CW: a before-and-after photo depicting weight-loss through a person holding up/wearing much bigger pants than their size. Ugh. But then there is lots of incisive criticism, too.
Part of what I do as a FIFI blogger is check out the latest research on health, fitness, nutrition, wellness and longevity to write about for your occasional consumption. Most sources come from mainstream news, science journalism and newsletters, and the majority of those are brought to my attention by Samantha (thanks for being always on the case!)
A woman wearing and holding out the waistline of pants that are much bigger than her size. In case the message wasn’t clear, the belt is a tape measure.
So what’s wrong with this picture?
First, the study isn’t about weight loss, so breaking out the big-pants model to illustrate it is false advertising.
Second, ENOUGH WITH THE BIG PANTS PHOTOS! It’s one of the most cringey types of before-and-after diet images in existence. It not only screams “bigger body bad, smaller body good” but it does so by mocking the owner of the bigger pants, who is, presumably, the same person standing inside them, but at some previous date.
That’s a lot of subtext and self-loathing and implicit and explicit fat bias, all in one image. I plan to contact Science Daily, in my joint capacities as FIFI blogger and feminist bioethicist to ask them WHAT THE HELL WERE THEY THINKING? I’ll let you know if I hear anything back.
In the meantime, let’s all agree that we don’t want any more big-pants photos out there as a way of illustrating weight loss. I’d be happy with no big-pants photos at all. With one exception.
David Byrne. He can wear big pants anytime. Because they go with his big suit.
Burning down the house– ptimary purpose of big suit.Big suit needs big pants.
And in case you’ve forgotten or have never seen the big suit in action, here you go. You’re welcome.
There’s big news in sports this week: Serena Williams is officially back playing professional tennis. winning a straight-sets doubles match with her partner, Canadian Victoria Mboko, over the 3rd seeded pair in the Queen’s grass court tournament in London. Mboko was unfortunately injured during the tournament, having to withdraw from further play for the time being. Williams plans to play with a different partner in the Berlin open next week.
Not sports news, but nonetheless reported by the NY Times and other venues: Serena Williams has been taking Zepbound, a GLP-1/GIP weight-loss drug for weight loss.
Williams, 44, said that she made the decision after trying just about every other avenue. She had not wanted to take “the shortcut,” she said on Oprah Winfrey’s podcast last August, but, Williams said, getting to where she wanted to be after her two pregnancies was not working through training alone.
“I couldn’t beat the weight. It was the one opponent I couldn’t beat,” Williams, who manages her treatment through Ro, a telehealth company for which she serves as a paid ambassador, said.
And oh, do the commenters have comments! But first, some facts:
Serena is one of the greatest athletes of all time, having won 23 Grand Slam singles titles, two Serena slams, 367 match wins, and lots more here.
We FIFI bloggers love writing about Serena, including here and here and here and here.
Serena has had two babies and is 44 years old, which means that biology wants her to weigh more now. Biology is very persuasive with bodies.
Exercise, even intense athletic training (especially for women), doesn’t bring about weight loss. Studies have shown this, and you can read about them here, here and here.
Commentators, including both professionals and randos, never miss an opportunity to offer opinions on Serena’s body size, shape, age, clothing, work, parenting, you name it.
Serena is taking a GLP-1 drug– Zepbound, which is tirzepatide, for weight loss.
She is a paid ambassador to a telehealth company (Ro) that sells Zepbound, and her husband is an investor in the company.
Now, to the comments. But– humor me–one more little thing:
Why, oh why, do so many people have so many utterly unfounded, unsolicited and unwelcome opinions about Serena Williams? I mean, really. For example: In a 2019 poll, one in eight UK men said they thought they could take a point off her in a tennis match. This was after her 23rd Grand Slam win. I’d love to watch them try. If you doubt at all, check this out.
Okay, now to the NYT commenters’ comments. They include a wide range, of which some are below.
They minded that Serena’s doubles partner wasn’t mentioned enough.
