1. Weight loss is a simple matter of willpower
We’ve all heard that weight loss is easy. People just need some good old-fashioned will power. This myth is so ingrained in our culture that it’s assumed that a person with a fat body is lazy and undisciplined which can lead to discrimination in employment opportunities and by health care professionals.
“Most people try to use willpower and determination to lose weight. Weight loss is the wrong goal to have (we’ll get to that in a moment) but, nonetheless, willpower is not the right skill to use to achieve that goal,” says Dr Kausman.
“Willpower is a terrific skill to have but it’s a short-term skill. You use willpower for things like studying for exams. But you wouldn’t have enough willpower to force yourself to study for exams every day for the rest of your life.”
“Weight loss and healthy eating is the same. People just run out of willpower, they run out of the ability to deprive themselves. Willpower is not the right skill to use to try to achieve long-term sustainable change.”
2. You can shame yourself (or other people) thin
We raise our eyebrows when we see an overweight person eating carbs and wonder if we should say something to our fat friends and family ‘for their own good’. We think humiliating fat people in shows like Biggest Loser is ‘tough love’ and we ask our friends to police our eating and weight loss and hate ourselves when we inevitably fail.
“A much better skill to use to be the healthiest we can be is self-compassion,” says Dr Kausman.
“We should work on being kinder to ourselves. The research shows that if we can be kinder to ourselves then we tend to look after ourselves better. We will do things that will help us look after ourselves better rather than punish ourselves or set ourselves targets that are impossible to achieve.”
3. Doctors and health professionals are experts in weight management
“Weight management and the psychology of eating is a relatively new area of health,” says Dr Kausman.
Doctors, dietitian and psychologists are experts in many areas, but according to Dr Kausman weight management and the psychology of eating is very often not one of them.
“In a short period of time we have seen weight gain for a significant number of people, as well as a thin ideal that is almost impossible to achieve” says Dr Kausman. “The education and training for health professionals has not caught up to deal with this problem.”
“On the whole, GPs, dietitians and psychologists are very poorly equipped to support somebody who might come in and say that they feel they are above their most healthy weight and looking for advice on what they should do about that.”
4. The weight loss industry are weight loss experts
“The weight loss industry just has to die,” says Dr Kausman.
“All weight loss organisations are businesses that do a brilliant job of masquerading as health providers. They are not health providers. They are geared to what is going to make the most money and not what is most helpful for their clients, so they are never going to be helpful.”
“The mere idea of weight loss companies offering a life membership is a joke. The whole premise is ridiculous because it’s the opposite of what you want to be doing. They should be aiming to free people from the distress and disempowerment of counting, measuring and weighing.”
“I don’t want my patients to be a member of my practice. I want to work with them to make this issue really quiet in their life. Whereas the weight loss industry wants to hang on to you, disempower you to keep you as members,” says Dr Kausman.
Kausman is not alone is suggesting that weight loss companies do more harm than good. A 2007 article in American Psychologist which reviewed 31 weight loss studies reported that, ‘One study found that both men and women who participated in formal weight-loss programs gained significantly more weight over a two-year period than those who had not participated in a weight-loss program’.
“The evidence is really crystal clear that dieting doesn’t work and that it can lead to eating disorders. Yet these weight loss organisations have managed to stay one step ahead of the general public’s, but also health professionals’, awareness about these issues. But they are being wound in as we speak,” Dr Kausman says.
5. Diets lead to weight loss
“What we know — and we now have the science to prove it — is that dieting doesn’t work, certainly in the medium to long term but often in the short-term as well,” says Dr Kausman. “We also know that, for most people dieting causes weight gain. And that the most common path to an eating disorder is weight-loss dieting.”
“We need to shift the focus away from weight as the goal and onto looking after ourselves. We need to stop focusing on the end point and start valuing the process.”
Dr Rick Kausman has been running a weight management and eating behaviour clinic for 25 years. He’s a director of the Butterfly Foundation, a fellow of the Australian Society for Psychological Medicine, and the author of If Not Dieting, Then What?
I shared this article because it was well written on a topic that receives a lot of bias. It gave adequate detail with some positive direction for a short document.
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Great article!! Hope it gets some wider publicity. I consider the point made at the start regarding discrimination from health care providers is an extremely important one to make, especially for those who are working with often already marginalised young people. The risk of a young person disengaging from health care because they feel judged is just too great a risk. The social determinants of healthy weight (or what ever other term or word you want to use) also need to be discussed if the health system is to move beyond blaming the individual.
At last someone is telling the truth, but in the process of dissociating himself from this weight loss propaganda, what gain does he hope to have? Selling his book ? Support for the ‘butterfly foundation? What is that?
The Butterfly foundation is a very worthwhile organisation. Read below and check thier website: http://thebutterflyfoundation.org.au/vision-mission/
The Butterfly Foundation is dedicated to bringing about change to the culture, policy and practice in the prevention, treatment and support of those affected by eating disorders and negative body image.
The Butterfly Foundation provides support for Australians who suffer from eating disorders and negative body image issues and their carers.
I was rather disappointed with this article; I logged on with great interest but it seems to me that the article has given no real information on how to achieve weight-loss other than to sign up for Dr Kausman’s weight management clinic, which is part of the weight-loss industry it criticises.
The one part of the article that I do very strongly support is the concept that being kind to yourself is the first step; this is a key element of Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT).
Following the ACT model, the next step would be to forget about weight-loss and work on your health and fitness; weight-loss will follow. Most gyms now work towards loosing centre-metres rather than losing kilograms.
Then identify some long-term positive goals that you intend to achieve:
• Positive goals address things you can physically work towards and involve action (for example: ‘My goal is to walk one kilometre in 10 minutes.’).
• Whereas, negative goals address things you want to stop doing and involve inaction (for example: ‘My goal is to stop eating cream-cakes.’).
Don’t fool yourself, both positive and negative goals require willpower, the problem with negative goals is they focus your willpower on the very thing you don’t want to think about: if you doubt this then try not thinking about cream-cakes and see how successful you are.
Now work out some actions that you will do immediately to start you on your way to achieving your long-term goal (for example: walk up a flight of stairs every day; have an alcohol-free day twice a week; eat salad for lunch every second day; etc.). The more actions you take the better but don’t overdo it; it’s better to start with only one or two actions and add more as you go than to start with ten and drop some off because it’s too much for you to do.
Lastly, start a progress chart so you can record your achievements, that is note when you do an action and every now and then check how you are going with your long-term goal (i.e. how long it takes you to walk one kilometre).
And, don’t forget to reward yourself with a cream-cake every now and then and to celebrate the achievement of your long-term goal with a bottle of wine and a new goal!
Thanks everyone for your comments. I am in a very privileged position having been working for 25 years in this area of health. In one article, all one can do is create some awareness. The big picture is getting the truth out to health professionals and the general public. What do I get out of it – individually helping someone feel better about the health and well being is a huge privilege. And where I can, increasing awareness in an area of health that is probably 10-20 years behind our understanding of a health issue such as depression. But change is coming.
The term ‘weight loss’ is in itself negative. What happens when we lose something? We want to regain it…even if that message is given to ourselves at a subconscious level. Rather, I feel we should think in terms of ‘sculptureing’ ourselves to a realistic body shape based on our bone structure. The goal should never be to lose weight. Maybe shed wait would be a better term to use. But even this is slightly negative. A more positive goal: to become our optimum physical self.