMR / lowered muscle mass and raised % body fat with extra approx. 10% regain every time!
No wonder their metabolism is screwed!!!


----------



## joswitch (Jul 30, 2009)

pani said:


> 10 Top Reasons Not to Diet
> http://www.healthyweightnetwork.com/top10.pdf
> 
> by Francis Berg was has spent her entire career dealing with this issue!



Thanks for that! Neat little summary there. I had a look at her website off the bottom of that. I need to set aside some time to browse it properly.


----------



## joswitch (Jul 30, 2009)

thatgirl08 said:


> this thread has
> 
> 
> 
> ...


Really? Wow that's saying something! Where my prize at! I wanna icecream! 



> Like seriously joswitch, dieting isn't and doesn't cause anorexia,


see below


> you're not a doctor


technically I *am* a Doctor - thanks so much!
No I'm not a G.P. that's true. But as I established upthread as a PhD I'm more than qualified to read, understand and assess research.


> and not to mention, you're kind of preaching to the choir here.


Really?
Hell you coulda fooled me!

Oh and what *really* annoys *me* about this thread?
Most of the responses, especially the negative, jumped on definitions.

*One* of the things behind my post was to put names and faces to people who have *lost their lives* in the "War on Obesity". Fat people are so often represented as nameless and faceless and to-be-reviled bellies-on-legs in news reports. And that's hella dehumanising.

I had hoped for even some token expression of sadness that Helen Anderson and Jacqueline Henson and Mathilda Callagha ****in' DIED from this insanity.

But not a goddamn peep.


----------



## Mathias (Jul 30, 2009)

joswitch said:


> Really? Wow that's saying something! Where my prize at! I wanna icecream!
> 
> 
> see below
> ...



The daily mail is the U.K's equivalent to The national enquirer, and how you assess research won't be taken in the same light by the next person. Seriously, get over yourself.


----------



## joswitch (Jul 30, 2009)

katorade said:


> Wrong. Wrong wrong wrong. IMPROPER, irresponsible dieting does this. Just because a diet exists does not mean it's backed up by the majority of the medical community. Also, not all damaging diets are reduced or very low-calorie diets.
> 
> Take Atkins for example. The medical community has been torn on its safety and effectiveness for years, and it's had its downfalls despite its success. It is by no means a very low calorie diet or a method of starvation. It's restrictive in that it disallows a natural consumption of carbohydrates, but the damage done to extreme Atkins dieters does not come from starvation. It comes from an intake imbalance of nutrients that can effect issues like heart and kidney disease.



Yeah Atkins causes muscle (inc. heart) wastage and ketoacidosis *also seen in VLCD * like Lighter Life - the diet I mention above - thousands of people have been / are on it in the UK.
and also
from: http://www.everydiet.org/diet/very-low-calorie-diets

Optifast
Available at hundreds of clinics in the US and Canada. However many find it difficult to complete the program
and
The Cambridge Diet



> The majority of promoted diets out there are nowhere near starvation levels. I have yet to see one diet that is *medically recommended* fall below 1,000 calories a day for the average woman, which is TWICE the amount of calories required to be at starvation levels. Most are around 1,200-1,500 calories (for a woman, men are typically allowed closer to 2,000).


Shoulda read the thread then. Lighter Life is medically recommended her in UK - at 450 Cals a day. 

Further over here 
http://www.dimensionsmagazine.com/forums/showthread.php?t=62089
I've already shown that a diet of 1,600 a day for men (in contrast to recommended 2,500) and equivalent to about 1,400 for women - leads to physical and psychological harm including muscle and heart wastage.



> This is not to say there are not diets out there that are incredibly stupid, like the vegetable soup diet, or the grapefruit diet, or the juice diet, or the toxin flush diet. They're called gimmicks, though. They exist in every marketed area of our lives and people that fall for them are usually looking for an easy out for their problems.


And yet people do them, largely unaware of their dangers.



> A proper diet is not just about losing weight. A proper diet is about maintaining a *lifestyle* of healthy, well-balanced eating. There is no time limit on when you go "off" of a real diet. You don't stop doing it once you've met your target, you either continue it or modify it to fit your daily life for the remainder of your days.


Or stop torturing yourself and go for HAES instead.


----------



## katorade (Jul 30, 2009)

joswitch said:


> ****! *I* know that!
> But that's not how the word "diet" is employed in common usage!
> 
> *blah blah blah, lots of crap*
> ...