They implied that by playing doubles, Serena wasn’t really back; after all, she only had to cover half the court.
They implied that taking a GLP-1 drug is like doping.
They said confused and false things (some wildly wrong) about the effects of GLP-1 drugs on muscle mass (fact: weight loss of any sort tends to reduce muscle mass)
They also said Serena was:
Self-prescribing (NO)
Offering medical advice (NO)
Doping in general (offering no evidence that she has and there is NO evidence that she has)
Doping because GLP-1s are performance-enhancing drugs (NONONONONO—I will be blogging more about this next week)
Then there were the science-splainers. This one was my favorite:
“it’s[GLP-1 effects] a consequence of how your body prioritizes what to break down for energy. This is governed by individual biology..”
NO. DEFINITELY NOT. SO NOT.
This one just made me mad:
I don’t understand the argument that she couldn’t beat her weight issues. I remember a time, way before GLPs when people lost weight the good old fashioned way I.e eating less, working out and staying active. When Serena, who during her prime years was one of the fittest and most athletic tennis players of all time, now says the only thing she couldn’t beat was her weight, this leaves me scratching my head.
DO YOU NOW? Because there was NO TIME IN HUMAN HISTORY in which many/most people lost weight the old-fashioned way and kept it off. Also, Serena is a woman who has had two children, one while still playing world-caliber professional tennis. And she is now 44. Which brings me back to the biology fact from the first fact list.
If you admire or love or respect Serena Williams even a fraction of the amount I do, you’ll now be on your guard against this newest pile of anti-science-and racist-misogynist nonsense. But I can’t leave you all riled up with nowhere to go.
I leave y’all with my favorite auto-correct comment:
what a terrible message to send to youth antlers.
Yes, let’s all be on our guard to protect those youth-antlers from GLP-1s in the wild.
Protect the antlers of our youth now from GLP-1s! Vamoose, I say!
CW: discussion of paying people to lose weight, with an eye to showing its flaws, both medical and moral.
Saturday morning I was perusing my email and ran across the most recent Ethicist column in the NY Times. I enjoy and respect philosopher Kwame Anthony Appiah’s thoughtful answers to sometimes thorny, sometimes appalling social and moral questions. We don’t always agree, but then again, what two philosophers are always on the same page? We even manage to make a living (if not a very handsome one) disagreeing.
Articles, books and comics, all honoring philosophers disagreeing. It’s a thing.
Back to the issue at hand. The Ethicist was called to weigh in on the following question:
Can we ask our son to go on weight-loss drugs in exchange for a house?
If you’re in a hurry, here’s the answer: no.
For those of you who prefer pictures to words:
No. Absolutely not. Thanks, Debby Urken for this colorful NO.
Before I get into what I think is wrong with paying people to lose weight, let’s hear from Appiah. He was his usual measured self, but he came down strongly on NO. Here’s a bit of the question:
Several years ago, my husband and I purchased a house for our son, with an agreement that he would pay us back. He remodeled it from scratch and has been making his payments to us fairly regularly, though he misses occasionally when other priorities arise. We both agree that we would like to gift him the remaining balance on the house...
Our son, however, is morbidly obese, and my husband wants to condition the gift on his getting on a GLP-1 program, which would mean using about half his monthly savings to pay for the medication. I feel that a gift is a gift and you should not extort a grown man, even when it is in his best interests. Your thoughts? —
Basically they’re asking if it’s okay to withhold giving the house to their son (which they had already planned to do) until he starts taking a GLP-1 weight-loss drug for weight loss.
What does The Ethicist say in response? Here’s an excerpt:
It’s not always wrong to attach conditions to a gift. Sometimes the conditions are intrinsic to what’s being given. There’s nothing coercive about a college fund that requires enrollment…
By contrast, your son is fully capable of judging the evidence and deciding what to do with his own body. His choice not to pursue treatment may be misguided, but it’s his to make, and the condition is unrelated to the gift. What your husband is considering isn’t extortion; withholding a benefit isn’t the same as imposing a penalty. But it’s disrespectful.
