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Is promoting weight loss dangerous?
bathsheba_c
Posts: 1,873 Member
in Debate Club
Consider this:
-The human body has evolved to favor weight gain in order to avoid starvation.
-Calorie deprivation experiments have shown that even fairly small reductions in food intake can cause psychological distress, including hoarding behaviors.
-Eating disorders are the deadliest of all mental illnesses due to high rates of suicide and permanent damage to internal organs.
-Not eating enough stressed the body, which weakens the immune system and damages the cardiovascular system.
-Almost no one who loses weight keeps it off long-term.
-Being “overweight” after a certain age is protective against early death.
In light of the above, is it actually responsible to promote weight loss? Or would it be more responsible to encourage people to eat a balanced diet and exercise without looking at the scale?
-The human body has evolved to favor weight gain in order to avoid starvation.
-Calorie deprivation experiments have shown that even fairly small reductions in food intake can cause psychological distress, including hoarding behaviors.
-Eating disorders are the deadliest of all mental illnesses due to high rates of suicide and permanent damage to internal organs.
-Not eating enough stressed the body, which weakens the immune system and damages the cardiovascular system.
-Almost no one who loses weight keeps it off long-term.
-Being “overweight” after a certain age is protective against early death.
In light of the above, is it actually responsible to promote weight loss? Or would it be more responsible to encourage people to eat a balanced diet and exercise without looking at the scale?
7
Replies
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What are all the stats for obesity, reference early death, health issues, psychological distress, etc?27
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Consider this:
-People can die from obesity related causes.29 -
I currently live in WV - the obesity rate is ridiculous here! It makes me so sad to see so much of the population merely existing in this world, not living...15
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Doesn't it really depend on who/what is promoting weight loss and how it is being promoting by them?
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Promoting healthy weight loss is fine. In an ideal world we would all eat a nutritional balanced diet and take a nominal amount of excercise.
That is not how life works. Eating disorders are many and varied. One person advised to lose weight will do so sensibly reach a healthy weight and stay there, one will eat too little and burn out then regain the weight, one will take it to an extreme and develop an eating disorder, one will tell you to stuff your advice where the sun don't shine and continue to eat far too much and become morbidly obese and have a heart attack. We all react in different ways to the "promotion" of weight loss.
I don't think that just telling people to eat a balanced diet and do some excercise will reverse the explosion of obesity that we are seeing at the moment. Any more than telling people to eat less and move more 10 years ago has caused an explosion of Anorexia/bulimia. (It hasn't by the way) Eating disorders are way more complex than that.
Depends on what you mean by "Promoting"
Promoting faddy very low calorie diets is irresponsible but a doctor advising weight loss to a patient to help their health issues is not irresponsible.
I also don't think we evolved to favour weight gain I think we evolved to walk/run long distances to find our food that is why we are suffering an obesity crisis now. Too much food available without effort. Our bodies are certainly not evolved to deal with that kind of weight gain at all. Hence all the obesity related diseases and joint issues.
So promoting healthy weight loss yes and for some people a scale is not needed but for most of us it is a good tool to measure progress toward a healthy weight.
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bathsheba_c wrote: »Consider this:
-The human body has evolved to favor weight gain in order to avoid starvation.
-Calorie deprivation experiments have shown that even fairly small reductions in food intake can cause psychological distress, including hoarding behaviors.
-Eating disorders are the deadliest of all mental illnesses due to high rates of suicide and permanent damage to internal organs.
-Not eating enough stressed the body, which weakens the immune system and damages the cardiovascular system.
-Almost no one who loses weight keeps it off long-term.
-Being “overweight” after a certain age is protective against early death.
In light of the above, is it actually responsible to promote weight loss? Or would it be more responsible to encourage people to eat a balanced diet and exercise without looking at the scale?