What I'm saying is that dieting is seen as a bad word to most people and it needs to NOT be. There needs to be more regulation when it comes to diets because there ARE a lot of cheap fad diets out there that do no good, but there is an entire profession of people out there dedicated to helping people learn how to eat a proper DIET (nutritionists). Diiiiieeeeet. And it usually revolves around eating different foods or in different patterns than those that caused them to be unhealthy. I figured that would be common sense, but apparently it's something you lack.

I'm not going to go out and do your freaking footwork for you. You want to go do some research, have at it. Go look up Weight Watchers plans. Go study pre-diabetic diets or basically ANY other plan available on e-diets. Shit, go grab a Richard Simmons' Deal-a-Meal from 20 years ago and you'll see that ALL of them are based off a 1,000+ calorie diet. How do I know? I've been on quite a few diets. I actually LOVED the e-diets plan I was on. I ate more food on that than I do now and lost 25 lbs. in 3 months. How you ask?

I'm glad you asked. Because the food I was eating was actually nutritionally sound compared to the other crap I had been shoving into my body, and I was eating amounts of food at proper intervals to boost my metabolism. 200 calories of spinach is not nutritionally equivalent to 200 calories of butter. You don't have to be a genius to understand that. The body metabolizes fiber and protein differently than fat and carbohydrates. 

Eating a 2,000 calorie diet of nothing but refined sugar and saturated fat is not nearly as nutritionally sound as eating a diet based on a well-balanced group of lean proteins, fiber, healthy fats, and complete carbohydrates. Seriously, I can't believe you'd even have the audacity to ask for proof to back that up. That's common freaking knowledge you can get from a ****ing yogurt commercial.


----------



## 1300 Class (Jul 30, 2009)

> -katorade-


Thanks for posting. Saved me lots of time.:bow:


----------



## joswitch (Jul 30, 2009)

exile in thighville said:


> you said you wouldn't trust anyone as a doctor based on their sexual preference! b-i-g-o-t-r-y


point


> you having an eating disorder makes you about as much of an expert as


sufferers P.O.V. does not = expert, true. But testimony = somewhat valuable.


> tooz was when she correlated being***** and being fat


WTF??? You're out of order man! Cruel and unecessary!


----------



## joswitch (Jul 30, 2009)

katorade said:


> What I'm saying is that dieting is seen as a bad word to most people and it needs to NOT be. There needs to be more regulation when it comes to diets because there ARE a lot of cheap fad diets out there that do no good, but there is an entire profession of people out there dedicated to helping people learn how to eat a proper DIET (nutritionists). Diiiiieeeeet. And it usually revolves around eating different foods or in different patterns than those that caused them to be unhealthy. I figured that would be common sense, but apparently it's something you lack.
> 
> I'm not going to go out and do your freaking footwork for you. You want to go do some research, have at it. Go look up Weight Watchers plans. Go study pre-diabetic diets or basically ANY other plan available on e-diets. Shit, go grab a Richard Simmons' Deal-a-Meal from 20 years ago and you'll see that ALL of them are based off a 1,000+ calorie diet. How do I know? I've been on quite a few diets. I actually LOVED the e-diets plan I was on. I ate more food on that than I do now and lost 25 lbs. in 3 months. How you ask?
> 
> ...



You used "metabolizes nutrients differently" upthread WITHOUT specifying they were *different* nutrients. That clears that up.

You carry on pushing the correct meaning of "diet".
I'll carry on campaigning against semi-starvation.
See you in the funny papers.


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## joswitch (Jul 30, 2009)

Fascinita said:


> J, Would you go as far as saying that losing weight itself is dangerous?



Tentatively:
Not absolutely, no. 
It depends how much (small amount / % body weight may be ok... 
See thread entitled *Science! Weightloss is BAD for health! BMI categories wrongly assigned! risks hyped!* 
research identifying loss of 20% or more body weight (also 20-30lbs cited) leading to earlier mortality
http://www.dimensionsmagazine.com/forums/showthread.php?t=60961), 
also depends what mechanism, 
and how fast. 

Will get back to you with a fuller response laterz.
Is stupid late here and I'm done here for a while.

I'll be back.
Hasta lleugo.


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## joswitch (Jul 30, 2009)

Mathias said:


> The daily mail is the U.K's equivalent to The national enquirer, and how you assess research won't be taken in the same light by the next person. Seriously, get over yourself.



