I had a conversation with someone today who approached me and asked me if I was danceswithfat (dude, I love it when that happens, it makes me feel kinda famous.) I said yes and she said that she liked my blog but that she thought Weight Watchers was a great program and she wished I wouldn’t attack them. I asked if she really wanted to discuss this and she said yes. I asked her if she was familiar with WW’s success rates. She said that she wasn’t but that the suggestions of the program were to eat healthy and exercise and that those are good things to do. I agreed that those were great things to do, but I explained that I did not agree that they were likely to lead to long term weight loss based on all of the evidence, and my problem was not the “eat health and exercise” part of the message it was the “…then you lose weight” part.
I think that there are definitely weight loss programs that are just plain bad ideas (drink reconstituted soy protein shakes 5 times a day and then a meal of lean protein and green vegetables?) But, there are a lot of things that would be good advice for people looking to be healthier if those companies would just drop the weight loss bit – but then people would probably stop paying them for it.
“Join the gym, become more active, get healthier!” Great advice if someone has access to and can afford a gym, if going to the gym sounds like fun to them, and if they are interested in getting healthier. “Join the gym, become more active, and then you lose weight”. Horrible advice, there is no evidence to support that you will lose weight long term, in fact, there is a lot of evidence that increased activity increases health but does not lead to weight loss. Sadly, since many gyms choose to grossly overstate what the evidence shows they can achieve, people don’t lose weight and so they quit going to the gym (or whatever activity they picked) because they think it’s not “working”.
“Eat more whole foods, vegetables, and whole grains and you’ll get healthier.” It’s good advice if someone has access and can afford those things, and if they are interested in eating healthy. “Eat more whole foods, vegetables, and whole grains…then you’ll lose weight.” Horrible advice. Again, if weight happens to occur through a change in diet then the evidence suggests that it’s probably short term.
This is precisely why I think we should take weight loss out of the health discussion. There is so much confusion about weight and health. That causes people to confuse weight loss behaviors with healthy behaviors and that, in turn, causes people to do unhealthy things under the false belief that they will be healthier when they get thinner no matter what they have to do to make it happen. The next thing you know someone’s doctor has convinced them that the healthiest thing that they can do is have their stomach amputated.
People are allowed to do whatever they want with their bodies, including having healthy organs amputated, but I’m not convinced that doctors are being honest about this surgery when death a side effect, as are any number of problems, there is a high rate of weight regain which leaves people obese again but without the proper chemical food digestion they once enjoyed, and doctors are recommending this surgery to people who are healthy because they believe, based on correlation and not causation, that people are better off thin, even if we have to amputate a perfectly healthy organ to do it. Meanwhile the company that makes the lap band, an aid in another type of weight loss surgery, is lobbying Congress to be able to give that type of weight loss surgery to progressively lighter and younger patients. This is what happens when we make the health discussion about weight loss, and make the weight loss a for-profit endeavor.
Maybe it’s time to take a step back – when we hear “Do XYZ…then you lose weight” we should probably ask ourselves some questions:
1. Does the person/entity making this promise profit from it?
2. Is the weight loss actually likely, based on evidence?
3. Is weight loss the goal, or is the goal health?
As always, the choices are all yours.
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AMEN.
People do not join WW in droves, pay them tons of money and attend their meetings because of the program’s suggestions to eat healthy and exercise. People join WW in droves, pay them tons of money and attend their meetings because of the program’s promises of weight loss.
WW do not put on commercials of people saying they’re eating healthy and exercising with their program. All WW commercials focus exclusively on how much weight people have lost with their program.
To decide that WW deserve some sort of ‘pass’ from criticism because they advocate healthy eating and exercise, when their entire purpose of existing is to promote – and profit off of – weight loss attempts, is extremely naive. I think it shows the absence of even the most basic critical thinking.
Spot on article and I was going to comment but pm greenbean has said what I would say very well.
Amen indeed!
I didn’t even read your comment before I replied to greenbean and also said “spot on”.
I should have said “bingo” or something.
Spot on. If their real goal was healthy eating and exercise, they wouldn’t be called WEIGHT Watchers.
I think the thing to remember about diets is that diets that are intended to achieve a goal are not necessarily the same thing as a healthy diet. For example the diet you follow to lose weight FAST is likely to involve weird overly-processed “food” products of dubious provenience and too little actual food. A diet intended to let you build huge defined muscles may involve more protein than is really good for your kidneys and supplements that may or may not be especially good for you. These diets are primarily intended to have a result (i.e. weight loss or huge muscles) other than “optimal” (whatever that may be for you individually) health. A healthy diet might result in some weight loss (depending on your particular circumstances) or increased muscle mass (again depends) but it will not have the extreme result a weight loss or muscle building diet would. A healthy is just more likely to improve your health.
