Against Obesity Panic

[jesse_the_k]

cathexys boosted a good piece from the HuffPost about the cruel impact of medical bigotry due to the obesity panic.

https://highline.huffingtonpost.com/articles/en/everything-you-know-about-obesity-is-wrong/

I’m furious I’ve been reading these same articles for 20 years.

Which led me to dredge up my favorite links:

Michelle Alison is the Fat Nutritionist. Her blog has scores of academic references as well as useful advice about learning how to enjoy eating while fat. Her 2017 Atlantic Monthly piece explores why people hold on to irrational and mean ideas about fatness.

https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2017/02/eating-toward-immortality/515658/

Here’s the unicorn chaser: the science of measuring food energy — calories— isn’t as simple as the bullies want us to believe

From “The Death of the Calorie” by Peter Wilson

A popular expression in English tells us not to “compare apples and oranges” and assume them to be the same: yet calories put pizzas and oranges, or apples and ice cream, on the same scale, and deems them equal.

The calorie as a scientific measurement is not in dispute. But calculating the exact calorific content of food is far harder than the confidently precise numbers displayed on food packets suggest. Two items of food with identical calorific values may be digested in very different ways. Each body processes calories differently. Even for a single individual, the time of day that you eat matters. The more we probe, the more we realise that tallying calories will do little to help us control our weight or even maintain a healthy diet: the beguiling simplicity of counting calories in and calories out is dangerously flawed.

https://www.1843magazine.com/features/death-of-the-calorie

Comments

[bibliofile]

Still a good article.

[jesse_the_k]

Yes indeed.

[replyhazy]

*throws things around room mentally in a fury at being proved right*

[jesse_the_k]

Indeed. Let's tack up some pictures of clean eating cultists so you have something to aim at.

[j00j]

Such a good article. I really appreciate Michael Hobbes' work-- the podcasts he cohosts (including one devoted entirely to debunking wellness bullshit) are great.

And I always love Fat Nutritionist.

The calorie piece frustrates me a bit because I feel like the author is so close to getting it but stuck on finding the secret to thinness (not a secret we need) even if they're acknowledging that calories are fake.

[jesse_the_k]

I think it would be useful if our food value numbers were actually accurate!

When I quacked "Michael Hobbes debunks wellness bullshit" I got Maintenance Phase which I look forward to exploring.

[j00j]

Yes, that's legit, it would be useful to know how much energy your average human will get out of foods (or even what I, individually will get out of a food). To say nothing of having any reliable information about how much of various nutrients we actually need.

Maintenance Phase is fantastic. "You're Wrong About" is my first love and they sometimes debunk wellness bullshit on there but mostly it's specific incidents or societal concepts the media get wrong.

[dhampyresa]

Thank you for the links!

[swingandswirl]

Oooh, I'd forgotten about this, ta. Off to beat various deserving people over the head with it!

Protect your hands with gloves while you're whacking

[jesse_the_k]

If I had a tasty bit of cheese for every time I've seen "it's simple, calories in = calories out" I'd be lactose-intolerant.