There's a bit of a tricky situation though, in that just because you lose weight doesn't automatically mean you are healthier. Anorexic women are praised by society for their unhealthy eating habits, and fat anorexic women:

Erin Harrop, a researcher at the University of Washington, studies higher-weight women with anorexia, who, contrary to the size-zero stereotype of most media depictions, are twice as likely to report vomiting, using laxatives and abusing diet pills. Thin women, Harrop discovered, take around three years to get into treatment, while her participants spent an average of 13 and a half years waiting for their disorders to be addressed.

The HAES movement moves the focus from losing weight, as dieting is a strong predictor of eating disorders:

In a large study of 14– and 15-year-olds, dieting was the most important predictor of a developing eating disorder. Those who dieted moderately were 5x more likely to develop an eating disorder, and those who practiced extreme restriction were 18x more likely to develop an eating disorder than those who did not diet. Golden, N. H., Schneider, M., & Wood, C. (2016). Preventing Obesity and Eating Disorders in Adolescents. Pediatrics, 138(3). doi:10.1542/peds.2016-1649

Staying active and eat intuitively do lead to losing weight, but there are many ways to lose weight and harm your body. By focusing on health, you avoid a lot of these pitfalls

[-] eduardog3000@hexbear.net 1 points 3 years ago

None of what you said is consistent with being "healthy at every size". Of course how you lose weight can be unhealthy, but again, someone who is 300 lbs is not healthy and will never be healthy unless they lose weight. Healthy at every size insinuates it's possible to stay 300 lbs for the rest of your life and be perfectly healthy. It's just not.

[-] carlin@hexbear.net 0 points 3 years ago

You've created a strawman of HAES and you're asking me to defend it, please read the article from last week https://www.dropbox.com/s/ybfbkqak4wtu3wp/What%20is%20%22Health%20at%20Every%20Size%22%3F.pdf?dl=0

[-] eduardog3000@hexbear.net 1 points 3 years ago

It's not a strawman, it's what those words in that order literally mean...

[-] carlin@hexbear.net 0 points 3 years ago* (last edited 3 years ago)

I'm not engaging in this conversation until you read that piece. Health at Every Size is a very specific movement, it's not just the meaning you assign to the words. There's a little FAQ at the end of that piece with common myths, one of the myths is "The HAES model argues that people of every size must be healthy"

[-] eduardog3000@hexbear.net 1 points 3 years ago

"These words we use that have a certain meaning aren't actually what we mean."

I looked through the paper, I get what you are trying to say, but the phrase "healthy at every size" just doesn't work. And neither does the insistence that being fat isn't necessarily unhealthy.

There are some good ideas in there. A reduced focus on weight and focusing on a more holistic approach to health can be good, but weight is still an important factor. But again, that's not at all what the words "healthy at every size" convey. It conveys the idea of a very fat person having no more health problems than the average person, which just isn't the case.

But reading the paper I get the impression that they think there is not necessarily anything wrong with being fat. That fatness is perfectly fine. It's not.

lmao, here's a particularly egregious line from the paper:

The diseases that are associated with higher BMI also occur at low BMI. If fat-ness causes these diseases, why do they exist across the weight spectrum?

"Lung cancer also occurs in non-smokers. If smoking causes lung cancer, why does it exist in both smokers and non-smokers?"

And the story about "Jody" shows someone doing all the wrong things to lose weight. It's not her trying to lose weight that's bad (at 195 anyway), it's the way she tries to lose weight. No shit 1000 calories a day isn't healthy. And avoiding fat and carbs is misguided as well. As for 105 Jody, that's a problem of thinking she's overweight when she's not. That may come from some social stigmas that need to be worked on, but that doesn't mean overweight doesn't exist, and it doesn't mean 195 Jody isn't overweight.

one of the myths is “The HAES model argues that people of every size must be healthy”

I didn't say that. The model says fat people can be perfectly healthy, which just isn't true.

[-] PaulWall@hexbear.net 1 points 3 years ago

Thanks for putting effort into fighting this nonsense. This poster is making medical concerns arbitrary by bringing attention away from the syndrome of obesity and focusing on the symptoms which possibly can be “present at every BMI level.”

Your analogy of the syndrome of smoking causing the symptom of lung cancer is apt here. For how are we to stop endemic lung cancer without stopping endemic smoking, and how are we to stop what are provably endemic symptoms of obesity without first dealing with obesity?

(my usage of ‘symptoms’ and ‘syndrome’ was chosen bc the word syndrome is widely considered ‘that which causes symptoms’. by calling obesity a syndrome, i am only claiming that it produces symptoms. there is not meant to be any further negative connotation than it being the thing that produces symptoms)

this post was submitted on 28 Feb 2021

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