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Authors: Linda Bacon

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BOOK: Health At Every Size: The Surprising Truth About Your Weight

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29. Social Security Administration,
Periodic Life Table
. 2007 (updated 7/9/07).

Excerpt from
Health at Every Size: The Surprising Truth
About Your Weight
© 2010 by Linda Bacon.
May be freely distributed, provided that it remains in its entirety
and this copyright message appears. More info at
www.HAESbook.com
.

FRIENDS AND FAMILY: HOW YOU CAN BEST SUPPORT ME IN GOOD HEALTH

To My Friends and Family:

I understand that you care about me and that you are concerned about my health and well-being. I’ve learned a lot about issues related to weight, and I’ve come to believe that I can be healthy and happy at my current weight. I have also learned, both from personal experience and studying the physiology of weight regulation, that dieting and trying to lose weight typically cause more problems than they solve and are usually unsuccessful, despite strong determination and willpower.

As a result, I’ve switched my focus to feeling better about the body I currently have and improving my lifestyle habits for health and well-being, rather than weight change. I am not giving up—I am moving on.

I’d like your support. What I need from you is to accept and appreciate me as I am and to stop commenting on my weight, weight loss, or the food I eat. Being nagged about what I weigh or how I eat has never been helpful and has only made me feel worse.

If you are interested, I’d be happy to share what I am learning.

Thanks for your love and concern.

Signature: ______________________________________________

HEALTH CARE PROVIDERS : PROVIDING SENSITIVE CARE FOR PEOPLE OF ALL SIZES

To __________________________:

Your patient is providing you with this fact sheet because he or she would like your support in incorporating sustainable health habits as opposed to focusing on weight loss or restrictive eating.

Many people assume that weight loss is a prerequisite for good health. It’s not. Believing that it is leads many people to feel helpless about their health.

Despite admonitions to lose weight and a proliferation of weight-loss attempts, Americans aren’t getting thinner. Many people will continue to live out their lives in larger bodies. You can accept this and support them in being as healthy as possible.

Abundant research demonstrates that health habits prove to be more important than weight. Please partner with your patient in celebrating his or her body and making choices that honor it.

Here’s the easy prescription:

• Supply your patient with the same treatment you would provide to a thinner patient with a similar concern. Focus on treating the condition rather than the weight.

• Show compassion for how difficult it is to live in a culturally stigmatized body. Support your larger clients in handling the unique challenges of their bodies.

Educate yourself about Health at Every Size. Attached is the Health at Every Size Manifesto, a short synopsis of the underlying issues. Join increasing numbers of professionals in this exciting new paradigm shift, making a difference in their patients’ lives.

Patient Name ___________________________________________

MOVING ON: FROM WEIGHT TO WHAT MATTERS

Weight.

Few topics are as complicated and consuming. That’s because most of us view the world through a weight lens, whether considering if we can afford the calories in a dessert, calculating the exercise price we should pay for indulging, judging ourselves when we look in a mirror, or making assumptions about someone’s character based on their body size.

Weight is an easy scapegoat. We blame it for health problems or problems getting a date. We use it as an excuse not to buy clothes we want, not to approach people who interest us, and not to take chances, whether socially, recreationally, or professionally. After all, we think, “Why would they want to hire me? I’m too fat.” “Those pants just won’t look good until I lose weight.” We also use weight to discriminate against others: “We can’t have her in the reception area—we want to project competence.” We consider thinness a virtue and weight loss a requirement for heavier people to achieve good health and get respect.

Then there are the ideas about how to lose weight. As in: A virtuous person monitors and controls his or her calorie intake, just says “no” to dessert, and spends two hours a day at the gym to work off last night’s cheesecake. Drugs, surgery, a worthy person should do anything to help win the weight-loss game.

It may come as a surprise to learn that these common assumptions are not supported by science or reason. Buying into them is the true source of our collective discontent. Conversely, understanding the reality behind these weight myths can be your journey to salvation.

So let’s do some debunking.

• Fat is not the killer we’ve been led to believe.

• Fat’s role in poor health has been greatly exaggerated.

