14 DAY TRIAL // A new study suggests that focusing on being skinny and losing that extra weight can actually lead to weight gain and a compromised health status, and advises people to focus on improving their health instead, regardless of their size.
In their new study, co-authors Linda Bacon, an associate nutritionist in the UC Davis Department of Nutrition, and Lucy Aphramor, an NHS specialist dietician and honorary research fellow at the Applied Research Center in Health and Lifestyle Interventions at Coventry University, England, bring evidence from almost 200 studies.
Bacon says that “although health professionals may mean well when they suggest that people lose weight, our analysis indicates that researchers have long interpreted research data through a biased lens.
“When the data are reconsidered without the common assumption that fat is harmful, it is overwhelmingly apparent that fat has been highly exaggerated as a risk for disease or decreased longevity.”
And even if “for decades, the United States’ public health establishment and $58.6 billion-a-year private weight-loss industry have focused on health improvement through weight loss,” this approach “does not, in the long run, produce thinner, healthier bodies,” she added.
“The [only] result is unprecedented levels of body dissatisfaction and failure in achieving desired health outcomes,” so “it's time to consider a more evidence-based approach.”
The study findings contradict the conventional ideas that weight loss prolongs life, that anyone can lose weight and keep it off through diet and exercise, that weight loss is a practical and positive goal and the only way overweight and obese people can improve their health, and finally, that obesity is an economic burden for society.
Aphramor explained that the most troubling about focusing on weight loss are “the unintended negative consequences ... including guilt, anxiety, preoccupation with food and body shape, repeated cycles of weight loss and gain, reduced self esteem, eating disorders and weight discrimination.”
After concluding that the weight-focused approach is wrong and it has no scientific evidence whatsoever, Bacon and Aphramor say that people should be encouraged to focus on developing healthy habits instead of weight management, since it is “a more ethical, evidence-based approach toward public health nutrition”.
Changing health behaviors can improve blood pressure, blood lipids, body image, self esteem, as well as other factors, indicating good health and well-being, regardless of body weight.
Of course, healthy habits favor weight loss, but the goal is not being thinner, but being healthier, and this practice has become known as Health at Every Size.
Linda Bacon wrote the 2010 book called 'Health at Every Size: The Surprising Truth About Your Weight' which is based on previous research, and also founded the Health at Every Size Community Resources, available online.
“It is clear from our review of the data that body weight is a poor target for public health interventions,” she said.
“Instead, the health care community should shift its emphasis from weight-management to health-improvement strategies, for the well-being of people of all sizes.”
This new study appeared in the Nutrition Journal, an online scientific journal.