Fat and Feminism--Want to get really pissed off??
missblondi2u
Posts: 851 Member
So I've had this terrible article going around on my Facebook feed titled "11 Reasons Your ‘Concern’ for Fat People’s Health Isn’t Helping Anyone" and featured on the Everyday Feminism webpage. I can not believe the words I am reading!! Take a look for yourself. http://everydayfeminism.com/2016/01/concern-trolling-is-*kitten*/
While I can agree with some of what was said in the article viz a viz fat shaming and its negative mental health effects, there is so, so much that is flat out wrong here.
One example is this--"In reality, scientific evidence actually indicates that people categorized as “overweight” live longer than those categorized as “normal,” and most “obese” people live similarly long lives as their “normal” counterparts." When you open the actual study they cite, it says this--"We document once again, excess mortality associated with obesity. Our results do, however, question whether the current classification of individuals as "overweight" is optimal in the sense, since there is little evidence of increased risk of mortality in this group.” So the study did find excess mortality in the obese classification, but less so in the overweight classification, whereas the article implies no effect in either group.
Another example is in comparing weight loss to weight cycling. Yes, people who yo-yo diet are probably causing stress to their bodies, but that’s a factor of the concept of temporary dieting. The far better option is to avoid “dieting” all together and make sustainable lifestyle changes, but the authors don’t seem to think this is even possible, which brings me to the real issue I have with this article.
They state that “Popular belief would have you convinced that being fat – like living in poverty – is a choice,” and “But just like we don’t have much choice about our economic status, we don’t have much choice about our body types either.”
While it may be true that I can’t make myself taller or change my B cup to a D cup (at least without surgery), I very much have a choice in my weight. For years I lived with being overweight and then obese because I was convinced that losing weight was too hard or even beyond my abilities, but I was wrong. I’ve lost almost 50 pounds in the last 6 months by doing one very simple thing—eating fewer calories than I burn. No restrictive diet, no pills, and not even very much exercise was required. And you know what, it has been the most empowering thing I have ever done.
Saying that women have no control over their bodies is the opposite of feminism, in my opinion. No one should be shamed into losing weight, but to say you can’t do anything about it if you want is a great disservice to women.
Sorry for the way too long post, but I just had to get this off my chest, and you guys are the only ones who would really understand how bad this article is.
Rant over.
While I can agree with some of what was said in the article viz a viz fat shaming and its negative mental health effects, there is so, so much that is flat out wrong here.
One example is this--"In reality, scientific evidence actually indicates that people categorized as “overweight” live longer than those categorized as “normal,” and most “obese” people live similarly long lives as their “normal” counterparts." When you open the actual study they cite, it says this--"We document once again, excess mortality associated with obesity. Our results do, however, question whether the current classification of individuals as "overweight" is optimal in the sense, since there is little evidence of increased risk of mortality in this group.” So the study did find excess mortality in the obese classification, but less so in the overweight classification, whereas the article implies no effect in either group.
Another example is in comparing weight loss to weight cycling. Yes, people who yo-yo diet are probably causing stress to their bodies, but that’s a factor of the concept of temporary dieting. The far better option is to avoid “dieting” all together and make sustainable lifestyle changes, but the authors don’t seem to think this is even possible, which brings me to the real issue I have with this article.
They state that “Popular belief would have you convinced that being fat – like living in poverty – is a choice,” and “But just like we don’t have much choice about our economic status, we don’t have much choice about our body types either.”
While it may be true that I can’t make myself taller or change my B cup to a D cup (at least without surgery), I very much have a choice in my weight. For years I lived with being overweight and then obese because I was convinced that losing weight was too hard or even beyond my abilities, but I was wrong. I’ve lost almost 50 pounds in the last 6 months by doing one very simple thing—eating fewer calories than I burn. No restrictive diet, no pills, and not even very much exercise was required. And you know what, it has been the most empowering thing I have ever done.
Saying that women have no control over their bodies is the opposite of feminism, in my opinion. No one should be shamed into losing weight, but to say you can’t do anything about it if you want is a great disservice to women.