That article was in every godamned paper yesterday - I could've picked anyone of them. I picked the mail cos it had a pic of Helen Anderson's face.

G'night!


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## thatgirl08 (Jul 30, 2009)

fffff said:


> EVERYONE WHO ISN'T JOSWITCH IS WRONG THAT IS A FACT PROVEN BY SCIENCE.



thread won.


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## joswitch (Jul 30, 2009)

Cors said:


> I could be in the minority but I remember losing the weight so that I can continue to play competitive sport, shut people up and more importantly, make myself look a lot less appealing and womanly so that I won't recieve as much sexual attention from men following numerous assaults. The ideal woman on TV has a BMI of 18-21 and usually looks reasonably healthy (some FAs don't think so but then they think anything under 300lbs is "gross and anorexic" ). The emaciated woman has a BMI of 14, is visibly sick and nowhere near attractive (the way people gawk and turn away in disgust when they see you should remind a girl of that) - hair falling out in clumps, paper-thin skin, sunken eyes and cheeks, downy baby hairs on places where there shouldn't be any, wasting muscles, bones that stick out sharply, bruises all over and the like. Almost every anorexic I met in the treatment facility I was in had similar experiences with physical or sexual abuse and neglect. None of them said it was just an attempt to look like say, Nicole Richie that went overboard. The youngest girl there was 7, I think, probably too young to want to emulate celebrities. I suppose it could be because I interacted with them in an impatient facility since studies have also shown that while prior child/physical/sexual abuse is not a specific risk factor for anorexia, it leads to more serious and chronic symptoms.
> 
> I don't think that a person who just wants to lose weight for vanity reasons is likely to go that far, especially considering how fast the health consequences catch up with you and I imagine that they have less of a motivation to restrict for days. If anything, this group of people are far more likely to develop bulimia nervosa than anorexia nervosa, non-purging type (fun fact: if you meet the diagnostic criteria for bulimia nervosa but have a BMI under 17 and do not menstruate naturally, you are diagnosed with anorexia, purging type but as far as I know, people who binge and purge frequently without severe restriction usually do not meet the physical criteria).
> 
> I guess you can say* dieting may lead to anorexia in predisposed individuals*. I, however dislike the word "dieting" because these days it implies that one is doing it for "beauty" or which is not always true.



Thanks for sharing your experience Cors.



> Love BHMS -* If somebody is predisposed to an eating disorder, for whatever reason, the "diet" may just be the first step towards disordered eating* of whatever kind, be it bulimia, anorexia, binge eating disorder, or any EDNOS.
> 
> Many people enjoy a few drinks after work, wind down at night with a cocktail, or enjoy a pitcher of beer and pizza at a pub while watching a sporting event. Most of them don't wind up alcoholics who lose their homes and families and jobs. However if you take an individual who is in AA or in an inpatient treatment facility for alcoholism, s/he will inevitably say that "it all started with a few cocktails after dinner". In other words, if you're predisposed to being an alcoholic, you can trace the active part of your disease to those few cocktails, whereas somebody who is NOT an alcoholic can just have those cocktails or that pitcher with pizza and have no problems.
> 
> Innumerable people can suddenly notice their belt is a little tight or that they've gained a few pounds, cut back on the fast food or desserts for a bit, lose the weight and get on with their life. For much of the population, weight gain or loss is not a big deal. If one is already predisposed to an eating disorder, the loss of a few pounds may trigger the disease. Or to put it metaphorically, nature loaded the gun and environment pulled the trigger.




fffff accused me of oversimplification:

Let me qualify my position - in my opinion, based on the evidence I've seen:

Semi-starvation / restrictive "dieting" is very often *one* of a number of the complex and interacting triggering factors in the beginnings of Anorexia Nervosa*. And it seems probable that Semi-Starvation Neurosis - a phsychological syndrome observed to arise in calorically deprived individuals is likely to act in a positive feedback with the other phsychological aspects of A.N.* to exacerbate the patients problems in depth, duration and risk of relapse.

(* and probably other Eating Disorders too)



> Mergirl -
> 
> Well, if dieting wasn't a part of society there would be no anorexia. Though most likely society ie. people create dieting as a means for them to look like the people they see on tv. There was an Island where the inhabitants didn't have tv and there was no cases of anoraxia or bulimia. When they finally did get tv a year later eating disorders had went from 0% to about 15%. *Dieting isn't the 'Cause' of anorexia, it is the symptom*.



