Intuitive Eating, Part 3

From the two previous posts we might have guessed that few medical professionals in the obesity field are on board with Intuitive Eating, but in this mixed-up world of today, that could always change.

Not surprisingly, Elyse Resch, one of the Intuitive Eating pioneers had, in her 30s, alternated between self-starvation and binging. Journalist Michelle Ruiz quoted her:

“I would try not to eat lunch, and in the afternoon, I couldn’t take it anymore and I’d eat something and then feel so guilty that I’d broken my ‘willpower,’” Ms. Resch said, adding that controlling her food had been an escape from her strained first marriage.

That is an interesting fact. In a troubled relationship, the most affected partner does not know whether to fight, flee, surrender, or lie down and die. So this sounds like displacement behavior, something to drain off excess brain energy. Ruiz also says,

Intuitive eating practitioners work on their own or with a dietitian; there are 2,000 certified intuitive eating counselors across 40 countries.

For followers of this philosophy, success seems largely to depend on a person’s ability to tune in to their own body’s signals of both hunger and satiation. This is not a widely-shared talent, especially among people who enjoy alcohol before, during, or after their meals. One negative experience is related by Adina Kish, a woman in her early 20s who gave it her best shot for a year and a half. Ruiz writes,

Trying intuitive eating for 18 months between 2020 and 2021 led her to “essentially binge eating,” Ms. Kish said, summarizing her resulting mentality as, “I should be able to eat anything, so I’m going to eat everything.” For some, intuitive eating amounts to an oversimplification — an ineffective response to the complex ways so many people relate to food.

At Michigan Medicine, Andrew Kraftson bears the long title of clinical associate professor of metabolism, endocrinology and diabetes, along with being director of the weight navigation program. In his view, the body is not always a reliable advisor regarding what should be fed into it, because “there is hormonal, neurobiological and metabolic dysregulation that can happen.”

Furthermore, a seemingly small weight change can bring about disproportionate benefits. For instance, for people in a pre-diabetic state, “if they lose 5 percent to 7 percent of their weight, they reduce their chance of developing full-blown diabetes by 60 percent.” People with hypertension and sleep apnea can also benefit greatly from seemingly small reductions.

Ms. Ruiz also spoke with a registered dietitian nutritionist, Liz Brinkman, who also became certified as an intuitive eating counselor. But over time, she has come to feel that its principles are based on some unstated assumptions about people that are not often true; for example, that they are “adequately resourced with time, money, and a sense of agency.” Sadly, these qualities apply to a quite small and inordinately privileged sub-group of humanity.

Many other professionals, including Dr. Pretlow, wish that people would “Honor your body” and “Honor your health,” but do not mean the same thing by it that the Intuitive Eating proponents do.

Your responses and feedback are welcome!

Source: “They Rejected Diet Culture 30 Years Ago. Then They Went Mainstream,” NYTimes.com, 01/18/23
Source: “10 Principles of Intuitive Eating,” IntuitiveEating.org, undated
Image by Fernando de Sousa/CC BY-SA 2.0

No Name-Calling, Please!

The illustration expresses an emotion felt by many overweight people. Some who are not even obese, but just a bit hefty, are very sensitive about public taunts. Today is the last day of this year’s National No Name-Calling Week. The exact dates change annually, but everywhere and all the time, people are called names and subjected to many sorts of bullying, for far too many reasons. Not surprisingly, Childhood Obesity News concentrates on the plight of obese children.

What should not even need to be stated, is that every week ought to be devoid of name-calling, fat-shaming, teasing, bullying, and the entire spectrum of behavior that involves making someone feel “less than” for being “more than.”

In 2004, the Week was founded by students and teachers, of kindergarten through the senior year of high school, with the goal of ending bullying and name-calling. Parents can help too, by looking up the how-to-take-action ideas.

Dr. Erica Lee, a psychologist at Boston Children’s Hospital, talks about the impact that childhood obesity can have on a child’s mental and overall health:

Weight and physical attractiveness are pretty strongly linked here in America and there’s a lot of negative stigma around being overweight or obese… This means there’s a lot of pressure and often negative attention on kids who are overweight or don’t fit that typical mold.

