I am not one of those people who posts sick selfies and photos from medical appointments. It’s not that I’m above that. It’s more that a) when I’m sick I don’t have energy to curate my illness and b) I try to carry on with normal life as much as possible. Anyway, I have some sort of stomach bullshit, not appendicitis, not diverticulitis, thrilling. The good news is that I’ve watched just abou all my DVR’d shows and have read the papers that I still have delivered daily.
While waiting for my CT scan, radiology places are so friggin’ weird, I read “More Fitness, less Fatness” which explains how fewer overweight people view themselves as overweight AND fewer overweight and obese people are trying to lose weight. The absoluteness of the “fat acceptance” movement is worrisome to me. What about when weight is impacting someone’s health? I am dead against fat shaming but there has to be a middle road, a road where heathier is the destination, where we are neither shamed nor so fed up or frustrated we do nothing. There was this disputing the “obesity paradox” in the LA Times this week. As our BMIs go up, our risks do too, we all need to know where we stand, just as we know our vitamin D levels, blood pressure or blood sugar.
Then I came across, “Why you should stop trying to lose weight” originally in Washington Post. I’ll confess, I read a reprinted version in the NY Post. This article focused on the “anti-diet movement”. It was written by Ellie Krieger, a fellow R.D. At first, Ellie points out that being diety, my word not hers, or “being on the diet roller coaster” is not recommended. However, not all attempts at losing weight should be discouraged. “If we treat diet as a four-letter word, then the message is that trying to lose weight at all-even in a healthy way is something to be condemned.” Agreed and, for the record, this P.C. anti-diet movement rubs me the wrong way. Yes, we should ban restrictive, unsustainable plans focused solely on losing pounds. But being anti-diet because of that criteria is like being anti exercise because of that contraption you put around your waist and it shook you to death? They had one at my grandmother’s building in Florida, we got a kick out of it as kids, MANY years ago.
Rather than jumping ship, let’s improve the ship. Approaches to weight management need to evolve and leave you feeling better not worse or guilt-ridden. But I think we need to remove the kid-glove approach to weight and not be scared to discuss it. Both of these articles, for me, depict people without good options. Let’s make sure there are good options, when it comes to weight, that center around support, kindness and when necessary humor.
Isn’t it impressive how worked up I can get, from the confines of my own bed? There was another thing I learned this week. While I’ve been feeling like this, Marc was away golfing- a topic for another day, babysitter was off and I realized that my boys really don’t need me whatsoever. No problem, more time to read and blog.
Any interesting articles you’ve come across? Let me know. I’m always reading and clipping and am more than happy to give you my honest 2 cents