…not only does your husband’s plan treat your son like a child, it also may not be effective in the long run.
So consider another gift, the kind where the condition is intrinsic to what’s being given: Offer to defray the costs of his treatment. You have the means, and this way you’d be giving him something without saying anything about how much you trust his judgment. He may still decline. If he does, you’ll need to make your peace with the fact that it’s his body and his life.
Okay, I think that is an okay, if overly mild-mannered answer.
Here’s my non-mild answer, which is in three parts, in increasing levels of non-mildness.
Part one: Paying people to lose weight isn’t effective long-term.
There are loads of studies examining the effectiveness of financial incentives for weight loss (as well as smoking cessation and other health-related behaviors). What’s the upshot? Some people respond in the short-term (that is, during the period of the study or cash payments). In this 16-week study, participants were put into three groups: 1) playing a lottery in which they won money if they hit target weight; 2) depositing their own money and receiving funds if they complied with protocols and also hit target weight; 3) control group.
What happened? After four months weight loss in experimental groups was higher (13–14lbs) than in the control group (3.9lbs). But at the seven-month follow-up, differences were not statistically significant. And few of the participants opted to continue the financial incentive study.
There are loads of such studies, along with systematic reviews, and they generally show the same outcome: maybe a little weight loss to start, but 1) it’s a small amount; and 2) participants regain weight after the study ends. Which is demonstrably bad for health– yo-yo dieting leads to lots of bad health outcomes.
Part two: paying people to lose weight is coercive, showing disrespect for them as autonomous persons.
In the studies I looked at, the participants tend to report lower incomes, and the financial rewards are typically in the $300–500 range. This amount may convince someone who needs the money to participate, but it preys on their economic insecurity rather than appealing to whatever motivations they have about any health-directed behavior change. We see this pattern in other global health care ethics issues, in particular around surrogacy tourism, where vulnerable populations have been targeted for coercive financial arrangements. Read more here about surrogacy tourism in India.
Am I saying that paying people to lose weight is ethically just like paying them for surrogacy, or for their organs? No. But, once money is in the mix, exploitation, coercion and abuse have quickly followed, and this is well-documented.
What Appiah suggests instead is that the parents offer to cover the costs for GLP-1 meds IF their son wishes to take it. That’s the mild-mannered approach I mentioned above.
Here I part ways with him. Is offering to pay for another person’s GLP-1 meds a sketchy move? Yes. Why? Making such an offer is implicitly making a negative judgment about another person’s weight (namely, that it should be lower), conveying that judgment to them, and forcing a confrontation/discussion about the person’s own weight and health values and goals, which are nobody else’s damn business.
To be sure, we commonly negotiate uncomfortable and personal discussions with people we are close with, especially about health-directed behaviors. Sometimes those discussions are useful, resulting in extra support that is appreciated.
However, in the case of body weight, I argue that silence about it is always golden. We are all aware of what our bodies are like, and are reminded constantly of the ways they may fail to conform to unrealistic media standards. In short, the son knows what his body size is like, and is doubtless well-versed in general population concerns about body weight ideals. Which leads me to part three:
Part three: making an unsolicited offer to pay for another person’s GLP-1 meds reinforces the culture of weight stigmatization and discrimination, and burdens the other person with a vivid reminder of it in the face of someone they care about.
Yeah, pretty much that. The son is getting a clear message that his parents think his body is unhealthy, too big and needs to be smaller. And they are considering leveraging his need and desire for a HOME against their desire for him to change his body size. Ew.
And even Appiah’s soft-soap approach still conveys the parents’ thoughts and judgments, even if it doesn’t implicitly threaten him (yes, they are making a positive claim– giving the him a house– but there’s a negative one underneath–making him continue house payments).
Just as the son certainly knows what the parents think about his body weight, he also probably knows that they will help him if he asks. IF HE ASKS.
So, my advice is saying nothing until and unless he asks for financial help in paying for GLP-1 meds.