Sorry for the way too long post, but I just had to get this off my chest, and you guys are the only ones who would really understand how bad this article is.
Rant over.
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First of all, I don't give troll sites traffic.
Second of all, it is true that overweight people live longer than those who are underweight. It's the use of semantics that makes the article shady.
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Yep. Didn't read the article (didn't want to give them page views), but I got the gist. FAs keep trying to link HAES to feminism. It's an embarrassment to feminism.0
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Oddly my objection was to the critical theory assumptions and slant to this article, not to its defense and use of actual medical statistics.0
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You guys are right, I shouldn't get worked up about such BS, but I guess it's the first time I've really seen the HAES idea spouted in such a destructive way. It's like this article is actively trying to convince women that losing weight is bad for you and maybe even impossible!0
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missblondi2u wrote: »You guys are right, I shouldn't get worked up about such BS, but I guess it's the first time I've really seen the HAES idea spouted in such a destructive way. It's like this article is actively trying to convince women that losing weight is bad for you and maybe even impossible!
I was listening to a discussion on the radio where the authors of a meta study claimed that anyone who lost weight and kept out off was an anomaly. Apparently many of us here don't exist.0 -
People are so soft in our days it's incredible! This article is so ridiculous it's blew my mind! There are no good reasons to be fat (unless there is a medical issue)! I disagree with trolling but come on it's not normal to support way of living that brings to overweight.0
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missblondi2u wrote: »You guys are right, I shouldn't get worked up about such BS, but I guess it's the first time I've really seen the HAES idea spouted in such a destructive way. It's like this article is actively trying to convince women that losing weight is bad for you and maybe even impossible!
Crabs in a bucket0 -
The study they linked has issues with how they presented their statistics. While the mortality rate in the statistics was lowest in the overweight group rather than normal weight, part of this comes down to figures used don't differentiate between smokers, and non-smokers, as well as people in certain diseases state (a person starting chemo who was overweight or high end normal will have normal weight mid treatment, but people who are overweight for the full term of chemo are rare).Oddly my objection was to the critical theory assumptions and slant to this article, not to its defense and use of actual medical statistics.
I recall one person picked apart just the smoking part of this one study and it completely changes the mortality rate to BMI curve originally plotted.
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missblondi2u wrote: »You guys are right, I shouldn't get worked up about such BS, but I guess it's the first time I've really seen the HAES idea spouted in such a destructive way. It's like this article is actively trying to convince women that losing weight is bad for you and maybe even impossible!
Crabs in a bucket
Had to look this up, but it's spot-on!0 -
This topic raises lots of issues for me:
- Do I believe that misogyny and sexism intersect with sizeism and anti-fat bias? Yes.
- Do I believe in Healthy at Any Size (HAES)? No.
- Do I believe that being somewhat overweight is healthier than the self-destructive under-eating and/or over exercise I have seen from some posters here? Yes.
- Am I curious as to why it is predominantly women who create posts indicating think they must suffer in order to lose weight? Yes.
0 - Do I believe that misogyny and sexism intersect with sizeism and anti-fat bias? Yes.
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The study they linked has issues with how they presented their statistics. While the mortality rate in the statistics was lowest in the overweight group rather than normal weight, part of this comes down to figures used don't differentiate between smokers, and non-smokers, as well as people in certain diseases state (a person starting chemo who was overweight or high end normal will have normal weight mid treatment, but people who are overweight for the full term of chemo are rare).Oddly my objection was to the critical theory assumptions and slant to this article, not to its defense and use of actual medical statistics.
I recall one person picked apart just the smoking part of this one study and it completely changes the mortality rate to BMI curve originally plotted.
Similarly, if you remove people who recently lost weight (which is often sick people, as well as people who did so on purpose) that gets rid of the overweight being better than healthy weight thing, if memory serves. (I used to have a couple of links for this, but can't immediately find them.)0 -
kshama2001 wrote: »This topic raises lots of issues for me:
- Do I believe that misogyny and sexism intersect with sizeism and anti-fat bias? Yes.
- Do I believe in Healthy at Any Size (HAES)? No.