PS I’d say a good rule of thumb is “if you have to buy special products for your “healthy diet” other than actual food (and those horrible prepackaged meals don’t count as food) it is a scam”
PS I’d say a good rule of thumb is “if you have to buy special products for your “healthy diet” other than actual food (and those horrible prepackaged meals don’t count as food) it is a scam”
TRUTH.
They want to believe that weightloss is achievable to them somehow. WW does a good job marketing to those people. What a lot of these people aren’t accepting the idea that not everyone is meant to be thin. Some people are born to be thin just as some people are born to be fat. Then there are people who can go up and down easily based on simply cutting down on a few calories and upping their activity and they keep wieght off as long as they keep that up, but that doesn’t happen so easily for everyone. They refuse to believe it though.
I’ve also noticed this expectation by some that I should be able to loose weight easily because I’m (relatively?) young (I’m 26). My mom does this constantly– “Well, when I was your age I could just put on and drop the pounds like it was nothing! Why can’t you?” I don’t know, Mom, maybe because I’ve been fat since 4th grade, and I’ve never been a twig in my twenties like you were? I mean, jeeze, I know we share some genes, but why does every thin person expect every fat person’s experience to be the same as theirs? Why would anyone expect anyone else’s experience to be the same as theirs in anything?? It’s the most faulty train of thought I’ve ever witnessed.
Ahh, that one. I got ‘You should lose weight now because you won’t be able to lose it when you’re older.’ My mother herself was one of those people who actually took those special powdered drinks to ‘create curves’ when she was young (and lamented that it never worked). And her ‘ideal’ weight – her own, but she thought really no woman should go over it – was 40lb below what I weighed at puberty…naah, not going to happen. Some people just do not get it.
What Ashley said: “They want to believe that weightloss is achievable to them somehow. WW does a good job marketing to those people.”
What makes me really sad about people accepting this marketing is the implicit belief that comes with it — that if they don’t lose weight, it means they have failed. It’s because they are doing something wrong, or because they lack willpower.
That is such bull. Ask my husband … I have PLENTY of willpower.
Ugh, I went to this financial seminar this weekend (or part of it, at least) and at one point a speaker started talking about how he recently lost weight. (We’ll skip the part where it’s recent, since we all know about gain-back rates, and the part where he claims to have lose 80lbs in 4 months, to which I was the only person in the room not “ooing” and “awwing” and thinking, “Is that healthy?”) Anyhow, he said some things I appreciated, like that fat people all know they’re fat, so what the hell do we think we’re informing them of when we call them fat or tell them they need to loose weight? But then he got back to his point– which is that losing weight is all about will power and he finally had the motivation to do it, and look at him! You can all be thin! Just commit to it! (Which then, of course, tied back to, “You can all be rich! Just commit to it!”)
I guess you can see why I didn’t go back.
I’ve noticed – and I know other people also have – how much there is in common between the ‘anyone can lose weight’ idea, the American Dream (not by any means exclusively American) idea that ‘anyone can make it if they just work hard enough’, and those ‘Secret’ type quasi-spiritual ideas of ‘you can have anything you want if your thoughts are at the right level’. All of them are to do with goals that, like it or not, depend a great deal on blind luck. All place responsibility for success or failure entirely on the individual. And all, when they fail, imply that the person who suffers from that failure has personally done something wrong – not had enough willpower, not worked hard enough, not ‘raised their vibrations’ sufficiently.
I put it down to the natural human tendency to want to believe you have more control over your life than you actually have. We all think this way – probably we have to, because if we realized how much at the mercy of circumstances we really are, our minds wouldn’t be able to cope with it. But, it’s a tendency that gets stronger in uncertain times – personally or socially – and it’s then very easy for profiteers (the weight-loss industry, the money motivation speakers, and the New Age authors) to cash in on it.
I work for an international non-profit, and we have three impact areas, as we call them, one of them being health. Now, our health department does some amazing things, and they have this one program I love… almost. That is, it’s a program geared towards making sure children attending public schools have access to nutritious lunches and are taught early on how to make health food decisions. Sounds great, right? The title of this program? “Preventing Childhood Obesity.” I nearly popped a gasket when I heard. To be fair, all their programs are tied to grants and I’m sure they’re required to push that concept because of said grant, but it still makes my blood boil. I thought about talking to the gal in charge of the department about it, just to open up a dialogue, but she’s the type to throw an entire box of donuts in the trash when a coworker brings them in to share. I.E. She obviously has no respect for other people’s right and ability to make their own decisions.