That's true in one sense.
But the evidence, especially from observation of people starved under controlled conditions and people suffering from physical disorders that prevent caloric assimilation (Anorexia physiologica - if you like) suggests that the "arrow of causality" points backwards too, once the diet has started - due to
Semi-Starvation Neurosis. SSN existing as a "somatophysic" problem. 
(the reverse of phsychosomatic)


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## katorade (Jul 30, 2009)

joswitch said:


> Yeah Atkins causes muscle (inc. heart) wastage and ketoacidosis *also seen in VLCD * like Lighter Life - the diet I mention above - thousands of people have been / are on it in the UK.
> and also
> from: http://www.everydiet.org/diet/very-low-calorie-diets
> 
> ...




Actually, Atkins informs you of the risks of ketoacidosis, tells you to test for it, and that if you experience it, how to back off and get back on track. You monitor ketones daily until carbohydrates are re-introduced.

Also, almost all diets have a number of doctors that are for and against their methods, and have a list of skeptics and plenty of controversy. It's already been posted in this very thread that there are a large number of doctors that do not promote VLCD's, even if there are some that do. It's a numbers game. Like any consumer product, every diet is going to have reviews. The ones that have a large percentage of trust from the medical community are usually going to be winners.

As far as your study goes, please show me something that was produced after 1950.  It's really convenient that you left out the very important parts of the study. You'd make a great politician. Way to be a spin doctor and color the truth.
 
You should have mentioned the part where the men that were given a 1,600 calorie diet were originally taking in 3,200 calories a day. That's 1,200 calories more than the MODERN recommended RDA caloric intake! They were eating at that level because they required more calories for their activity level, which is OBVIOUSLY more than the average desk-jockey today. 

A higher calorie intake is required for people that are already physically fit and active, like athletes and body-builders, who eat 6-7 times (compared to the twice a day they were feeding the test subjects) a day and can eat more than 3 times the amount of calories as the average person.

You could have also mentioned the part where they were fed a diet meant to simulate the conditions of famine-struck war victims consisting mainly of potatoes, turnips, bread, and macaroni, meaning their diet was NOT NUTRITIONALLY SOUND. The severe lack of complete proteins, vitamins, and minerals is obviously the cause of both physical and psychological damage, NOT the fact that it was a 1,600 (actually 1,800) calorie level.
 
I also find it really funny that you promote HAES, considering that in itself is A FREAKING DIET. :doh: Healthy at any size means that you MAINTAIN a lifestyle that keeps your body running smoothly and in check, and you frequently monitor things like blood pressure, cholesterol levels, etc. etc. It isn't a diet focused on weight loss, but it IS a diet focused on health maintenance. Either way, it's a diet.


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## 1300 Class (Jul 31, 2009)

> -katorade-


I would agree with that. Well put.


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## Miss Vickie (Jul 31, 2009)

joswitch said:


> Damn good point pani and ImFree!
> 
> 
> From the second page of my thread
> ...



So joswitch, why aren't you asking imfree and pani to back up what they're saying but you're putting katorade, thatgirl, and everyone else who disagrees with you on the intellectual equivalent of the rack? Also, there are ways to make your point without belittling or snarking at others. While I absolutely appreciate your passion, I can tell you that the reason I'm not debating this with you is not because I don't have the knowledge -- I do -- but because you can't seem to debate without snark and nastiness. While there is a place for those two things and I enjoy them as much as anyone, when it comes to such important and serious issues as the human body's need for nutrients and its response to changes in diet, I feel it's inappropriate. I also think it lowers the level of the debate and encourages people to be mean, rather than share information and learn from each other. (And yes, you can learn from others. Despite your degrees, I'm sure you don't know everything).

So you have fun. But for what it's worth (and it may mean little or nothing to you), this very knowledgeable nurse who's been studying nutrition for over a decade is not interested in joining in until you learn to discuss things in a more adult-like manner. It's just not my cuppa tea.


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## LoveBHMS (Jul 31, 2009)

By your reasoning, Joswitch, anyone who tries and fails to quit drinking, snorting cocaine, or gambling is *intended by nature* to be a raging alcoholic, coke addict, or compulsive gambler.