- Do I believe that being somewhat overweight is healthier than the self-destructive under-eating and/or over exercise I have seen from some posters here? Yes.
- Am I curious as to why it is predominantly women who create posts indicating think they must suffer in order to lose weight? Yes.
Great point. I see that so often, the idea that you should suffer to get thin because you were greedy enough to get fat. I don't understand this, but then again I was never a self-hating fat person. I loved myself enough to get healthier, that's all.0 - Do I believe that misogyny and sexism intersect with sizeism and anti-fat bias? Yes.
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Wheelhouse15 wrote: »missblondi2u wrote: »You guys are right, I shouldn't get worked up about such BS, but I guess it's the first time I've really seen the HAES idea spouted in such a destructive way. It's like this article is actively trying to convince women that losing weight is bad for you and maybe even impossible!
I was listening to a discussion on the radio where the authors of a meta study claimed that anyone who lost weight and kept out off was an anomaly. Apparently many of us here don't exist.
Not sure what you mean. You can't be an anomaly unless you exist. People who lose weight and keep it off are anomalies because most people either fail to lose weight or (more commonly) fail to maintain the loss.0 -
kshama2001 wrote: »This topic raises lots of issues for me:
- Do I believe that misogyny and sexism intersect with sizeism and anti-fat bias? Yes.
- Do I believe in Healthy at Any Size (HAES)? No.
- Do I believe that being somewhat overweight is healthier than the self-destructive under-eating and/or over exercise I have seen from some posters here? Yes.
- Am I curious as to why it is predominantly women who create posts indicating think they must suffer in order to lose weight? Yes.
I pretty much agree with all that, and find 4 an interesting question (although the posters here are probably predominantly women in general, women tend to read different sorts of dieting literature, and I am seeing it more in younger men).0 - Do I believe that misogyny and sexism intersect with sizeism and anti-fat bias? Yes.
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I've thought about/read about women and body size issues for years. So many women think they have to be very, very thin to be attractive (whether healthy or not). I think its good to examine those assumptions. My healthy weight is quite a bit higher than the charts -- at that (relatively higher) weight my doctor says I am health, I run and bicycle long distances, lift weights, do HIIT, etc. etc. My clothes fit well and all is good. I think the weight charts are idiotic. That being said I don't feel well when I weigh over my self-determined number, and eating to a calorie/macro goal and exercising is the best way for me to lose a reasonable amount of weight.0
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Need2Exerc1se wrote: »Wheelhouse15 wrote: »missblondi2u wrote: »You guys are right, I shouldn't get worked up about such BS, but I guess it's the first time I've really seen the HAES idea spouted in such a destructive way. It's like this article is actively trying to convince women that losing weight is bad for you and maybe even impossible!
I was listening to a discussion on the radio where the authors of a meta study claimed that anyone who lost weight and kept out off was an anomaly. Apparently many of us here don't exist.
Not sure what you mean. You can't be an anomaly unless you exist. People who lose weight and keep it off are anomalies because most people either fail to lose weight or (more commonly) fail to maintain the loss.
Yes, but there are too many here to be a bone fide anomaly was my sarcastic point. I believe that to be an anomaly requires that you are past the third, at the least, standard deviation but it's certainly much more people who can maintain weight loss.
Also is used as a white wash statement to just ignore something they don't want to explain.0 -
Wheelhouse15 wrote: »Need2Exerc1se wrote: »Wheelhouse15 wrote: »missblondi2u wrote: »You guys are right, I shouldn't get worked up about such BS, but I guess it's the first time I've really seen the HAES idea spouted in such a destructive way. It's like this article is actively trying to convince women that losing weight is bad for you and maybe even impossible!
I was listening to a discussion on the radio where the authors of a meta study claimed that anyone who lost weight and kept out off was an anomaly. Apparently many of us here don't exist.
Not sure what you mean. You can't be an anomaly unless you exist. People who lose weight and keep it off are anomalies because most people either fail to lose weight or (more commonly) fail to maintain the loss.
Yes, but there are too many here to be a bone fide anomaly was my sarcastic point. To be an anomaly requires that you are past the third, at the least, standard deviation but it's certainly much more people who can maintain weight loss.
