Fresh! Food Peace Weekly News May 3, 2016

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Everyone is talking about the Biggest Loser study via the NY Times. Did you read it? If you have been reading this Food Peace Newsletter for a while, you probably weren’t surprised by the study’s outcomes. It found the study participants (previous “successful loser” contestants on the Biggest Loser reality TV show) gained most of the weight back and 1/3 gained all or more. Research has been showing this for years yet because of the notoriety of the show, I think folks are taking notice.

Most people are asking 2 questions: 1) Should we abandon weight loss efforts? 2) Does that mean we give up and eat bon bons all day??

1) Yes, we need to abandon all weight loss efforts. Why? All long-term weight loss research shows weight regain long-term whether it is done slowly or quickly. No solution exists that safely and permanently promotes weight loss long-term. Even more, continuing to eat to lose weight harms health and predicts more weight gain.

2) Does this mean we give up? Only if you think in black and white terms. Not pursuing weight loss is not giving up. It is not letting yourself go, it’s letting yourself be. 

Eating to energize and promote health without pursuing weight loss will promote health long-term. Stop fighting your body whether you like it or not. It will welcome you home.

Be sure to check out this week’s Love Food podcast episode discussing how to regain body trust. If this Biggest Loser study is leaving an impression, the episode landed here in the nick of time. Listen now or scroll down a bit more.

Have a great week friends!
Warmly,

Julie

p.s. I absolutely LOVE this quote from Deb Burgard regarding the Biggest Loser study:

“Weight-suppressed people are not the same physiologically as people who were never heavier. This whole assumption that weight-suppressed people will have the risk profile of never-heavier people has never been tested — because people regain weight. And the weight loss attempt makes them less healthy in the long run. People who maintain weight loss are not physiologically different from the people I treat for restrictive eating disorders. We should not be prescribing for fat people what we diagnose as eating disordered in thin people.“

Making people truly healthier will require abandoning weight as the gold standard of a well-lived life and respecting the diversity of people’s body sizes, she added. “That shift would be an epic change. It would prevent harmful interventions to make everyone one size and it would prevent the harm from social rejection and discrimination based on weight.”

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