I think you're using a very blunt tool to work on a project that requires both fine tools and fine motor control.18 -
Weight loss is so very dangerous that
* my formerly sky-high cholesterol and triglycerides are now solidly in the normal range,
* my formerly high blood pressure is now normal to low-normal
* the science-based "effective age" estimators I've used have put my age 20-30 years younger than I actually am (64 in a couple weeks, BTW),
* my osteoarthritis and torn meniscus that formerly were always uncomfortable and frequently actually painful are now occasionally uncomfortable and rarely actively painful,
* I can work alongside people 20 years or more younger (moving furniture, gardening, rowing) and keep up, often more than keep up
* my doctor is no longer advising me to take statins
* and more, but I'm tired of typing . . . .
Yup, super dangerous, weight loss.
P.S. Lost from obese - where I'd been for around 3 decades - to a healthy weight, and have stayed there for 4+ years now.66 -
bathsheba_c wrote: »Consider this:
-The human body has evolved to favor weight gain in order to avoid starvation.
-Calorie deprivation experiments have shown that even fairly small reductions in food intake can cause psychological distress, including hoarding behaviors.
-Eating disorders are the deadliest of all mental illnesses due to high rates of suicide and permanent damage to internal organs.
-Not eating enough stressed the body, which weakens the immune system and damages the cardiovascular system.
-Almost no one who loses weight keeps it off long-term.
-Being “overweight” after a certain age is protective against early death.
In light of the above, is it actually responsible to promote weight loss? Or would it be more responsible to encourage people to eat a balanced diet and exercise without looking at the scale?
Are you worried that people will starve to death when they can have hot food delivered to them??9 -
snowflake954 wrote: »Consider this:
-People can die from obesity related causes.
Consider this:
-The younger generation today will have shorter lives than their parents (on average) because of obesity related illness.21 -
Woke.6
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This take is freezing cold. Obesity is literally the leading cause of death in the entire world. It also is detrimental to both quality of life and mental health. Just promoting diet and exercise and hoping it works itself out is not gonna cut it. There have been government guidelines in place for those things for decades, and if they worked on their own we wouldn't have the obesity problem we have today.
A statement like this: "The human body has evolved to favor weight gain in order to avoid starvation." really grinds my gears. The human body favors weight gain because for most of human history, food was extremely scarce and people were very active, which is why the body is geared towards fat stores. But that has changed very much in the last century or so, as food has become much more abundant and people have become much more sedentary. Our bodies haven't evolved further since then. That our bodies are geared towards a way of living that humans no longer due is precisely why obesity is such a huge issue.
Look, I am not glossing over the seriousness of eating disorders. They are certainly a serious problem. Which is why promoting healthy weight loss and body positivity are important things. But they are not mutually exclusive with weight loss.25 -
All cause mortality due in part to obesity is much higher than the consequences of weight loss (and so-called diet culture) so it seems to me like at the absolute worst, it's the lesser of two evils. Additionally, I think knowledge of how much you eat is helpful to a point. That said, I've been pretty convinced that it shouldn't be something you do forever mostly from some things Eric Helms has written about (particularly the podcast in Nov 2018 he did with Jake Linardon).
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bathsheba_c wrote: »Consider this:
-The human body has evolved to favor weight gain in order to avoid starvation.
-Calorie deprivation experiments have shown that even fairly small reductions in food intake can cause psychological distress, including hoarding behaviors.
-Eating disorders are the deadliest of all mental illnesses due to high rates of suicide and permanent damage to internal organs.
-Not eating enough stressed the body, which weakens the immune system and damages the cardiovascular system.
-Almost no one who loses weight keeps it off long-term.
-Being “overweight” after a certain age is protective against early death.
In light of the above, is it actually responsible to promote weight loss? Or would it be more responsible to encourage people to eat a balanced diet and exercise without looking at the scale?
I know in our medical centre we dont actually promote weight loss - we promote weight management - which means doing what you need to do to be a healthy weight for you.
