Happy (one day belated) International No Dieting Day! Today (or any day you want) is when we cast off the dieting shackles and learn to eat and move normally. I started my blog in 2005 with the same advice I have now: Diets. Don't. Work. This includes non-diet diets such as Jenny Craig and Weight Watchers. They have a high failure/ low success rate (especially among their spokespersons). Eightly million people in the USA are currently on diets and most will not succeed because they are often fighting against biology. Dieting can cause disordered eating, binge eating, body dysmorphic disorder, low self-esteem, health issues from yo-yo dieting and a hit to your wallet. Most dieting plans are fewer calories than your body needs to function. Instead of fighting against your body, listen to it. Feed it when it's hungry, and put food that it likes in it.
To me something like HAES (TM) is a good outlook on health for people of all sizes who want to incorporate healthy habits without being dictated by the scale. I have mentioned before when I was dieting everything was black and white. On the diet, everything had to be perfect in what I ate, and how I moved. If was good, my self worth was high. Off the diet was binging on unhealthy food, no movement and self loathing. Today I try to eat a "diet" of mostly fruits and vegatables and move every day. I don't stop doing one healthy habit because I didn't do the other.
This is something doctors in the UK might want to take notice of. Apparently a survey of some UK doctors found that 54% of them don't think smokers or fatties deserve treatment for non-emergency care. (Good thing it was a small sample.)
Bedfordshire PCT, for example, decided to withhold hip and knee surgery from obese patients until they had slimmed down by 10% or had a body mass index of under 35. Similarly, North Essex PCT obliged obese people to lose 5% of their bodyweight and keep the pounds shed for at least six months before receiving treatment.
So imagine you are fat and while walking, you trip on something and hurt your knee. You aren't dead or have a life threatening condition. You can still walk but boy does your knee hurt. You go to the doctor who tells you he won't fix your knee unless you lose 25 pounds. Where does that leave you? Even if you believed in the myth that fatness is 100% to do with eating too much and not exercising, how are you supposed to exercise on a bum knee? What might happen is you end up lying around and eating more. What the doctor needs to do is FIX YOUR FUCKING KNEE.
This is has very little to do with Healthcare and more to do with nickle and diming to save money. We are moving into a scary place where are casting those who are sick or preseived to be sick to just let them die. And in the case of fat people these aren't actually health judgements but moral ones.
Ragen Chastain on her blog sums it up pretty well.
I will say it again: My life is not worth less than a thin person’s life. My health is not less important than a thin person’s health. I do not need to do anything to “deserve” the same healthcare that people with a lower BMI receive.
And to go completely off topic, to escape fat hatred for one day, if you are in the New York Metro area, get yourself to the Big Fat Flea. I took about 10 bags over to their storage unit yesterday, so I expect a lot of awesome clothes.
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