Is it?0 -
Need2Exerc1se wrote: »Wheelhouse15 wrote: »Need2Exerc1se wrote: »Wheelhouse15 wrote: »missblondi2u wrote: »You guys are right, I shouldn't get worked up about such BS, but I guess it's the first time I've really seen the HAES idea spouted in such a destructive way. It's like this article is actively trying to convince women that losing weight is bad for you and maybe even impossible!
I was listening to a discussion on the radio where the authors of a meta study claimed that anyone who lost weight and kept out off was an anomaly. Apparently many of us here don't exist.
Not sure what you mean. You can't be an anomaly unless you exist. People who lose weight and keep it off are anomalies because most people either fail to lose weight or (more commonly) fail to maintain the loss.
Yes, but there are too many here to be a bone fide anomaly was my sarcastic point. To be an anomaly requires that you are past the third, at the least, standard deviation but it's certainly much more people who can maintain weight loss.
Is it?
Actually, read my edit, to me if you are going to say it's an anomaly and we aren't going to consider it you better be looking at a very small portion of the population you are excluding. Yes, there isn't an exact definition of anomaly but they were set point theorists and they weren't accepting people who could maintain as a reason to dismiss the validity of their theory. They label us anomalies so they can dismiss us summarily, and THAT is my issue. The model is wrong but they exclude any counter as being "just an anomaly". Sorry, I was rushed when I said what I did and it was inaccurate.0 -
Wheelhouse15 wrote: »Yes, but there are too many here to be a bone fide anomaly was my sarcastic point. I believe that to be an anomaly requires that you are past the third, at the least, standard deviation but it's certainly much more people who can maintain weight loss.
There may be enough successful people on this site to not be anomalies for this population, but when you consider them against the world at large, or even just the people who try to lose weight in the world at large, they can be considered anomalies, imo. I fully intend to be one of those anomalies.0 -
Wheelhouse15 wrote: »Yes, but there are too many here to be a bone fide anomaly was my sarcastic point. I believe that to be an anomaly requires that you are past the third, at the least, standard deviation but it's certainly much more people who can maintain weight loss.
There may be enough successful people on this site to not be anomalies for this population, but when you consider them against the world at large, or even just the people who try to lose weight in the world at large, they can be considered anomalies, imo. I fully intend to be one of those anomalies.
To me at least, anomaly implies that something is peculiar or unexpected. I guess in the general population of people who try to lose weight, failure is more "normal" than success, but it's not a peculiar or unexpected outcome.0 -
Wheelhouse15 wrote: »Yes, but there are too many here to be a bone fide anomaly was my sarcastic point. I believe that to be an anomaly requires that you are past the third, at the least, standard deviation but it's certainly much more people who can maintain weight loss.
There may be enough successful people on this site to not be anomalies for this population, but when you consider them against the world at large, or even just the people who try to lose weight in the world at large, they can be considered anomalies, imo. I fully intend to be one of those anomalies.
That's the right attitude!
I intend to keep on screwing up the set point model. 0 -
missblondi2u wrote: »Wheelhouse15 wrote: »Yes, but there are too many here to be a bone fide anomaly was my sarcastic point. I believe that to be an anomaly requires that you are past the third, at the least, standard deviation but it's certainly much more people who can maintain weight loss.
There may be enough successful people on this site to not be anomalies for this population, but when you consider them against the world at large, or even just the people who try to lose weight in the world at large, they can be considered anomalies, imo. I fully intend to be one of those anomalies.
To me at least, anomaly implies that something is peculiar or unexpected. I guess in the general population of people who try to lose weight, failure is more "normal" than success, but it's not a peculiar or unexpected outcome.
