HealthNotDiets Digest, Issue 40, 2019

November 8 - November 21, 2019

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!

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Articles & Blogs

Facing My Travel Fears: 40, Fat, Black & Vegan

by Nicole Vick

“Sometimes the fear of the unknown can hold us captive to what’s familiar and safe"

https://fatgirlstraveling.wordpress.com/2019/11/14/facing-my-travel-fears-40-fat-black-vegan...

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'There's nothing empowering for women about sharing misinformation'

by Kate Gregorevic

“Many health influencers...claim that they want to educate and empower women, but there is nothing empowering about sharing misinformation”

https://www.smh.com.au/lifestyle/health-and-wellness/there-s-nothing-empowering-for-women...

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A global diet—designed to protect the planet—is too costly for 1.5 billion people

by Emma Bryce

“for 1.58 billion people across the planet, that diet comes at a cost that actually exceeds their household earnings.”

http://www.anthropocenemagazine.org/2019/11/a-global-diet-designed-to-protect-the-planet-is-too-costly...

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Feel the HAES®? What Every Social Worker Needs To Know About the Health at Every Size® Framework

by Samuelle Voltaire

“As social workers, our values lie in social justice and honoring the dignity and worth of people...We are called to challenge and remedy the impact of discrimination as it occurs and in its many forms – including fatphobia.”

https://www.socialworker.com/feature-articles/practice/feel-the-haes-what-every-social-worker...

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Why We Fell for Clean Eating

by Bee Wilson

“Clean eating – whether it is called that or not – is perhaps best seen as a dysfunctional response to a still more dysfunctional food supply: a dream of purity in a [perceived] toxic world.”

This longish article is a couple of years old but pretty good overall - note it contains some medicalisation of higher body weights and (in passing) makes the unsubstantiated claim that childhood type 2 diabetes is diet related.

https://getpocket.com/explore/item/why-we-fell-for-clean-eating...

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Family meals: Challenging the importance of eating together

by Jo Lindsay

“Sitting down together every night is an unreasonable public health instruction on how to live...Instead of reinforcing nostalgic and unrealistic versions of family life and requiring the performance of frequent family meals, we suggest it may be useful for public health practitioners to imagine and support diverse family food practices”

https://lens.monash.edu/@politics-society/2019/11/15/1378386/family-meals...

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27 Responses to (Never-Ending) Diet Talk

by Your Fat Friend

“For those of us with histories of eating disorders, diet talk isn’t just small talk — it can directly, immediately harm our physical and mental health.”

https://humanparts.medium.com/27-responses-to-neverending-diet-talk-8379bd89423b

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Here’s Why Gaining Weight Was Actually The Best Thing That Ever Happened To Me

by Jamie Cattanach

“eventually I realized that if I ever wanted to pull myself from the iron cage I’d created — if I ever wanted to have the chance at an actually healthy relationship with food and my body — I had to let go of dieting entirely.”

https://www.huffpost.com/entry/body-image-weight...

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Eat Like The Ancient Babylonians: Researchers Cook Up Nearly 4,000-Year-Old Recipes

by Maria Goody, Scott Simon and Peter Breslow

“In the 1940s, a researcher named Mary Hussey suggested the writing was actually recipes, but "people really didn't believe her" at the time”

https://www.npr.org/sections/thesalt/2019/11/16/779930201/eat-like-the-ancient-babylonians-researchers...

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Kids will keep developing eating disorders until we address our relationship with food

by Joshua Wolrich

“If we are going to start reducing the rates of anorexia, we can’t continue to normalise eating disorder techniques in the pursuit of weight loss and health”

https://metro.co.uk/2019/10/24/kids-will-keep-developing-eating-disorders-address-relationship-food...

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Why Women Will Save Running

by Erin Strout

“The more visible, the more powerful, and the more lucrative the coaching position becomes, the fewer women you’re going to find. The reason why it matters is because when you have diversity in your workforce, abuse of power is less likely because you have diversity of opinions, perspectives, and safeguards."

https://www.womensrunning.com/2019/11/news/why-women-will-save-running...

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How Diet Culture Harms Women in Recovery

by Olivia Pennelle

“despite the fact that many of us were underweight when we came into recovery, we still treat any weight gain as a negative. That’s because of diet culture. We are quick to label our sudden increase in appetite and desire for highly palatable food as a problem. Some jump to the conclusion that they are addicted to sugar or food.”

https://www.thefix.com/diet-culture-harms-women-recovery...

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Why, for me, it was worth buying into the celery trend (and a $600 juicer)

by Madeleine Ryan

“Weight loss is not by any means an indication that a new way of eating is good”

Me, quoted in the Sydney Morning Herald this morning in a piece about the current celery juice craze....

https://www.smh.com.au/lifestyle/health-and-wellness/why-for-me-the-celery-trend-was-worth-a-spin...

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Ask Yourself This One Question About Exercise

by Cara Harbstreet

“We conflate health with weight loss all too often and if you initially started exercising at the same time you started a new diet, it may not be clear whether you enjoy the exercise or if you enjoy the results of dieting.”

https://medium.com/fearlessly-nourished/ask-yourself...