For most people this is either lose weight or maintain current weight. For a few, it is gain weight.
Yes being SLIGHTLY over weight can be better for some older people and weight loss might not be the best goal for them
But we are talking there about a small demographic: people 70 + with a BMI of 26/27 ish - not being obese.
So, in short- yes, indvidualised goals.
But not avoid promoting weight loss for people who should lose weight - as your post seems to be suggesting
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bathsheba_c wrote: »Consider this:
-The human body has evolved to favor weight gain in order to avoid starvation.
And now we are to the point that humans have to ride on scooters due to medical issues associated with weight gain. Doesn't seem like progress.15 -
Good God, glad I didn't listen to stuff like this when I was close to a stroke or a heart attack last april , with pre-diabetes, high blood pressure and high cholesterol. I'm 54, and turned it all around losing weight and exercising. Labs in Oct were the best since my 20s-30s. Spreading info like this is an excuse for people to give into poor decisions.23
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No it's not dangerous. Yes, our body does fight weight loss, but our environment is just as important. The body does make you want to eat more after weight loss. Kevin Hall has showed this. Yes, metabolic adaptation is real. The environment gives us high calorie density cheap food. It's hard, but not impossible.6
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I wonder if anyone who wants to take cues from human evolution would be so quick to do so if they had to survive somewhere harsh without clothing or tools.11
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bathsheba_c wrote: »Consider this:
-The human body has evolved to favor weight gain in order to avoid starvation.
-Calorie deprivation experiments have shown that even fairly small reductions in food intake can cause psychological distress, including hoarding behaviors.
-Eating disorders are the deadliest of all mental illnesses due to high rates of suicide and permanent damage to internal organs.
-Not eating enough stressed the body, which weakens the immune system and damages the cardiovascular system.
-Almost no one who loses weight keeps it off long-term.
-Being “overweight” after a certain age is protective against early death.
In light of the above, is it actually responsible to promote weight loss? Or would it be more responsible to encourage people to eat a balanced diet and exercise without looking at the scale?
These all sound like justifications to stay fat17 -
Human physiology hasn't changed much at all in thousands of years. It's always been efficient at energy storage. That's why royalty was fatter than their slaves. We're bigger and fatter now for one main reason............overconsumption.bathsheba_c wrote: »Consider this:
-The human body has evolved to favor weight gain in order to avoid starvation.
Source? I'd like to read it.-Calorie deprivation experiments have shown that even fairly small reductions in food intake can cause psychological distress, including hoarding behaviors.
Again source? You don't need to have an eating disorder to be suicidal.-Eating disorders are the deadliest of all mental illnesses due to high rates of suicide and permanent damage to internal organs.
True, but IF someone were overweight or obese, there isn't a lack of calories to sustain cellular function.-Not eating enough stressed the body, which weakens the immune system and damages the cardiovascular system.
A high percentage regain weight, but that's more due to lack of consistency after reaching a goal weight. While I don't believe in dieting, it's necessary for many who have high risk health factors due to their being overweight.-Almost no one who loses weight keeps it off long-term.
Subjective. What age are you speaking of? Again, where's the source for this?-Being “overweight” after a certain age is protective against early death.
The NUMBER ONE indicator of health risk issues is weight. Common sense here would tell you that if one ate a balanced diet and exercised consistently, that there likely never would have been a weight issue in the first place. AND if one did that while overeweight, weight loss would happen if their calories consumed were less than they burned reducing their weight.In light of the above, is it actually responsible to promote weight loss? Or would it be more responsible to encourage people to eat a balanced diet and exercise without looking at the scale?
As a professional in the business and being directly involved with it for more than 30 years, I would definitely argue that it's NOT irresponsible to promote weight loss FOR THOSE WHO NEED IT. The problem is society today places so much importance on how someone looks that people go to extreme measures to attain that look and that's where problems happen with eating disorders, improper approach to weight loss, scam diet programs, etc.
