Ernest Nagel
is old
I know most are acquainted with the concept of "setpoints" but I thought this was a timely article that addresses some fundamental issues many are dealing with.
I was also amused by the use of the term "culturally acceptable body". WTF? Has anyone seen this phrase before? Clearly they don't include Dims culture, LOL. BTW, Has anyone read the book referenced herein?
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2009/01/02/CM8514MD16.DTL&type=health
Dieting now makes you gain weight. How'd we get here?
"People are desperate. They're tired of self-denial and feeling bad about themselves. They are fed up with the diet industry and the pain of watching their weight all the time."
Katherine Seligman
Sunday, January 4, 2009
If it's January, then it must be time to diet, right? You've spent the past month at the buffet trough. Now every time you turn on the TV news you're seeing that same person with a three-story midsection jiggling past, head discreetly out of the picture, an illustration of that same statistic: 63 percent of us reside in the fatosphere.
But maybe we're getting the wrong message here. Perhaps 2009 should be the Year of the Un-Diet. What if we finally settled what one researcher calls "the war with our bodies"?
"Dieting is the worst thing people can do if they're interested in weight control," said Linda Bacon, a nutrition professor and clinical psychotherapist in the East Bay whose book, "Health at Every Size," was published in November (BenBella Books). "Dieting seems the fastest way to gain weight."
Research has shown that dieting accomplishes the opposite of what you want, she said. It trains your body to conserve energy. If you starve yourself, your metabolism slows down and decreases the level of leptin, a hormone produced in the fat cells that is key to appetite control. With less leptin, you're hungrier. "It goads you to eat more," Bacon said.
Bodies have a "set weight" where they hover when people eat in response to normal hunger cues, she said. Eat more at one meal and your body will crave less at another. Dieting disrupts this.
Bacon's book and research have been embraced by the fat acceptance movement and those who work - as she does - with people who have eating disorders. But it's also reaching beyond. "It's an easy message for people to get behind," she said. "It transcends what your weight is, transcends the size spectrum. People are desperate. They're tired of self-denial and feeling bad about themselves. They are fed up with the diet industry and the pain of watching their weight all the time."
The subject is deeply personal to Bacon, who struggled with weight and self-image growing up. Like lots of young women, she thought she was too heavy. She lost weight only to gain it back.
"At one point it was too painful to me," she said. "I'm academically oriented, so the easiest way for me to tackle my problems was through studying."
After earning a master's degree in psychology she still thought about dieting. "I wanted to understand why I weighed what I weighed," she said. "I wanted to be a better dieter."
It was further study, a doctorate in physiology from UC Davis, that changed her perspective. She realized, she said, that everything she'd learned earlier was "not science."
She now has "a culturally acceptable body," but that's irrelevant, she said. The message is "lighten up and trust yourself" when you eat. Eat what you enjoy ("eat what's delicious" and stop when it's "only good"), learn about hunger (people eat less when they're moderately hungry than when they're starved) and don't make certain food off-limits. Above all, she advises, don't diet. --
Katherine Seligman is a frequent contributor to the magazine on health and psychology.
This article appeared on page P - 1 of the San Francisco Chronicle
I was also amused by the use of the term "culturally acceptable body". WTF? Has anyone seen this phrase before? Clearly they don't include Dims culture, LOL. BTW, Has anyone read the book referenced herein?
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2009/01/02/CM8514MD16.DTL&type=health
Dieting now makes you gain weight. How'd we get here?
"People are desperate. They're tired of self-denial and feeling bad about themselves. They are fed up with the diet industry and the pain of watching their weight all the time."
Katherine Seligman
Sunday, January 4, 2009
If it's January, then it must be time to diet, right? You've spent the past month at the buffet trough. Now every time you turn on the TV news you're seeing that same person with a three-story midsection jiggling past, head discreetly out of the picture, an illustration of that same statistic: 63 percent of us reside in the fatosphere.
But maybe we're getting the wrong message here. Perhaps 2009 should be the Year of the Un-Diet. What if we finally settled what one researcher calls "the war with our bodies"?
"Dieting is the worst thing people can do if they're interested in weight control," said Linda Bacon, a nutrition professor and clinical psychotherapist in the East Bay whose book, "Health at Every Size," was published in November (BenBella Books). "Dieting seems the fastest way to gain weight."
Research has shown that dieting accomplishes the opposite of what you want, she said. It trains your body to conserve energy. If you starve yourself, your metabolism slows down and decreases the level of leptin, a hormone produced in the fat cells that is key to appetite control. With less leptin, you're hungrier. "It goads you to eat more," Bacon said.
Bodies have a "set weight" where they hover when people eat in response to normal hunger cues, she said. Eat more at one meal and your body will crave less at another. Dieting disrupts this.
Bacon's book and research have been embraced by the fat acceptance movement and those who work - as she does - with people who have eating disorders. But it's also reaching beyond. "It's an easy message for people to get behind," she said. "It transcends what your weight is, transcends the size spectrum. People are desperate. They're tired of self-denial and feeling bad about themselves. They are fed up with the diet industry and the pain of watching their weight all the time."
The subject is deeply personal to Bacon, who struggled with weight and self-image growing up. Like lots of young women, she thought she was too heavy. She lost weight only to gain it back.
"At one point it was too painful to me," she said. "I'm academically oriented, so the easiest way for me to tackle my problems was through studying."
After earning a master's degree in psychology she still thought about dieting. "I wanted to understand why I weighed what I weighed," she said. "I wanted to be a better dieter."
It was further study, a doctorate in physiology from UC Davis, that changed her perspective. She realized, she said, that everything she'd learned earlier was "not science."
She now has "a culturally acceptable body," but that's irrelevant, she said. The message is "lighten up and trust yourself" when you eat. Eat what you enjoy ("eat what's delicious" and stop when it's "only good"), learn about hunger (people eat less when they're moderately hungry than when they're starved) and don't make certain food off-limits. Above all, she advises, don't diet. --
Katherine Seligman is a frequent contributor to the magazine on health and psychology.
This article appeared on page P - 1 of the San Francisco Chronicle