After all, if you try and even once fail to cease destructive behaviour, it MUST BE that you are naturally oriented towards being an active alcoholic, drug addict, or gambler. The very fact of a single failed attempt at changing lifestyle or behaviour is indicative of a natural and un-changeable imperative towards that behaviour.


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## katorade (Jul 31, 2009)

Miss Vickie said:


> Also, there are ways to make your point without belittling or snarking at others. While I absolutely appreciate your passion, I can tell you that the reason I'm not debating this with you is not because I don't have the knowledge -- I do -- but because you can't seem to debate without snark and nastiness.




I just can't stand that he's being a complete and utter propagandist. He's trying to sound knowledgeable by citing sources and backing himself up with info thinking that nobody else is going to go bother to LOOK at what he's citing, and completely picking and choosing the text he posts here at the intellectual disadvantage of every single reader on this forum!

He absolutely takes for granted the fact that there are people here intelligent enough to know better than to take someone's word for gospel without researching it for themselves, so you shouldn't be surprised he doesn't know how to debate like an adult.


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## exile in thighville (Aug 1, 2009)

Tooz said:


> ETA furthermore that is out of context, that is not what I was doing/comparing, babycakes.



re-read the chapter on studied inscrutability because you missed a spot


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## joswitch (Aug 1, 2009)

katorade said:


> What I'm saying is that dieting is seen as a bad word to most people and it needs to NOT be. *There needs to be more regulation when it comes to diets because there ARE a lot of cheap fad diets out there that do no good, *but there is an entire profession of people out there dedicated to helping people learn how to eat a proper DIET (nutritionists). Diiiiieeeeet. And it usually revolves around eating different foods or in different patterns than those that caused them to be unhealthy.



I'm not disagreeing with any of this, except I favour education over regulation to protect people from harmful diets. And that's THE POINT of this (and a number of my) thread(s). 

By the way we've done the 'define "diet" dance'. It's pointless to repeat yourself.



> I figured that would be common sense, but apparently it's something you lack.


 pointless personal attack


> I'm not going to go out and do your freaking footwork for you. You want to go do some research, have at it. Go look up Weight Watchers plans. Go study pre-diabetic diets or basically ANY other plan available on e-diets. Shit, go grab a Richard Simmons' Deal-a-Meal from 20 years ago and you'll see that ALL of them are based off a 1,000+ calorie diet.


It's not *my* footwork - it's yours. Right now I'm in the trenches fighting a MASSIVE movement that promotes VLCD and LCD and other damaging diets. You want to promote other diets that fall outside that? Go ahead. Knock yourself out.


> How do I know? I've been on quite a few diets. I actually LOVED the e-diets plan I was on. I ate more food on that than I do now and lost 25 lbs. in 3 months. How you ask?
> 
> I'm glad you asked. Because the food I was eating was actually nutritionally sound compared to the other crap I had been shoving into my body, and I was eating amounts of food at proper intervals to boost my metabolism. 200 calories of spinach is not nutritionally equivalent to 200 calories of butter. You don't have to be a genius to understand that. The body metabolizes fiber and protein differently than fat and carbohydrates.
> 
> Eating a 2,000 calorie diet of nothing but refined sugar and saturated fat is not nearly as nutritionally sound as eating a diet based on a well-balanced group of lean proteins, fiber, healthy fats, and complete carbohydrates. Seriously, I can't believe you'd even have the audacity to ask for proof to back that up. That's common freaking knowledge you can get from a ****ing yogurt commercial.



As I pointed out above - this^ is not what you said in your earlier post.
You need to express yourself more clearly if you want to be understood.
It would've saved you a whole page of ranting if you'd just said "eat different, more nutritionally complete food at metabolically appropriate times in the diurnal cycle" rather than "metabolizes nutrients differently".

And just an aside - common knowledge / sense - not terrifically reliable.
People believed the earth was flat for hundreds of years.
It was "common sense".
That goes double for a commercial of anything.

I'm interested in this e-diet thing you did.
How many calories were you taking in while on it?
Were you still eating calories equal to what you ate before?
Or calories roughly equal to RDA? (adjusted for you personally / activity levels)
Did you also increase your activity level while on it?
What foods did you add in to your e-diet that you had been missing before?
Did you start the diet with the specific aim of losing weight or other motive?
e.g. were you having other health problems that you hoped to fix and did it help with that?