This baby says be quiet, hold up, say nothing. Thanks, baby.
My dear readers, you may agree with me, or you may disagree. As a philosopher, I welcome all comments. So tell me what you think…
This is an anecdote, not a study result so take it for what it’s worth to you.
I needed some prescriptions refilled so I went to my doctor to get the annual testing done to confirm I still had the correct dose. He sent me a message saying that he recommended doubling my cholesterol medication because I am pre-diabetic (I am not) and have a history of heart disease.
I pushed back, pointing out that similar testing had been done at the heart institute three months prior, and the results were well within normal ranges for fasting blood tests. While my non-fasting results at the clinic were a little higher, they were still normal. This led to some back-and-forth about risk factors as a heart patient.
I wasn’t happy with what I was hearing so booked another appointment to discuss in person. I am “lucky” enough to have results of a recent CT scan on my femoral arteries, an angiogram, and a carotid ultrasound. All showed that my arteries are very clear. My heart disease is a mechanical thing that will be fixed with surgery. He admitted he doesn’t normally have access to that level of information so started to shift his approach.
He moved on to lifestyle and how I was possibly still high risk. Eating patterns: near-vegetarian who pays close attention to fibre intake. Exercise: at least 5 hours of moderate to intense movement each week. Weight: yup, it’s heavier than BMI recommendations, but it’s also mostly solid muscle (see previous note on exercise) and it has remained unchanged for over 30 years.
Diane in one of her favourite fat athlete photos. She is wearing a colourful bikini and blue cap. She is holding her orange float for open water swims and posing in the Ottawa River on a grey and cloudy day.
In short, I am a case study on why medical professionals should not rely on weight to judge overall health.
In the end, he agreed that my risk assessment should drop from high to low. My medication will not be changing.
Thanks fellow bloggers, especially Sam and Catherine, for writing so often about this issue and giving me the courage to speak up.
CW: discussion of body weight, weight gain and body shaming.
This week in the New York Times Ethicist column (written by a famous and very good and very nice philosopher, Kwame Anthony Appiah), the featured question was by a couple who expressed their concern about their adult daughter’s weight.
Sigh. Really?
Okay, I guess there are people on the planet that haven’t yet gotten the memo that talking to people about their weight is virtually always (as a philosopher I admit that maybe there’s some strange exceptional case, but I can’t think of one) the wrong thing to do.
Basically, the daughter used to take dance classes, which the parents really liked. But she doesn’t dance now, and they think she eats too much sugar and fat in her diet. They ask for advice from the Ethicist, wrapping it up this way:
She may be headed for a serious weight problem. How can we raise this with her without making her feel self-conscious or judged, and without pushing her away from us? We love and respect her and want to see her live a healthy life. Please advise!
This would now be the perfect time for the Ethicist to say, kindly:
Be quiet. Do not talk to her about this. Say nothing. Shhh!
Shhh! By Kristina Flour for Unsplash.
But no. He didn’t do that. Instead he said this (an excerpt from his response here from the New York Times):
If the undertone of your concern is nostalgia for the lean dancer she used to be, she will hear it, no matter what words you choose, and you’ll only push her away.
If, however, what you truly want is to support her well-being, then speak to her as an adult, with respect and candor, rather than as a child whose body you wish were different. That means keeping the focus on health and family history. Make sure she knows the concern comes from love, not disappointment — that your concern is for her well-being, not her waistline.
Well, the NYT commenters had other thoughts.
This frog begs to differ. So do I.
There were 1.1K comments this week, and, while I didn’t read all of them, they were pretty much of one voice about talking to the daughter (or anyone, ever) about their weight. Here’s one of my favorite comments:
Don’t comment on others’ weight. Never. Not when they’re pregnant, not when they’ve lost weight, not when they’ve gained weight, not when they have cancer. It is never helpful.
Some folks in the comments section were genuinely interested in whether there was something you COULD say that would be helpful. Here’s how that went:
“There has to be a way to productively comment on someone’s weight in a way that will help them.”