• Dieting and exercise are not effective techniques for long-term weight loss.

We can choose to appreciate the body we are living in . . . and move on. We can adopt good health habits and let our weight fall where it will naturally.

There’s a revolution happening. It’s called “Health at Every Size.” Participation is simple: Honor the body you live in. Take good care of it. Develop and nurture connections with others. Eat well. Find pleasurable ways of moving. Live fully.

The road to health and happiness is wide enough to include
you
—and everyone who crosses over that arbitrary boundary we call “fat.”

Want the data, rationale, and a strategy that supports this way of living? Check out
Health at Every Size: The Surprising Truth About Your Weight
(
www.HAESbook.com
).

A MESSAGE FOR PEOPLE WHO HAVE DISEASES BLAMED ON THEIR WEIGHT

Maybe you think that if you’d done a better job of controlling your food intake and weight, you wouldn’t have diabetes or heart disease or hypertension—or whatever your diagnosis is. But chances are you’ve tried to diet and manage your weight. Perhaps you shed some pounds that later returned. You wonder why you can’t just take better care of yourself.

Stop blaming yourself!

The scientific reality is that genes play a greater role than weight in the development of all diseases associated with weight, including diabetes, atherosclerosis, hypertension, and cancer. We’re all born with challenges written into our genetic code; this just happens to be your challenge. Your body is genetically vulnerable to a particular disease(s) and environmental components triggered that genetic propensity. While other people may be able to live a lifestyle that allows them to not pay much attention to how they eat and how active they are, this lifestyle doesn’t work as well for you. It’s just the way it is, and learning to accept it will bring unexpected benefits into your life.

Your diagnosis woke you up to the fact that your body is having trouble. Now you can rise to the challenge. You can learn how to better manage your health and nourish yourself.

The first step to healing is to let go of those assumptions that stop you from moving on, starting with the idea that you need to lose weight. The value of achieving and maintaining weight loss has long been an unchallenged assumption for so many diseases and you may be surprised to learn that there is very little evidence as to its veracity. In fact, an abundance of evidence suggests the pursuit of

weight loss is actually harmful, setting us up for physical and emotional difficulties and distracting us from what really matters.

While it is true that some diseases are
associated
with weight, that just means these diseases are more likely to be found in heavier people—not that that the weight itself causes the disease. The research that determines these associations rarely considers such factors as fitness, activity, history of dieting, stress, nutrient intake, weight cycling, or socioeconomic status. Yet all play a role.

When studies
do
control for these factors, the increased risk of disease disappears or is significantly reduced. What’s likely going on is that some or all of these other factors increase disease risk as well as the risk of weight gain. In other words, there’s much more involved in the relationship between weight and disease than weight itself. The role of weight has been misrepresented and exaggerated.

All health indicators, such as blood pressure, cholesterol levels, or blood sugar control, can be improved through lifestyle changes, even without weight loss.

The new paradigm in health care is called Health at Every Size (HAES). HAES encourages you to focus on wellness rather than body size, making changes that more directly affect your health and well-being. HAES helps you focus on what truly matters and allows your body to determine the weight that’s best for you.

Can HAES really help me improve my health?

The answer is a resounding YES! HAES has been evaluated in several studies and the results published in well-respected scientific journals. The studies find that HAES is much more effective in improving health than the pursuit of weight loss is. They also show that people enjoy HAES and are much more likely to make it a part of their lives on an ongoing basis than dieting. This enjoyment leads to ongoing changes in eating and exercise behaviors—changes that can last a lifetime.

Is it really okay to stop trying to lose weight?

It’s not only okay—it’s the basis of positive change. Living a
Health at Every Size
lifestyle isn’t about giving up, it’s about moving on.

This commentary was abridged and adapted from the article, “Reclaiming Pleasure in Eating,” by Linda Bacon and Judith Matz,
Diabetes Management
magazine, (2010, in press).

For more information, check out
Health at Every Size: The Surprising Truth About Your Weight
(
www.HAESbook.com
).

BOOK: Health At Every Size: The Surprising Truth About Your Weight

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