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## joswitch (Aug 1, 2009)

katorade said:


> Actually, Atkins informs you of the risks of ketoacidosis, tells you to test for it, and that if you experience it, how to back off and get back on track. You monitor ketones daily until carbohydrates are re-introduced.



Yeah. Honestly, I don't think that it's a recommendation for Atkins that - given one of it's core effects is to raise ketone body metabolism - the scheme then warns you to monitor your levels. 
Sounds like ass-covering so they don't get sued after they have encouraged people to do something inherently harmful.
Anyway I think we're in agreement here that Atkins = bad for health.


> Also, almost all diets have a number of doctors that are for and against their methods, and have a list of skeptics and plenty of controversy. It's already been posted in this very thread that there are a large number of doctors that do not promote VLCD's, even if there are some that do. It's a numbers game. Like any consumer product, every diet is going to have reviews. The ones that have a large percentage of trust from the medical community are usually going to be winners.



Two points:
1) It's not a "numbers of opinions" game. 
Science does not = democracy.
It's about strength of evidence.

2) And how many people take up a given diet is - I suspect - a great deal less to do with weight of medical opinion and more to do with weight of advertising / media coverage. Lighter Life for instance has an agressive advertising campaign, particularly prominent in "women's magazines" and high circulation tabloids.



> As far as your study goes,



you raise a few points of substantive criticism here, thanks. 
It's actually a relief to have someone address the evidence itself after the barrage of personal attacks! 
I'll post my response over in the thread re. the study:
http://www.dimensionsmagazine.com/forums/showthread.php?t=62089


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## joswitch (Aug 1, 2009)

LoveBHMS said:


> By your reasoning, Joswitch, anyone who tries and fails to quit drinking, snorting cocaine, or gambling is *intended by nature* to be a raging alcoholic, coke addict, or compulsive gambler.
> 
> After all, if you try and even once fail to cease destructive behaviour, it MUST BE that you are naturally oriented towards being an active alcoholic, drug addict, or gambler. The very fact of a single failed attempt at changing lifestyle or behaviour is indicative of a natural and un-changeable imperative towards that behaviour.



Ah. No.
I didn't say any of that.
It's unclear to me what you're getting at here.
Try quoting me - see if that makes things clearer.


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## joswitch (Aug 1, 2009)

Miss Vickie said:


> So joswitch, why aren't you asking imfree and pani to back up what they're saying


....... er, why would I argue with people who are AGREEING with me?....
I've already put together supporting evidence for my P.O.V...... (extra is welcome, of course)


> but you're putting katorade, thatgirl, and everyone else who disagrees with you on the intellectual equivalent of the rack?


I'm not "putting them on the rack" all I'm doing is holding them to the same standards of rational debate I'm adhering to. It's sooooo easy for people pushing consensus dogma to: 
make unsupported assertionsand say things like "it's common sense", "everyone knows that", "it's obvious" and then sit back and expect the proponents of "heresy" to work their nuts off proving the opposite. BUT what is asserted without evidence can be dismissed out of hand. These are the standards of rational / scientific debate. I'm holding to them. Most people presenting the opposite P.O.V. here are not.



> Also, there are ways to make your point without belittling or snarking at others.


I've been treating everyone's posts as they deserve.
Constructive and substantive stuff gets a like-for-like response, where applicable.
Unsupported assertions, repetition, irrelevance, personal attacks, and incoherence.... Get dismissed, ignored or snarked as applicable. 



> While I absolutely appreciate your passion, I can tell you that the reason I'm not debating this with you is not because I don't have the knowledge -- I do -- but because you can't seem to debate without snark and nastiness. While there is a place for those two things and I enjoy them as much as anyone, when it comes to such important and serious issues as the human body's need for nutrients and its response to changes in diet, I feel it's inappropriate. I also think it lowers the level of the debate and encourages people to be mean, rather than share information and learn from each other. (And yes, you can learn from others. Despite your degrees, I'm sure you don't know everything).



Actually I *am* learning here!
I've already decided (from responses to this thread) that the anorexia link with SSN is too complex and, it seems, too controversial a subject to conflate with my points against extreme diets - without it completely sidetracking the entire debate.

Re. my degrees.... *sigh* fffffflamer made a great big deal out of what my qualifications were and then decided to trash the PhD as a worthless qualification, (and with that, incedentally, the majority of research over the last 30years! lol! ) when that didn't work and I asked her to reciprocate re. her background... she resorted to SHOUTING at me!! ... As I pointed out upthread, it's the strength of the evidence that counts! No-one's background qualifies them to make unsuppported assumptions. Including me.