A.C.E. Certified Personal and Group Fitness Trainer
IDEA Fitness member
Kickboxing Certified Instructor
Been in fitness for 30 years and have studied kinesiology and nutrition
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I wonder if anyone who wants to take cues from human evolution would be so quick to do so if they had to survive somewhere harsh without clothing or tools.
People who forget the past, are bound to repeat it.... looking back can help us look to the future. While we can not live like cave people. We can look at hunter gather groups and see how they live and take certain things and implement them.1 -
Again source? You don't need to have an eating disorder to be suicidal.-Eating disorders are the deadliest of all mental illnesses due to high rates of suicide and permanent damage to internal organs.
With regards to your wanting a source for the bit of the op's post that said, "Eating disorders are the deadliest of all mental illnesses due to high rates of suicide and permanent damage to internal organs.", this is actually very easy to back up:
https://www.nimh.nih.gov/about/directors/thomas-insel/blog/2012/spotlight-on-eating-disorders.shtml
It's one of the only things (if not the only thing) in the first post that can easily be backed up. And yes, of course you don't have to have an eating disorder to be suicidal. Being suicidal is a symptom found in a wide number of mental illnesses, but that doesn't mean that all mental illnesses have the same death rates or that the cause of death related to a mental illness is always suicide.11 -
OP's implication seems to be that eating disorders are a common/likely result from promoting weight loss. AFAIK that's ill-founded, especially where the implication seems to be extended to believing that promoting weight loss commonly leads to eating disorders and eating disorders lead to suicide/organ damage, such that promoting weight loss = promoting suicide and organ damage.
The relative weight (no pun intended) of weight loss benefits vs. weight loss risk is askew there. Most people who try to lose weight, don't lose weight (for long) . . . that, to me, seems to be the common case, not mental illness and physical damage or death. On the other side of the situation, obesity creates clear health risks (and hinders quality of life for most obese people, whether they realize/admit it, or not).
I'm not intending to minimize the seriousness of eating disorders (or their incidence level), and I do think that our current culture around weight/appearance creates extra risk for people who might already be at risk for eating disorders. But it's not generally rational to base broad policy on the lower-incidence end-cases, when the more statistically common risk is also very serious (in this case, obesity-related health problems and earlier mortality).
OP asks "Or would it be more responsible to encourage people to eat a balanced diet and exercise without looking at the scale?"
Personally, I think we should (and do, in a governmental advocacy and medical practice sense) largely encourage people to eat a balanced diet and exercise, and the positive results have been negligible. I don't expect higher-magnitude results (positive or negative) from encouraging people to lose weight, and statistics seem to bear that out.
Much of what I'd consider bad-influence weight loss "encouragement" comes from hucksters and celebrities and click-bait seekers, and "we" (i.e., general responsible society, as instantiated in institutions like government and medical practice) have very little control or influence over that.
It would do little in a positive direction if governmental sources, the medical establishment, and health promotion organizations** stopped advocating achieving a healthy weight via a balanced diet and exercise, and started advocating just the balanced diet and exercise with no attention to the scale.
** Thinking of organizations like American Cancer Society, American Heart Association, and other nations' or international analogs.11 -
Again source? You don't need to have an eating disorder to be suicidal.-Eating disorders are the deadliest of all mental illnesses due to high rates of suicide and permanent damage to internal organs.
With regards to your wanting a source for the bit of the op's post that said, "Eating disorders are the deadliest of all mental illnesses due to high rates of suicide and permanent damage to internal organs.", this is actually very easy to back up:
https://www.nimh.nih.gov/about/directors/thomas-insel/blog/2012/spotlight-on-eating-disorders.shtml
It's one of the only things (if not the only thing) in the first post that can easily be backed up. And yes, of course you don't have to have an eating disorder to be suicidal. Being suicidal is a symptom found in a wide number of mental illnesses, but that doesn't mean that all mental illnesses have the same death rates or that the cause of death related to a mental illness is always suicide.