The main reason why I don't buy us as an anomaly is because we are just a continuation of the process that most give up on. We just aren't any different in biology than the vast majority that lose weight and regain and then often yo-yo and many who maintain successfully are former yo-yo dieters to boot. I strongly believe that instead of labeling long term maintainers as anomalies they should try to figure out what the differences are and use those findings as encouragement for others. This is basically the whole point of the National Weight Control Registry.0 -
Wheelhouse15 wrote: »Need2Exerc1se wrote: »Wheelhouse15 wrote: »Need2Exerc1se wrote: »Wheelhouse15 wrote: »missblondi2u wrote: »You guys are right, I shouldn't get worked up about such BS, but I guess it's the first time I've really seen the HAES idea spouted in such a destructive way. It's like this article is actively trying to convince women that losing weight is bad for you and maybe even impossible!
I was listening to a discussion on the radio where the authors of a meta study claimed that anyone who lost weight and kept out off was an anomaly. Apparently many of us here don't exist.
Not sure what you mean. You can't be an anomaly unless you exist. People who lose weight and keep it off are anomalies because most people either fail to lose weight or (more commonly) fail to maintain the loss.
Yes, but there are too many here to be a bone fide anomaly was my sarcastic point. To be an anomaly requires that you are past the third, at the least, standard deviation but it's certainly much more people who can maintain weight loss.
Is it?
Actually, read my edit, to me if you are going to say it's an anomaly and we aren't going to consider it you better be looking at a very small portion of the population you are excluding. Yes, there isn't an exact definition of anomaly but they were set point theorists and they weren't accepting people who could maintain as a reason to dismiss the validity of their theory. They label us anomalies so they can dismiss us summarily, and THAT is my issue. The model is wrong but they exclude any counter as being "just an anomaly". Sorry, I was rushed when I said what I did and it was inaccurate.
I think James Hill at National Weight Control Registry said it best (paraphrase): "We certainly have people who diet and maintain that loss. Do our records contain all of them? Probably not, but I don't know, it could be all the people registered with us are the only people who ever dieted and kept it off. It could be that our group is just a small fraction of people do successfully maintain. We do know, though, that it is possible."
Unfortunately, no one will give me a grant to do it the same way they count animal populations: blow dart a random group, collect data, release, wait and do the same thing with a different random group, including possibly getting ones that were tagged before (that's used to estimate population sizes). Someone at one particular budget office asked for security. What rubbish, nothing wrong with tranquilizing some random people, heck, some people pay good money to be tranquilized, and here I'm actually offering to do it to get health statistics. I just wonder if the people will answer my questions about are they contemplating losing weight honestly when I wake them up post darting and tagging. The NHS in England's study that just used raw numbers from physicians' offices without checking what percent of those people actually were trying to lose weight looks rather abysmal, but again, percent isn't of people actually trying to lose weight, just people that are overweight.0 -
Wheelhouse15 wrote: »Need2Exerc1se wrote: »Wheelhouse15 wrote: »Need2Exerc1se wrote: »Wheelhouse15 wrote: »missblondi2u wrote: »You guys are right, I shouldn't get worked up about such BS, but I guess it's the first time I've really seen the HAES idea spouted in such a destructive way. It's like this article is actively trying to convince women that losing weight is bad for you and maybe even impossible!
I was listening to a discussion on the radio where the authors of a meta study claimed that anyone who lost weight and kept out off was an anomaly. Apparently many of us here don't exist.
Not sure what you mean. You can't be an anomaly unless you exist. People who lose weight and keep it off are anomalies because most people either fail to lose weight or (more commonly) fail to maintain the loss.
Yes, but there are too many here to be a bone fide anomaly was my sarcastic point. To be an anomaly requires that you are past the third, at the least, standard deviation but it's certainly much more people who can maintain weight loss.
Is it?
Actually, read my edit, to me if you are going to say it's an anomaly and we aren't going to consider it you better be looking at a very small portion of the population you are excluding. Yes, there isn't an exact definition of anomaly but they were set point theorists and they weren't accepting people who could maintain as a reason to dismiss the validity of their theory. They label us anomalies so they can dismiss us summarily, and THAT is my issue. The model is wrong but they exclude any counter as being "just an anomaly". Sorry, I was rushed when I said what I did and it was inaccurate.
