The Men Who Made Us Thin (BBC link)

I posted this as a response in the Men Who Made Us Fat thread.... and it fell off the page without comment, forgive me but it took an age to type....

The Men Who Made us THIN, who are they? What is it?

The actuary who invented BMI so his company could avoid insuring people who had the temerity to die early - totally arbitrary numbers still used to day. Only accurate ish if you are 25, very fit and active and relatively slim.... but hey, use those numbers for 6 and 60 year olds.

The Slimfast man... same as the Weight Watchers.... we only have a business because of repeat customers - you should be able to see the flaw, from the customers pov. The FDA had to step in and beg people to see their doctors when the first meal replacement meal came out - the clip was not amusing. Slimfast and WWatchers now owned by food manufacturers and investment portfolio's alll round the world! They take billions in profits every year - they like us fat!

Atkins and Dukan... don't go there! They still make me angry and Dukan just looked and sounded like and idiot.

A PROPER explanation about the Minnesota Project's findings - if you don't know watch the programme and hear the physiological reasons why ALL diets make your weight bounce back (the study was scary, you may be shocked at what they actually did).

And listen for the stats.... less than 16% of people on WW are succesful in the long term. None of those diets are intended for the long term. ALL are focussed on a quick hit, a weight bounce and a return. That is what THEY say, well the business end does, the frontline evangelists disagree!

The argument that the product is to help you lose weight, it does not fail YOU DO.... that is their sales pitch.

Sadly that is what the Minnesota Project showed them.... if you lose weight your body looks to return the weight and once you start you cannot stop. It is obvious really. A short term (less than lifetime) diet will help you lose weight but as soon as you stop dieting you will return to your old habits - especially if your diet does not teach you new ones - and oh look! The weight will come back on. Obvious really, fat cells are numerous and hungry beasties.

Forget about the sugar conspiracy, calorie vs calorie etc. Once you are overweight you are overweight. There is no quick fix, 30 day shred, drop a dress size in 10 days, meal replacements, points, sins and all of those others will NOT work. Once you are overweight only eternal vigilance and persistence will keep the weight off.

That is why we must choose a permanent life change over a diet! Easy really :-D

So choose your diet carefully. If you like WW, Slimfast, etc remember you will have to continue forever.... so choose something you like, doesn't make you paranoid, obssessed or skint.

And good luck to us, one and all

3 more to go, I wonder if I will survive the presenter's 'style'?

Sorry, it is what I believe and is based on a lot of science.

I'm not saying you will need to be as vigilant as you are when in loss mode, but you absolutely will have to live in active maintenance mode.

That should include pizza and beer and cake plus some regular measuring, logging, whatever, to ensure you don't bounce.

Fat cells are just one of the very real reasons that anyone who has lost a lot of weight will need to be vigilant - that is one of the findings of the Minnesota Project and a number of other studies since then.

So I don't mean starving for life, but I do mean being aware of your diet (that being what you eat rather than a programme) forever.

I am sorry if you find that frightening, but it is true. Thin people do it better without too much active thought. The rest of us need to keep actively managing it.

I think that one of the problems the presenter had was that those who sold us diets actually had some very solid sound bites / beliefs / points of view - like Dukan and the Slim Fast mas - even if they did come across as living very, very far away from the world the rest of us inhabit.

It was very hard for the poor little boy to remonstrate when given some fairly solid psychology and physiology.. If he had been a little bit more focussed and if the aim was to be a little bit more informative and less shocking he might have got on better - but then it wouldn't have been so watchable

PS You can't like Dukan, he was stuck off by the French Medical Register. He had requested to be removed as he was retired and didn't need to abide by their rules anymore. This was as they were running a full blown investigation into his suggestion that A level students should get extra points for losing weight in their final year.. they struck him off anyway.

I told you he was a bit out of touch with reality [:)]

Was it as gross as Fast Food Nation?

I might catch up with it if it was

Finally got to watch the episode. I lost 3 stone with weight watchers years ago. I had stopped going when the novelty of being at goal wore off, and, you've guessed it, i put it all back on. It was my fault and mine alone and as one of the 84% who failed I could well have been a repeat customer. As a business model its genius! I decided however that I was not going to hand over more money to be told what I already knew, I still had the motivational books and points guide and I knew how to diet, didn't I? That is the point, I knew how to diet but I had not made a lifestyle change. So I tried on my own, without the encouragement from meetings and failed numerous times.

So now I've lost 3 stone again with MFP and will probably have to keep logging forever but my focus is on being healthy not thin.
Looking forward to the next episode....

Thanks for posting this. I watched it on youtube. Interesting to know about the history of diet industry.

I've actually only seen the second episode (Thurs 15th), so I can't comment on the first one. However, I hated the presenter.. But anyway. It became one of those programs that I hated watching and yet wanted to see where it was going.

Although kind of interesting, the biggest factor of weight loss etc just kept being missed out and ignored - that at the end of the day, you are accountable for what you eat and what you do (or don't do!) in terms of being active. No one else. E.g. yes it seems a bit counter productive to have McDonalds or whoever sponser athletics, but they are not forcing it down your throat. You buy it, you eat it. You made that conscious decision.

I don't know... I got a bit angry, despite it being a generally interesting program :ohwell:

If you go to YouTube and search on "men who made us thin" several options will appear. Some are each of the 4 separate episodes. A couple appear to be all 4 episodes in one video.

This programme was only recommended to me the other day; I don't have or watch TV so can only view thru iPlayer. Seen episode 1 so will watch eps. 2 later this afternoon. Seems interesting so far tho....

N.