HealthNotDiets Digest, Issue 28, 2018
July 8 - 14, 2018
As always, if you like what you read here, please support the original author by liking/sharing/following/up-voting/subscribing directly to their feed.
Happy reading!
Articles and Blogs
You Don’t Have to Feel Beautiful to Care for Your Body
by Renee Engeln
“take out a pen and paper (or a laptop) and write yourself a letter harnessing the compassion we so often feel for others but fail to give ourselves. You can show your body kindness, respect, and gratitude without changing a thing about how you look.”
Is the staggeringly profitable business of scientific publishing bad for science?
by Stephen Buranyi
“In 2010, Elsevier’s scientific publishing arm reported profits of £724m on just over £2bn in revenue. It was a 36% margin – higher than Apple, Google, or Amazon posted that year.”
A Guide to Parenting Fat Kids
by Linda
“When your child asks, “Why is that person fat?” or “Why are you fat?” or even “Why am I fat?”, don’t tell them it’s mean to ask that question. Tell them that it’s just one way for a body to be. Explain to them that no two bodies are alike”
One-third of Australians are 'jet-lagged' from lack of sleep
by Anna Patty
“Sleeplessness is damaging our everyday lives much more than people realise”
The hidden art of reassurance
by Jonathon Tomlinson
“Affective reassurance come[s] from the way we behave; calm, assured, confident, kind and gentle. Eye contact, appropriate touch, a hug even. The way we dress – smart but not overly formal, and the way we move; at ease, but not slovenly, can be reassuring”
I’m an older man with an eating disorder but to medical professionals, I’m totally invisible
by Anonymous
“The doctor’s assessment of me as ‘slightly overweight’ wouldn’t leave my head. With every day that passed, I became more and more convinced that I was huge and disgusting.”
CW: description of eating disorder experience and behaviours
How Bryony Gordon learned to run for fun, not for a tight bum
by Eve Simmons
“I stop. I know when my body is telling me to stop. There are days I can run for miles and miles but days when I can’t do anything. That’s fine too.”
Uncomfortable truths
by Georgie
“disordered eating behaviour (purging, restricting, etc.) can severely impact our diabetes management and increase the risk of complications, diabetic and otherwise....Diabetes and an eating disorder is deadly.”
Why you should never buy superfoods
by Matt Preston
“The only charcoal I’ve got in my house is for the barbecue or for sketching pictures of my wife. I’m not sure if either of these are ‘activated’.”
A draft agenda for fat justice
by Your Fat Friend
“I came to body positivity because we live in a world that would rather see us dead than fat...I came to body positivity because I am tired of fighting a war I never wanted.”
Health At Every Size (HAES): A Guide for Binge Eating Recovery
by Isabel Foxen Duke
“Health At Every Size (“HAES”) is a weight-neutral approach to healthcare that promotes the pursuit of healthful behaviors...for the inherent health benefits of those behaviors, rather than for the explicit purpose of weight manipulation.”
Calories In = Calories Out is BS
by Marci Evans
“manipulating one’s weight is not as simplistic as calories in = calories out and reducing our experience to such an incomplete equation is both false and harmful.”
Slimming World encourages members to “spend less time with overweight friends”. Nope.
by Lily Peschardt
“Fourteen women didn’t die in the Salem witch trials so their legacy could be used by a soulless weight-loss company seeking to infantilise fully grown human beings by tricking them into exercising.”
Dear Doctors, I Know My Body: An Open Letter to the Male, Medical Professionals Who Blew Me Off as a “Girl Being Dramatic”
by Lani Skelley
“Dear Doctors, I ask that you do better. BE better. Do not look at twenty something year old women, scared out of their minds, like they ARE out of their minds.”
How Fat Shaming Leads To Eating Disorders
by Ragen Chastain
“fat shaming girls, especially by family, does not lead to healthy behaviors but instead can lead to eating disorders.”
Unhealthy
by Linda
“so much of our behavior toward food is an act of faith...Dieters do not worship in silence. Oh no. Wade into the comments section of any article about [diets] & see how long it takes for someone to pull up a soapbox & evangelize.”
We Can't Keep Treating Anxiety From Complex Trauma the Same Way We Treat Generalized Anxiety
by Vicki Peterson
“If you are feeling anxious or depressed, it’s important and urgent to find the right support for you. No one gets a prize for “worst” depression, anxiety, trauma or any other combination of terrible things to deal with, and no one should suffer alone.”
5 fat activists sound off on how thin people can become real allies
by Melissa A Fabello
“The balancing act of trying to be an appropriate ally to the fat acceptance movement, while also staying true to and documenting my own journey, is a difficult one. There are often more questions than answers, more screw-ups than celebrations.”
Research &
Clinical Practice
If screening is worth doing, it’s worth doing well
by Margaret McCartney
“For screening to be effective it’s important to know who will benefit from it. One needs to know the denominator when working out the chances of patients being harmed or deriving benefit.”
Could make same argument substituting ‘obesity’ for atrial fibrillation.
McCartney Margaret. If screening is worth doing, it’s worth doing well BMJ 2018; 362 :k2986
Multivitamins provide no protection against heart attacks, study finds
by Victoria Ward
“Multivitamins do not protect against heart attacks...Overall, they found “no association” between taking multivitamin and mineral supplements and the development of cardiovascular disease, coronary heart disease or strokes and their related deaths”
Soapbox & Shareables
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