I think James Hill at National Weight Control Registry said it best (paraphrase): "We certainly have people who diet and maintain that loss. Do our records contain all of them? Probably not, but I don't know, it could be all the people registered with us are the only people who ever dieted and kept it off. It could be that our group is just a small fraction of people do successfully maintain. We do know, though, that it is possible."
Unfortunately, no one will give me a grant to do it the same way they count animal populations: blow dart a random group, collect data, release, wait and do the same thing with a different random group, including possibly getting ones that were tagged before (that's used to estimate population sizes). Someone at one particular budget office asked for security. What rubbish, nothing wrong with tranquilizing some random people, heck, some people pay good money to be tranquilized, and here I'm actually offering to do it to get health statistics. I just wonder if the people will answer my questions about are they contemplating losing weight honestly when I wake them up post darting and tagging. The NHS in England's study that just used raw numbers from physicians' offices without checking what percent of those people actually were trying to lose weight looks rather abysmal, but again, percent isn't of people actually trying to lose weight, just people that are overweight.
You should setup a GoFundMe for that! I'd chip in for sure!!0 -
Wheelhouse15 wrote: »Need2Exerc1se wrote: »Wheelhouse15 wrote: »Need2Exerc1se wrote: »Wheelhouse15 wrote: »missblondi2u wrote: »You guys are right, I shouldn't get worked up about such BS, but I guess it's the first time I've really seen the HAES idea spouted in such a destructive way. It's like this article is actively trying to convince women that losing weight is bad for you and maybe even impossible!
I was listening to a discussion on the radio where the authors of a meta study claimed that anyone who lost weight and kept out off was an anomaly. Apparently many of us here don't exist.
Not sure what you mean. You can't be an anomaly unless you exist. People who lose weight and keep it off are anomalies because most people either fail to lose weight or (more commonly) fail to maintain the loss.
Yes, but there are too many here to be a bone fide anomaly was my sarcastic point. To be an anomaly requires that you are past the third, at the least, standard deviation but it's certainly much more people who can maintain weight loss.
Is it?
Actually, read my edit, to me if you are going to say it's an anomaly and we aren't going to consider it you better be looking at a very small portion of the population you are excluding. Yes, there isn't an exact definition of anomaly but they were set point theorists and they weren't accepting people who could maintain as a reason to dismiss the validity of their theory. They label us anomalies so they can dismiss us summarily, and THAT is my issue. The model is wrong but they exclude any counter as being "just an anomaly". Sorry, I was rushed when I said what I did and it was inaccurate.
I think James Hill at National Weight Control Registry said it best (paraphrase): "We certainly have people who diet and maintain that loss. Do our records contain all of them? Probably not, but I don't know, it could be all the people registered with us are the only people who ever dieted and kept it off. It could be that our group is just a small fraction of people do successfully maintain. We do know, though, that it is possible."
Unfortunately, no one will give me a grant to do it the same way they count animal populations: blow dart a random group, collect data, release, wait and do the same thing with a different random group, including possibly getting ones that were tagged before (that's used to estimate population sizes). Someone at one particular budget office asked for security. What rubbish, nothing wrong with tranquilizing some random people, heck, some people pay good money to be tranquilized, and here I'm actually offering to do it to get health statistics. I just wonder if the people will answer my questions about are they contemplating losing weight honestly when I wake them up post darting and tagging. The NHS in England's study that just used raw numbers from physicians' offices without checking what percent of those people actually were trying to lose weight looks rather abysmal, but again, percent isn't of people actually trying to lose weight, just people that are overweight.
One of the problems I see in the data is that I don't believe that it represents a complete view of the data. It's a lot like early drug and alcohol addiction recovery data that couldn't account for spontaneous recovery rate, which was actually quite high. It's possible that there are a lot of people, like me, who just do our own thing and never report to anyone in an official record but exist in the "wild" in larger numbers than anyone realizes.0 -
lemurcat12 wrote: »
The study they linked has issues with how they presented their statistics. While the mortality rate in the statistics was lowest in the overweight group rather than normal weight, part of this comes down to figures used don't differentiate between smokers, and non-smokers, as well as people in certain diseases state (a person starting chemo who was overweight or high end normal will have normal weight mid treatment, but people who are overweight for the full term of chemo are rare).Oddly my objection was to the critical theory assumptions and slant to this article, not to its defense and use of actual medical statistics.