> So you have fun. But for what it's worth (and it may mean little or nothing to you), this very knowledgeable nurse who's been studying nutrition for over a decade is not interested in joining in until you learn to discuss things in a more adult-like manner. It's just not my cuppa tea.



Sorry you feel that way.


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## katorade (Aug 1, 2009)

joswitch said:


> As I pointed out above - this^ is not what you said in your earlier post.
> You need to express yourself more clearly if you want to be understood.
> It would've saved you a whole page of ranting if you'd just said "eat different, more nutritionally complete food at metabolically appropriate times in the diurnal cycle" rather than "metabolizes nutrients differently".
> 
> ...



You asked me to clarify, so I did. Period. 

The diet I was on was to maintain healthy blood sugar levels. I don't remember how many calories I was taking in per day, but I assure you that a) it was close to, if not on par with the recommended RDA for a woman my size that was also trying to lose weight. It varied by person concerning their wants to maintain or lose weight. I was worried about being pre-diabetic since it runs in my family and wanted to lose weight because I have RA, and extra weight just means it's harder on my joints. 

b) That I was actually taking in MORE calories on the diet than I was off of the diet. I was eating 5 times a day compared to the previous 1 or 2, and was eating far healthier foods (less refined sugars and grains, less fat, more lean protein and vegetables). I did not increase my activity level. I maintained my typical daily routine, which was not sedentary (I work on my feet all day).

I steadily continued to lose weight for the next few months and also felt worlds better internally and mentally. I no longer suffered from fatigue, insomnia, or irritability. My habits became more regular and I had prolonged stamina and actually gained strength without extra exercise. All of it was from simply boosting my metabolism and pumping a balanced diet into my body rather than processed foots and refined sugars as a majority. I would have stayed on it, but I couldn't afford to stay on it after I was forced to move.



joswitch said:


> Anyway I think we're in agreement here that Atkins = bad for health.
> 
> 
> Two points:
> ...



I hate Atkins as well, even though my dad did particularly well on it. An old manager of mine was also on it and didn't do it properly, lots of salt and saturated fat, toooons of cholesterol, not enough leafy greens, etc. I shudder to think what her colon looked like. Her breath smelled like a garbage heap 24/7.

It's just further proof, though, that it truly IS an opinions game. There were many doctors out there that were Atkins advocates. Hell, the guy that started it was a cardiologist.

Science isn't a democracy, but medicine certainly is a borderline corporation. There's a huge amount of doctors that get kick-backs from companies to promote their products and plans. Look at how many drugs have been promoted and later recalled for dangerous side effects. You simply cannot trust the entire medical community to know everything or make the right decisions 100% of the time.


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## mergirl (Aug 1, 2009)

Mathias said:


> what.........


Stop being so profound man!!!


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## joswitch (Aug 2, 2009)

katorade said:


> You asked me to clarify, so I did. Period.
> 
> The diet I was on was to maintain healthy blood sugar levels. I don't remember how many calories I was taking in per day, but I assure you that a) it was close to, if not on par with the recommended RDA for a woman my size that was also trying to lose weight. It varied by person concerning their wants to maintain or lose weight.



So I'm guessing something around 1,500 calories a day??



> I was worried about being pre-diabetic since it runs in my family and wanted to lose weight because I have RA, and extra weight just means it's harder on my joints.



RA = Rheumatoid Arthritis? Yes?



> b) That I was actually taking in MORE calories on the diet than I was off of the diet.
> I was eating 5 times a day compared to the previous 1 or 2, and was eating far healthier foods (less refined sugars and grains, less fat, more lean protein and vegetables). I did not increase my activity level. I maintained my typical daily routine, which was not sedentary (I work on my feet all day).
> 
> I steadily continued to lose weight for the next few months and also felt worlds better internally and mentally. I no longer suffered from fatigue, insomnia, or irritability. My habits became more regular and I had prolonged stamina and actually gained strength without extra exercise. All of it was from simply boosting my metabolism and pumping a balanced diet into my body rather than processed foots and refined sugars as a majority. I would have stayed on it, but I couldn't afford to stay on it after I was forced to move.