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I Am Forced To Be My Own Doctor Because Of My Weight

by Linda Gerhardt

“I swear, I am not being fat at you. I am just a fat lady, sitting in her socks in front a medical practitioner, asking for medical care.”

https://www.scarymommy.com/weight-sensitive-topic...

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Fat Shaming, Internalized Weight Stigma and Late Night Comedy: Not a Laughing Matter

by Judith Matz

“There is no way to be part of this culture and be exempt from it, so we need to actively examine our own attitudes in order to reject its hold on us and to make sure that we’re not complicit in perpetuating fat shaming, even if we don’t mean to do so.”

https://www.edcatalogue.com/fat-shaming-internalized-weight-stigma-late-night-comedy-not-laughing-matter...

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Starving and suffering, these prisoners of war dreamed up recipes for survival

by Farz Edraki, Brett Evans and Sarah Mashman

“The war changed many people's relationships with food, and the POWs were no exception.”

'It would've kept them going': On the verge of starving to death, they dreamed of food

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-11-10/prisoners-of-war-dreaming-of-food...

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I made a documentary about body dysmorphia disorder — here's how it made me re-evaluate my own body image

by Ruby Jones

“what I came to understand through making Investigating Body Dysmorphia, is that BDD isn't really about bodies at all.”

Talking to people with body dysmorphia made me question how I see myself

https://www.abc.net.au/news/health/2019-11-09/ruby-jones-body-image-eating-disorders-dysmorphia...

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Research & Clinical Practice

Recognizing the Fundamental Right to be Fat: A Weight-Inclusive Approach to Size Acceptance and Healing From Sizeism

by Calogero, et al.

"The evidence for the harms perpetrated through the pursuit of weight loss and the appalling long-term failure of dieting is overwhelming. Given this evidence, continued attempts by the diet and weight-loss industrial complex to sell people solutions to the “problem” of fatness amounts to experimentation on fat people."

Calogero, Rachel M., et al. "Recognizing the Fundamental Right to be Fat: A Weight-Inclusive Approach to Size Acceptance and Healing From Sizeism." Women & Therapy 42.1-2 (2019): 22-44.

https://www.tandfonline.com...

(sorry, it's behind a paywall but it's a great article if you can access it)

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The challenge of keeping it off, a descriptive systematic review of high-quality, follow-up studies of obesity treatments.by Nordmo, Danielsen and Nordmo

New study about the long-term effectiveness of weight loss interventions - and HAES gets a mention :-)

"The results suggest that excess weight can be lost but is likely regained over time, for the majority of participants"

"The current study highlights the relevance of prevention, rather than treatment interventions, as well as alternative approaches such as a health at every size approach. In addition, it suggest that stopping weight gain and establishing health promoting eating habits may be a more viable goal in treating adult individuals with obesity and that weight management is a lifelong process, not a short-term goal"

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/31675146

Nordmo, M., Y. S. Danielsen, and M. Nordmo. "The challenge of keeping it off, a descriptive systematic review of high-quality, follow-up studies of obesity treatments." Obesity reviews: an official journal of the International Association for the Study of Obesity (2019).

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Unpacking Weight Science Podcast

How about bite-sized podcasts that you can claim as professional development?!?

I've designed the Unpacking Weight Science Podcast to suit health professionals, health science students and anyone who wants to know more about human body weight, health outcomes, interpreting weight related research and the far ranging effects of weight bias.

The 20-30 minute monthly podcasts unpack different elements of weight bias & stigma, weight research, BMI, health behaviours and weight neutral approaches. Paid subscribers (only $5/month!) get instant access to all previous episodes plus full show notes, reference list, self-test quiz and resource materials for use in practice for recent episodes. This equates to an hour of professional development activity each month :-)

Available for subscribers now is:

'Leave them kids alone!

The problems with weight loss programs for teens'

Unpacking Weight Science Podcast Episode 28 is out now! The past year or so has seen the re-emergence of commercial programs and research studies that aim to make larger-bodied kids smaller in the name of ‘health’. In this episode I’ll be looking at the growth trajectories of larger-bodied kids, the links between weight loss efforts and height and weight growth, and psychological factors that need consideration in this vulnerable group of people.

Subscribe now at: https://www.patreon.com/UnpackingWeightScience

and instantly access 22 episodes before the rest of the world!

Episodes 1-5 are now on iTunes!

Search 'Unpacking Weight Science'

to listen to them for free!

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Training Opportunities

ONLINE (SELF-PACED)

Introduction to the Non-Diet Approach FREE

Unpacking Weight Science $79AUD

The Non-Diet Approach for Dietitians $199AUD

The Science of Self Compassion $39AUD

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Want more info about the non-diet approach or unpacking weight science? Resources include books, courses, workshops and handouts: visit www.healthnotdiets.com

See anything you think I'd like to share or comment about? Post in the comments below or email me at fiona@healthnotdiets.com