For any child, she recommends conversation about healthy habits. For those already experiencing weight problems,

Try to shift the conversation away from appearance or comparison to other people. Rather than focusing on a child’s weight or appearance, try to teach kids things like engaging in regular exercise and trying to have a relatively balanced diet… You can try to link it to whatever their goals are. If kids talk about wanting to be taller or doing better in school, you can explain to them that they need to eat lots of fruits and vegetables, and exercise.

Regularly acknowledge that their feelings are real. Try to avoid making any negative comments about your own weight or other people’s weight, and help your kids build strong self-esteem that has absolutely nothing at all to do with their appearance.

But objections to perceived fatphobia can go too far, as shown by an anonymous social media entry by a mother who took a group of children to a trampoline park. To use the equipment, a person had to weigh in at less than 250 pounds. This woman was livid with rage at being excluded, and warned her readers, “Thin privilege is a real thing! Stop saying it doesn’t exist!”

Perhaps, but the laws of physics do exist, despite our feelings about them. If a trampoline (or Ferris wheel seat, or bicycle, or pogo stick) is determined by its manufacturer to be unsafe for anyone above a certain weight, shouldn’t we all just relax and be grateful that regulations are in place to guarantee that we are warned about such safety hazards?

Your responses and feedback are welcome!

Source: “National No Name-Calling Week,” OK2bMe.ca, undated
Source: “No Name-Calling Week Activity Guide,” UnitedWayBroward.org, undated
Source: “Mass. psychologist on emotional impact on childhood obesity,” WCVB.com, 01/09/23
Image: Public Domain

National Healthy Weight Week

Hold on, didn’t we just have this? Actually, no. The recent observance was Lose Weight, Feel Great Week.

Confused by “This-That-and-the-Other” Week? Don’t feel like the Lone Ranger! Many different industries and organizations have staked their claims on days, weeks, or months, and designated them as having something to do with reducing the sum total of obesity. The third week of this month, January 15-21, is National Healthy Weight Week. The week, which has a noticeable social media presence, was ordained by unknown parties in 1994, in response to the shocking increase in so-called lifestyle diseases:

The number of people suffering from being overweight is at an all-time high. Diabetes, stroke, heart attack, and cancer follow obesity. It was widely believed that a healthy diet and consistent workouts could prevent obesity. We are no longer moving our muscles as much as we used to. The stagnant work style and the fast-food culture essentially destroyed our healthy lifestyle.

The purpose of the Week is not only to increase awareness of these societal ills but to encourage each individual to recommit to the goal of not becoming obese. Another source adds that the purpose is “to reinforce healthy eating as a way of life instead of dieting to lose weight. It also encourages movement and physical activity…” They also make the point that mid-winter, an occasion that reminds us to burn off some energy is much needed.

Another site connects interested people with workshops, providers (including corporate wellness services), and virtual health fairs. Matching “provider’s benefits with employees’ benefits” could prove to be very useful to any company that cares about the well-being of its workers.

“How to Get Your Weight in the Healthy Zone with National Healthy Weight Week” is from an organization that describes itself as an online college for the healthcare industry. They begin by flat-out declaring that diets don’t work, which is always a problematic phrasing, because all the things a person eats become, cumulatively, that person’s diet. Everyone has a diet, even if it only consists of french fries and gummy bears. Besides, a pureed diet works for someone unable to chew. A diabetic diet works for someone whose body has an impaired relationship with insulin. A low-sodium diet is good for someone who retains a lot of fluid — and so forth.

This site also establishes that there are uncontrollable elements that affect weight: they are “height, bone density, body type (endomorph, mesomorph, ectomorph), and body composition (the innate ratio of body muscle to fat).” Yet another site offers “non-invasive, medically managed surgical weight loss options” which leaves the reader wondering how a treatment could be both surgical and non-invasive.

Your responses and feedback are welcome!

Source: “National Healthy Weight Week,” NationalToday.com, undated
Source: “National Healthy Weight Week,” WhitneyRehab.com, undated
Source: “Healthy Weight Week,” Iabhp.com, undated
Source: “How to Get Your Weight in the Healthy Zone with National Healthy Weight Week,” WeCareOnlineClasses.com, undated
Source: “National Healthy Weight Week,” FlushingHospital.org, 01/20/21
Image by Thank You/CC BY 2.0