I agree. I think clinical depression is far more dangerous. I just spent 8hrs in a class discussing clinical depression in the context of isolation....5 -
Apparently OP didn't really want to debate? :ohwell:9
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Well @quiksylver296 some us are just really good master debaters! 😏2
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bathsheba_c wrote: »Consider this:
-The human body has evolved to favor weight gain in order to avoid starvation.
-Calorie deprivation experiments have shown that even fairly small reductions in food intake can cause psychological distress, including hoarding behaviors.
-Eating disorders are the deadliest of all mental illnesses due to high rates of suicide and permanent damage to internal organs.
-Not eating enough stressed the body, which weakens the immune system and damages the cardiovascular system.
-Almost no one who loses weight keeps it off long-term.
-Being “overweight” after a certain age is protective against early death.
In light of the above, is it actually responsible to promote weight loss? Or would it be more responsible to encourage people to eat a balanced diet and exercise without looking at the scale?
One can promote safe and healthy weight loss. I lost 40 Lbs and didn't experience any of what you're talking about. I've more or less maintained my weight for nearly 7 years.
In regards to your last comment, I don't think it's necessarily "overweight" that is protective, but rather having a bit higher BF%...you can be at a healthy weight and not super lean. I'm at a healthy BF%, but certainly not super lean...I easily have the fat stores to sustain me for awhile should something happen.5 -
moonangel12 wrote: »I currently live in WV - the obesity rate is ridiculous here! It makes me so sad to see so much of the population merely existing in this world, not living...
so you're suggesting people who are obese are not living their lives? That's a really ignorant statement.6 -
I think providing zero context with your points is dangerous.6
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psychod787 wrote: »
Again source? You don't need to have an eating disorder to be suicidal.-Eating disorders are the deadliest of all mental illnesses due to high rates of suicide and permanent damage to internal organs.
With regards to your wanting a source for the bit of the op's post that said, "Eating disorders are the deadliest of all mental illnesses due to high rates of suicide and permanent damage to internal organs.", this is actually very easy to back up:
https://www.nimh.nih.gov/about/directors/thomas-insel/blog/2012/spotlight-on-eating-disorders.shtml
It's one of the only things (if not the only thing) in the first post that can easily be backed up. And yes, of course you don't have to have an eating disorder to be suicidal. Being suicidal is a symptom found in a wide number of mental illnesses, but that doesn't mean that all mental illnesses have the same death rates or that the cause of death related to a mental illness is always suicide.
I agree. I think clinical depression is far more dangerous. I just spent 8hrs in a class discussing clinical depression in the context of isolation....
As someone who has major depression disorder and lives with quite a lot of suicidal ideation, I don't know if I believe depression more dangerous than the broad umbrella term that is eating disorders. Statistically nothing is telling me that it's any more dangerous in terms of the death rate, and I skimmed an article this morning that I'm pretty sure pointed out that the death rate for eating disorders is under inflated. That said, I would welcome research that opposes that (and I do have access to various academic journal subscriptions).
What the OP was pointing out in their point about the damage to internal organs is a pretty big deal and of course isolation is common in various eating disorders as well.7 -
psychod787 wrote: »I wonder if anyone who wants to take cues from human evolution would be so quick to do so if they had to survive somewhere harsh without clothing or tools.
People who forget the past, are bound to repeat it.... looking back can help us look to the future. While we can not live like cave people. We can look at hunter gather groups and see how they live and take certain things and implement them.
I did not follow any of this. I definitely do not see how the "People who forget the past" line has anything to do with anthropological studies. I have always understood that it was talking about lessons we should learn as a society about social injustices and diplomatic disasters.
I think the lessons we need to learn do not need a wayback machine that goes that far back. Pre-industrial is much more recent and much better documented. Plenty of things to learn there.6
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