The FDA has approved the diet drug Lorcaserin (Brand name Belviq). In case the name is not familiar, I wrote about its potential dangers two weeks ago. As I mentioned before diet drugs and supplements have never worked in the long run and some of them are deadly. My only hope is that Belviq is merely ineffective (consider the low amount of weight loss on the drug, I don't know why anyone would think it could be successful.)
Pharma industries look at fat people as out of control eaters, hence most drugs work to try to reduce the appetite, supposedly making it easier for people to stick to low calorie dieting which doesn't work in the long run either. If your body doesn't get enough calories, it will slow down.
Pharma ignores genetic components. Some people are fat not because they are diseased or overeaters but merely that is how their body works and it isn't normal or abnormal compared to thinner person's body. Some doctors believe fatness is a disease, while other believe it to be a risk factor for God knows what. (I've mentioned before no matter what evidence is presented and what doctors believe, the cure for everything is weight loss) If fatness is classified as a disease, then it can be treated with drugs and surgery. In this article doctors argue whether fatness is a disease or a risk factor (i.e. we can't win, we are either diseased or have fat related disease.)
Meanwhile in Australia a government agency commissioned a series of ads calling fat people toxic, further stigmatizing fat people. Okay they didn't actually call fat people toxic but they did say we were filled with toxic fat. This article features eating disorders specialist Lydia Jade Turner who mention how ads like this do little to help people get healthy, but can create eating disorders and dangerous dieting:
Scaring and shaming people about their bodies is not the answer.
"Bullying under the guise of health is not helpful; research shows that shaming people about their body size does not lead to health-giving behaviours."
Ms Turner said anti-obesity campaigns only exacerbated the existing stigma and bullying based on body size.
"With a largely unregulated weight loss industry, many become desperate to escape fat stigma by engaging in weight loss behaviours that are harmful to health," she said.
Lydia and Sarah McMahon have created a petition against the ads. Please sign! Even if you aren't from Australia.
I have been doing a lot of posts lately about how stigma doesn't help people get healthy because it can create an atmosphere of thin or else. (As I mentioned in a previous post, fat people are even stigmatized when exercising) or eating disorders. Eating disorders have become not only common among teens and young adults, but now it is seen in middle aged women as well.
The researchers found that almost 4 percent report binge eating, nearly 8 percent report purging, more than 70 percent diet to lose weight and 62 percent say their weight or shape adversely impacts their lives, according to the report published June 21 in the International Journal of Eating Disorders.
So guess what dieting industry? Your plan worked, you have hooked your customers into the Diet/binge cycle for life and we can thank the government agencies who helped.
amen to all of it! Since I gave up dieting my energy level has gone up, my arthritis is in remission, and my mental health has improved. My weight is stable on basically eating whatever I want - unlike the predictions of never-ending weight gain I hear from the naysayers. I really think all I got from dieting was 100lbs heavier. Plus high cholesterol (thanks, Dr. Atkins!)
Posted by: Maryjane Heyer | July 02, 2012 at 09:59 PM