Diets, the weight loss industry and all that.

[GothAnneGeddes]

My Facebook is currently awash with the South Beach diet. Were my life to flash before my eyes, I'm sure there would be a surprisingly high amount spent listening to other people talk about diets.

It's shit. Self denial, foods being "naughty", eating being "bad", encouraging women to hate their bodies, crap science and it all seems to be more popular then ever and it fuels a billion pound industry.

And I think it's a massive example of the patriarchy at work and generally encouraging women to feel like lesser beings.

Hmm but there are foods thatveevshould be eating more of and foods we should be eating less of

I'm currently approx 3 stone overweight and desperately sad about it

Agree, GothAnn. It's another form of body-policing, isn't it?

worst of all it makes people fat, longer term

Ugh. I blame the diet industry for obesity levels.

Ok, not quite that simple, but, you know.

I just re-read Fat Is A Feminist Issue. It did me a lot of good. Recent bad-time-induced weight gain is sliding off now and I am not dieting.

What's depressing is when the AUTHORITIES adopt this diet stuff line. I had a leaflet from the local authority earlier this year which told me to feed my daughter low fat and sugar free (ie, sweetener-ed) foods. For heaven's sake. Yes, I'm going to take her off a largely natural and unprocessed diet and put her on processed unhealthy crap. Sod off.

What do you all think about the acceptance movement kateharding.net/faq/but-dont-you-realize-fat-is-unhealthy/, and Health at Every Size? I only heard of it recently and a lot of what they say seems like a blast of sense. But I don't know enough to judge whether the science behind it is reasonable.

link fail... * the fat acceptance movement : kateharding.net/faq/but-dont-you-realize-fat-is-unhealthy/

The diet industry is fucked up full stop. But I don't think its just limited to women and I think the pursuit of profit is increasingly being used to target men now too.

The was a report on BBC local news not two weeks ago about the sudden rise in the use of steriods amongst men in the pursuit of the 'perfect' male body. And going on some of my husband's friends (and indeed his own body image), its a worrying trend. A lot of them are on diets for various different reasons - to loose weight or to build muscle.

So whilst it might primarily be targeted at women, I do think that the industry sees everyone as fair game, and are happy to exploit and create body insecurity across the board if they can get away with it.

But I don't just blame it on profiteering. I do have to say that public health promotion teams and government policy have a lot to answer for, in supporting the word diet and the promotion of "good" and "bad" foods and their lack of ability to understand the messages coming from advertising and how they counter them properly. Instead the 'health' messages are poorly thought out and the result is that it is adding to the confusion and the lack of understanding about diet. Instead they are reinforcing the advertisers rather than getting rid of ignorance.

I think the diet industry is so bad for women. So many diets push heavily processed food or severely restricted types of diets. I did read in comments somewhere someone saying that all the research about fat being unhealthy has been done largely on men and that since they started including women, they have had different results. Does anyone know about this or know whether it is true?

Would make sense Eats. Most medical research is primarly done on white males, so I really wouldn't be surprised in the slightest.

Absolutely, gothanne.

I thought I was reasonably healthy about eating and was much better (since I had issues in the past), but recently my GP suggested looking at how much of various things I'm eating and found that although my BMI is quite high, I really need to eat more protein. I've been really enjoying buying lots of lovely meat and fish and eggs, and making myself big lunches, and it made me realize that even when I think I'm eating 'lots', I hadn't really been enjoying making my body healthier because I did have at the back of my mind this idea that I really could stand to lose half a stone. Talking to mates I think that's so often true.

It'd be nice to do something like the resisting femininity threads, where we resisted dieting! I am really surprised how much more energy I have when I'm eating plenty of good oily fish and meat ... it's making me think too how there's still an assumption red meat is for men and women 'prefer' dainty chicken or fish or salad. We haven't actually moved so far from the days when women got anemic because the red meat was automatically for the men and not for the women, although women are more likely to need the iron.

Oh, and I can't fucking stand the latest weightwatchers advert. It makes me want to throw things.

LRD - A resisting dieting thread is I think a great idea!

All for resisting unhealthy, short term diets. But being fat is not a positive feminist statement. When I am overweight I feel and look shit. And that's got nothing to do with modelling myself on some twig like celeb pushed by the patriarchy. It's the evidence before my eyes. I have less energy. My clothes are too tight.

Your clothes are too tight because you haven't got the right size clothes. In terms of energy, I personally find eating healthy and being active gives me a lot more energy. When I put on weight it is usually because I haven't been doing this. But the few times I have put on weight and have been doing this, my energy level has been up.

But I know that is only anecdotal

chub - I agree that eating the wrong stuff can make you feel unhealthy. But can't we frame it like that? I think what I find so disturbing is that eating unhealthily is actually promoted by a lot of the diet industry, but simultaneously demonized by them when it leads to being fat.

The better option IMO is to eat in a way that makes you feel good, physically and emotionally. In order to do that, I think we really do need to unpick and argue against the diet industry's idea that fat is somehow more than just a physical state of being and elevated to something almost morally awful.

The moderation message is the important one. Not dieting. Not that hard to grasp. And instead its conveyed as 'cut out sugar, salt etc'. Which actually you do need, just not in huge amounts.

My clothes are too tight because I used not to be overweight but now I am. I have lost over two stone and need to lose more. I could buy bigger clothes but I don't want to be overweight and refuse to accommodate it or accept it by doing so.

I understand denial about the extent of a weight problem, I used to do it myself. I've never seen it framed as a feminist badge of honour though.

It's interesting, there was a recent study saying that maybe the idea that exercise helps with depression is not actually correct. I think exercise is great but I also think when it's pushed as something you do in order to be thin (as it often is), it's a problem too.

When I go for a walk regularly I do feel much better, but some of that has to do with the fact I've taken time for myself, and not been fretting away at work or whatever.

There was an article on BBC Breakfast a few days ago about how women's waist size is becoming the preferred method of measuring obesity and increased danger of diabetes, stroke, blah blah...

Fancy having a guess at how small our waists are meant to be?

chub, who's in denial?

Lots of people.

Shirley I would guess under 30 inches?

Surely it can't be a fixed inch thing - how on earth would that work when some of us are over 6 feet tall and some under 5!

oh i think i will order Fat Is A Feminist Issue, thanks mochan

Close - under 31.5 inches (80cms)

Seems very small to me

The GP then measured Susannah's waist on air, and I just thought...Fucking Hell.