According to the author of Secrets From the Eating Lab, our weight is largely genetically determined (I spoke about this earlier), and that we have a range of what is normal for us to weigh, and that without dieting, we can weigh on the low end of this range. Normally, during the course of my adulthood, I would gain and lose about thirty pounds, all within the normal weight range for my height, anywhere from the verge of being underweight to being about five pounds from being overweight--until recently anyway. Again, as the author said, it's hard for people to gain weight out of this range, and keep the weight on (she cited some studies), just as it is hard for people to diet out of their livable weight by being too light. If you try to mess with this range, you suffer some fairly drastic consequences.
There's a big problem with this argument, of course, and that's the fact that 2/3rds of the American population is either overweight or obese and that number has increased dramatically, just in my lifetime. It can't be due to genetic variability because there haven't been enough generations to naturally select for fat people, and therefore produce more of them, and therefore change the population. I've heard this argument before, I didn't come up with it, but I believe it to be fairly sound reasoning, even if it is evolutionary (which I'm personally not fond of for reasons I won't go into here).
So, are overweight and obese people just living in their genetically predetermined weight range?
I say no on that one. I read Fat Chance by Robert Lustig, brilliant researcher and doctor, who cited some possible environmental toxins as explanations for the increase in everyone's weight. There's this theory going around that the reason why people gain weight on Seroquel is because the drug changes the microbes in the gut (which is why I'm researching this very topic right now). I asked my doctors at Stanford as to how Topamax (which I'm currently on) works to help people to lose weight, and they didn't know.
Unfortunately, Dr. Mann doesn't offer much in the way of solutions. Her non-dieting dieting advice were things I had heard before. Like don't keep tempting things in the house because you will have a weak moment and eat them. Like eat a salad before your main course. Like don't eat to receive an emotional boost because it won't work. Etc. Honestly, if you want really good, non-extremist dieting advice, read the O Magazine. There are always helpful tips in there. Plus, Oprah, no matter how successful she is, she constantly struggles with her self-image and her weight, something that a lot of us average people can connect with.
Dr. Mann writes a full chapter on weight-based discrimination, but then later writes another chapter where she talks about being "okay" with your overweight body. She says we have better things to do with our time and energy than build the perfect body (even if we could), and therefore we should stride forward with other goals.
But if she's right, then someone's weight, and physical appearance, affects everything, including the job this person could potentially get or not get. I can understand that some people don't want to conform to society's standards and norms because they want to accept themselves as they are, and want other people to do the same. When I think of this, I think of trans and gender nonconforming.
But isn't it just all a hopeless message for those of us who are overweight or even slightly obese?
Do we buy into the stigma?
Yes.
Does that make us part of the problem, especially if we pass that message on down to our daughters (like my mother did to me)?
Yes.
But what do we do?
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