Well, it sounds like you found a terrific regime. Cool! 
Good to hear it improved your health in so many ways.*

So you got that from ediets.com?
I'm wondering why it was so expensive? 
Was it based on pre-prepped foods you had to buy?
How much was it costing you by the way?
(N.B. LighterLife - the VLCD - charges it's members £66 a week  (about $100) for their "spacefood" which seems shockingly high for what they get...)
How did things go once you came off this diet?
Were you able to carry over the routines / nutrition afterwards, to some extent? 
To what extent were the benefits you got from this diet enduring afterwards?


(* it does "fit" with theory that eating wholefooods regularly would reduce blood sugar spiking > less extreme insulin response > weight loss. And a nutritionally complete diet would help build muscle > raise BMR > weight loss.)



> I hate Atkins as well, even though my dad did particularly well on it. An old manager of mine was also on it and didn't do it properly, lots of salt and saturated fat, toooons of cholesterol, not enough leafy greens, etc. I shudder to think what her colon looked like. Her breath smelled like a garbage heap 24/7.
> 
> It's just further proof, though, that it truly IS an opinions game. There were many doctors out there that were Atkins advocates. Hell, the guy that started it was a cardiologist.




Fair point. 



> Science isn't a democracy, but medicine certainly is a borderline corporation. There's a huge amount of doctors that get kick-backs from companies to promote their products and plans. Look at how many drugs have been promoted and later recalled for dangerous side effects. You simply cannot trust the entire medical community to know everything or make the right decisions 100% of the time.



*applause* Agreed.


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## katorade (Aug 2, 2009)

Amazingly, ediets was only 10 bucks a month. It wasn't the cost of the program that got me, it was the cost of food, and no, it wasn't pre-prepared meals, although you had the option to buy frozen light meals from multiple companies like Lean Cuisine or Healthy Choice if you chose to. 

People say that buying fresh food is just as inexpensive as crappy "middle aisle" food, but it really isn't, especially when you consider spoilage. A lot of processed foods are chock full of preservatives, hence the lack of need for refrigeration. Dried carbs also store easily. A dollar box of spaghetti will feed you several times. A dollar's worth of chicken and salad might get you lunch if you're lucky. I was literally at a point where I was taking home discarded sandwiches from work (we only kept them a day) just to have something to eat, so spending $100 a week or close to it was not happening.

And yes, RA = rheumatoid arthritis.


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## joswitch (Aug 3, 2009)

katorade said:


> Amazingly, ediets was only 10 bucks a month. It wasn't the cost of the program that got me, it was the cost of food, and no, it wasn't pre-prepared meals, although you had the option to buy frozen light meals from multiple companies like Lean Cuisine or Healthy Choice if you chose to.
> 
> People say that buying fresh food is just as inexpensive as crappy "middle aisle" food, but it really isn't, especially when you consider spoilage. A lot of processed foods are chock full of preservatives, hence the lack of need for refrigeration. Dried carbs also store easily. A dollar box of spaghetti will feed you several times. A dollar's worth of chicken and salad might get you lunch if you're lucky. I was literally at a point where I was taking home discarded sandwiches from work (we only kept them a day) just to have something to eat, so spending $100 a week or close to it was not happening.
> 
> And yes, RA = rheumatoid arthritis.



As a fellow person trying to eat healthy, nutritious diet on a budget (and without a fridge, even!) I've found that a core diet of tinned fish, UHT milk and dried carbs (pasta, cous cous, brown rice, noodles) fortified and jazzed up with olive oil, vinegar, lemon juice, onions and garlic (all of which "keep") plus fresh wholemeal bread, and veggies and fruit ... seems to work ok.... and it's pretty damn cheap over here in the UK... Though when I travelled through the USA I did find that wholemeal bread, fresh fruit and veggies were harder to find and more expensive than over here....

Hmmmm... I'm rambling...:doh:

Right! I'm hungry now!


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## Weeze (Aug 3, 2009)

what the fuck is this shit


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## joswitch (Aug 3, 2009)

krismiss said:


> what the fuck is this shit



For this last page to make ANY sense you're gonna need to read the whole thread...
Especially the first post.
Unlucky!


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## The Fez (Aug 3, 2009)

Don't bother, Kris

seriously


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## TotallyReal (Aug 4, 2009)

Wow....no wonder there's only a T separating dieting and dieing.


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## katorade (Aug 4, 2009)

TotallyReal said:


> Wow....no wonder there's only a T separating dieting and dieing.



I don't see what this thread has to do with making dice.


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