But I can’t tell you how many places I’ve seen a great idea derailed by myth and prejudice. Exercise! Yeah! Eat right! Yeah! Lose weight! Wait, what? I would pay just about anything for us fatties to have a celebrity out there who was like, “This is who I am, deal with it!” Instead, they’re jumping on the “thin” bandwagon and even poor Adele, who said she wasn’t trying to look like folks in the magazines, sounded like she was on the defensive the whole time instead of just coming out and saying, “HEY WORLD, I’M FAT, GET OVER IT.” (Not to criticize Adele, I adore her, but that whole debacle just drove me mad on account of it being news. Stuck up fashion designer calls big girl with huge talent “a little fat,” and it’s all over the fucking 10 o’clock news. I mean, really? People of privilege putting down putting without? That’s NEWS? Jeeze louise.) Anyhow, I hear where you’re coming from Ragen, and I wish folks could get over the “…and lose weight!” portion too, especially since it’s a lie 9 times out of 10.
Great post! I’ve finally come to the realization (with much help from your blog) that I can accept my body as is, and work to get healthy, so I can keep up with my daughter and do the things I want, and STOP the needless obsessing about my weight. This makes me WANT to go take a walk, instead of dreading it.
I’ve noticed this too, since I started reading what Ragen has to say I’ve been more inclined to improve my habits for the sake of my health rather than the aesthetics. I’m happier getting out and swimming or looking for other fun way to move.
I’m seeing results in my fitness levels which is encouraging, before I would have been disappointed about not seeing a change in my weight. This time I don’t care, if it changes it’s a bonus. My goal is fitness and health (and finding a way to get the chlorine smell out of my nose).
True dat, sister. The same thing happens to mental health, education, and health care – these things intended to enhance our lives are now commodities and it screws up the truths behind them… We get further away from ourselves because of the monetary exchange… We have lost sight of what is important.
I agree that commoditization is an issue, but I’m not sure that the money exchange itself is to blame. We all need to make a living and I’m happy to pay people who bring good things into my life, and I’m cool with asking people to pay me if they believe that I bring good things into their lives. I think it goes wrong when people start to interact as if they are selling a commodity to a faceless entity rather than a personalized service with the best interest of the person being served at heart.
~Ragen
Ugh, I loathe weight watchers. (Of course like many I at one point did it in my past). To me it’s just calorie counting repackaged. And really, though they’ve made some changes over the years in the end as long as you eat the right number of “points” to lose weight they really don’t care what it is you eat or how much you exercise, so I don’t get where the health-y part comes in.
And don’t get me started on gastric bypasses – the two people I know if that have had it I really don’t even think it was ethical that they approved it they had such histories of disordered eating (and they’ve both gained weight back).
I wish people that wanted to get healthy would realize focusing on the number isn’t going to solve anything. But of course people tell them it’s a health marker and if they don’t achieve it they’ve failed. It’s a shame because IMO exercise feels so much better when you aren’t dieting and therefore devoid of energy. I sure feel much healthier and energetic then I ever did when I was “normal” weight…that’s just how my body works
I love your blog and society is frustrating!
If diets even worked, the whole industry would be out of business – weight watchers et al would go bankrupt. I mean, they even keep changing their program every couple of years at least. It works so well they have to keep changing it? No thanks.
It’s a huge scam. They do rely on repeat customers – repeat because it didn’t stay off when they went back to their normal lives or their bodies were so f*cked up from the dieting that they found it harder to keep off the weight. I wish we would all avoid them like the plague and put them out of business for good.
Good article, though I do have to say that companies who offer or advocate healthy habits or services (like eating veggies and working out etc) are certainly the lesser or many evils when it comes to diet profiteering. I was rather shocked earlier today when I saw a display in Wal*Mart for HGC. For anyone who’s not familiar with it, it is a hormone that’s produced during pregnancy and now offered as a weight loss aid. How most companies obtain the HGC it is through urine, which is particularly disturbing considering that most over the counter HGC products are in the form of liquid that’s taken by mouth. Yeah, drinking pregnant lady pee for the sake of losing weight. It only gets worse from there though since the HGC meal plan is so restrictive that most anorexics eat more in a day than someone is supposed to on an HGC diet (500 calories). Point being, weight watchers may be profiting on people’s insecurities but there are certainly worse “diets” out there.