I recall one person picked apart just the smoking part of this one study and it completely changes the mortality rate to BMI curve originally plotted.
Similarly, if you remove people who recently lost weight (which is often sick people, as well as people who did so on purpose) that gets rid of the overweight being better than healthy weight thing, if memory serves. (I used to have a couple of links for this, but can't immediately find them.)
I'm no source and I don't have a link either, but I generally agree with and remember the same general idea. I believe that the study authors (or similarly knowledgeable individuals who reported on/interpreted the study results) theorized that one of the primary drivers of that particular result relates to critical illnesses just before death. Often people who go through an ultimately fatal period of illness often lose weight due to that illness and/or the treatments or secondary factors relating to the illness, and therefore it skews the data a bit to make it seem as though people who are typically normal weight or below are more likely to die...when really it can be interpreted as people are more likely to die when they're at a normal weight or below. It's a subtle but important shift.0 -
Wheelhouse15 wrote: »Wheelhouse15 wrote: »Need2Exerc1se wrote: »Wheelhouse15 wrote: »Need2Exerc1se wrote: »Wheelhouse15 wrote: »missblondi2u wrote: »You guys are right, I shouldn't get worked up about such BS, but I guess it's the first time I've really seen the HAES idea spouted in such a destructive way. It's like this article is actively trying to convince women that losing weight is bad for you and maybe even impossible!
I was listening to a discussion on the radio where the authors of a meta study claimed that anyone who lost weight and kept out off was an anomaly. Apparently many of us here don't exist.
Not sure what you mean. You can't be an anomaly unless you exist. People who lose weight and keep it off are anomalies because most people either fail to lose weight or (more commonly) fail to maintain the loss.
Yes, but there are too many here to be a bone fide anomaly was my sarcastic point. To be an anomaly requires that you are past the third, at the least, standard deviation but it's certainly much more people who can maintain weight loss.
Is it?
Actually, read my edit, to me if you are going to say it's an anomaly and we aren't going to consider it you better be looking at a very small portion of the population you are excluding. Yes, there isn't an exact definition of anomaly but they were set point theorists and they weren't accepting people who could maintain as a reason to dismiss the validity of their theory. They label us anomalies so they can dismiss us summarily, and THAT is my issue. The model is wrong but they exclude any counter as being "just an anomaly". Sorry, I was rushed when I said what I did and it was inaccurate.
I think James Hill at National Weight Control Registry said it best (paraphrase): "We certainly have people who diet and maintain that loss. Do our records contain all of them? Probably not, but I don't know, it could be all the people registered with us are the only people who ever dieted and kept it off. It could be that our group is just a small fraction of people do successfully maintain. We do know, though, that it is possible."
Unfortunately, no one will give me a grant to do it the same way they count animal populations: blow dart a random group, collect data, release, wait and do the same thing with a different random group, including possibly getting ones that were tagged before (that's used to estimate population sizes). Someone at one particular budget office asked for security. What rubbish, nothing wrong with tranquilizing some random people, heck, some people pay good money to be tranquilized, and here I'm actually offering to do it to get health statistics. I just wonder if the people will answer my questions about are they contemplating losing weight honestly when I wake them up post darting and tagging. The NHS in England's study that just used raw numbers from physicians' offices without checking what percent of those people actually were trying to lose weight looks rather abysmal, but again, percent isn't of people actually trying to lose weight, just people that are overweight.
One of the problems I see in the data is that I don't believe that it represents a complete view of the data. It's a lot like early drug and alcohol addiction recovery data that couldn't account for spontaneous recovery rate, which was actually quite high. It's possible that there are a lot of people, like me, who just do our own thing and never report to anyone in an official record but exist in the "wild" in larger numbers than anyone realizes.
I think that was the point of the guy they quoted from the National Weight Loss Registry. He only has info from folks who volunteer that info.
