Giving Compass' Take:

• The author explains the underlying reasoning for why dieting and various weight loss programs do not work for everyone but instead contribute to weight stigma and fat shaming. 

• How can more body positive elements be incorporated into diet culture and fitness regimes? Why is mental health not a considerable factor when it comes to weight loss? 

• Read more about what healthy weight loss looks like. 

For many years, the long-term success rates for those who attempt to lose excess body weight have hovered around 5-10 percent. In what other disease condition would we accept these numbers and continue on with the same approach? How does this situation sustain itself? It goes on because the diet industry has generated marketing fodder that obscures scientific evidence.

The diet and fitness industry has supplied folks with an unlimited number of different weight loss programs – seemingly a new solution every month. Most of these programs, on paper, should indeed lead to weight loss. At the same time, the incidence of obesity continues to rise at alarming rates. Why? Because people cannot do the programs.

First, overweight and obese patients do not have the calorie-burning capacity to exercise their way to sustainable weight loss. Second, the body will not let us restrict calories to such a degree that long-term weight loss is realized. The body fights back with survival-based biological responses. Third, the microbiota in our guts are different, such that “a calorie is a calorie” no longer holds true.

Over time, this situation has led to stigmatizing and prejudicial fat-shaming, based on lack of knowledge. Those who fat-shame most often have never felt the biological backlash present in overweight and obese folks, and so conclude that those who are unable to follow their programs fail because of some inherent weakness or difference, a classic setup for discrimination.

The reality is, the body fights against calorie restriction and new exercise. This resistance from the body can be lessened using medical procedures, by new medications or by increasing one’s exercise capacity to a critical point.

Read the full article about ending the long reign of diet wizards by David Prologo at The Conversation.