A quick web search brought up some Canadian article stating a group of scientists had determined only 5% of people who lose weight maintain it long term, and an American article stating 20% of folks who lose at least 10% of their body weight maintain it. Maybe it depends on how we define the problem that is why there are different numbers rolling around. Like, is that 5% for all people trying to lose weight? Or for people on a single attempt? If I fail the first time but succeed the next, am I considered a success?
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blues4miles wrote: »Wheelhouse15 wrote: »Wheelhouse15 wrote: »Need2Exerc1se wrote: »Wheelhouse15 wrote: »Need2Exerc1se wrote: »Wheelhouse15 wrote: »missblondi2u wrote: »You guys are right, I shouldn't get worked up about such BS, but I guess it's the first time I've really seen the HAES idea spouted in such a destructive way. It's like this article is actively trying to convince women that losing weight is bad for you and maybe even impossible!
I was listening to a discussion on the radio where the authors of a meta study claimed that anyone who lost weight and kept out off was an anomaly. Apparently many of us here don't exist.
Not sure what you mean. You can't be an anomaly unless you exist. People who lose weight and keep it off are anomalies because most people either fail to lose weight or (more commonly) fail to maintain the loss.
Yes, but there are too many here to be a bone fide anomaly was my sarcastic point. To be an anomaly requires that you are past the third, at the least, standard deviation but it's certainly much more people who can maintain weight loss.
Is it?
Actually, read my edit, to me if you are going to say it's an anomaly and we aren't going to consider it you better be looking at a very small portion of the population you are excluding. Yes, there isn't an exact definition of anomaly but they were set point theorists and they weren't accepting people who could maintain as a reason to dismiss the validity of their theory. They label us anomalies so they can dismiss us summarily, and THAT is my issue. The model is wrong but they exclude any counter as being "just an anomaly". Sorry, I was rushed when I said what I did and it was inaccurate.
I think James Hill at National Weight Control Registry said it best (paraphrase): "We certainly have people who diet and maintain that loss. Do our records contain all of them? Probably not, but I don't know, it could be all the people registered with us are the only people who ever dieted and kept it off. It could be that our group is just a small fraction of people do successfully maintain. We do know, though, that it is possible."
Unfortunately, no one will give me a grant to do it the same way they count animal populations: blow dart a random group, collect data, release, wait and do the same thing with a different random group, including possibly getting ones that were tagged before (that's used to estimate population sizes). Someone at one particular budget office asked for security. What rubbish, nothing wrong with tranquilizing some random people, heck, some people pay good money to be tranquilized, and here I'm actually offering to do it to get health statistics. I just wonder if the people will answer my questions about are they contemplating losing weight honestly when I wake them up post darting and tagging. The NHS in England's study that just used raw numbers from physicians' offices without checking what percent of those people actually were trying to lose weight looks rather abysmal, but again, percent isn't of people actually trying to lose weight, just people that are overweight.
One of the problems I see in the data is that I don't believe that it represents a complete view of the data. It's a lot like early drug and alcohol addiction recovery data that couldn't account for spontaneous recovery rate, which was actually quite high. It's possible that there are a lot of people, like me, who just do our own thing and never report to anyone in an official record but exist in the "wild" in larger numbers than anyone realizes.
I think that was the point of the guy they quoted from the National Weight Loss Registry. He only has info from folks who volunteer that info.
A quick web search brought up some Canadian article stating a group of scientists had determined only 5% of people who lose weight maintain it long term, and an American article stating 20% of folks who lose at least 10% of their body weight maintain it. Maybe it depends on how we define the problem that is why there are different numbers rolling around. Like, is that 5% for all people trying to lose weight? Or for people on a single attempt? If I fail the first time but succeed the next, am I considered a success?
Here's yet another survey, a general and random mailing to US households, that shows 31% successful at maintaining weight loss http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16854220. Unfortunately, the abstract doesn't indicate the time frame for successful maintenance. Still leaves me believing that the 90% failure rate for maintenance that is often quoted is actually off base.
Also, I applied for the Registry a few months ago and haven't heard back so I'm sure they don't have all that are actually even interested in being in the Registry actually in it.0
This discussion has been closed.
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