If that were true, don’t you think we would’ve hit on it by now?
Yep. Totes agree.
I liked this response, too:
To the mother asking “Should I tell my daughter I’m concerned about her weight?” – Trust me: you already have.
Many commenters told stories about having been fat-shamed by family and then distancing themselves in order to maintain their own well-being. Others maintained contact but still feel the hurt. They all agreed:
Just don’t do it. Ever.
Lots of questions about personal interactions are complicated. This one isn’t. The NYT commenters have spoken.
CW: some mention of body weight in children and use of the word “obesity”. Sorry, I’ll keep it to a minimum.
If you’re a news-attentive person, you know it’s become hopeless to keep track of all the evidence and good-sense-absent decisions by the Trump administration.
Full and happy discplosure: most of my info is from the superb podcast Maintenance phase episode on this topic. You can listen here and read the transcript here. And I recommend listening to other episodes of this podcast, hosted by the superb Aubrey Gordon and her superb co-host MIchael Hobbes.
If you need a reminder about what exactly was the President’s Physical Fitness Test:
It sort of started with the Kraus Weber Test, developed in the 1940s, which tested children once on a few physical tasks (this I got from Wikipedia):
A simple sit-up with knees bent and feet planted
A sit-up with legs extended and not bent
Raising feet while lying on the back
Raising head, chest and shoulders off the ground while lying on the stomach
Raising legs off the ground while lying on the stomach
With knees straight, bending forward to touch the floor
Then, American Bonnie Prudden used the test on American children (insert lots more detail I’m not including), and found that 58% of kids didn’t pass the test. Meanwhile, only 8% of European children given the test (under other circumstances at different times, etc.) failed the test.
Insert big panic here.
Then-President Dwight Eisenhower was horrified at these results. So, instead of turning to education or medical or public health experts to investigate to see if there was actually a problem (along with increasing funding for physical education in schools and communities), he founded a presidential commision:
Important and famous people have served on these commissions. However, no one did any research at all on:
whether the original or modified versions of the test actually measured anything meaningful or useful in children (Spoiler: NO)
why American children didn’t do better on the test (Spoiler: they hadn’t practiced calisthenics in school like the Europeans did; with 6–8 weeks of practice kids did fine on the test)
what a one-time physical fitness test should show– current physical fitness? potential short-term fitness? potential fitness in adulthood? overall health? predictions about future health? (Spoiler: it showed none of these, as determined by later research)
If all schools in the US gave ths test every year to school children, what they would do with the data, like develop funded programs for improving fitness from the baselines, or even track kids’ fitness over time (Spoiler: no one did any of this, ever)
The commissions did make very nice recommendations, like:
Set aside more time and facilities and staff and training for kids to do a wider variety of sports that are accessible to everyone—e.g. fishing, bowling, archery, etc. Also, make time for free play with other kids, without the parents/teachers supervising and guiding (from Maintenance phase transcript)
Doesn’t that sound sweet? (Spoiler: the commission’s recommendations were ignored in favor of modified versions of the original test, which– as I think I mentioned earlier– measured nothing at all, other than someone’s ability to do those required tasks at that time.)
So, this test was given all over the US to all the school kids with no health goals at all. Yep.
Until 2012, when the Obama administration pivoted away from the test and toward an emphasis on overall health and activity, rather than measured (for no reason) performance. Yeah, that sounds better, doesn’t it?
Hmmm. Then why does the Trump administration want to bring it back?
In short, (you can read the long version here) because Trump and RFK think that there’s a crisis of obesity, chronic disease, and poor nutrition in the US, especially among children.
Bringing back this test will Make American Active Again, according to the press release (Spoiler: it totally won’t).
Okay. But, just for the sake of argument, why not bring it back?
Glad you asked. In addition to the above information which leads us to believe that this test doesn’t measure anything or contribute in any healh-goal-directed way to children’s health or fitness, there’s this:
Everyone hates this test. Teachers hate it. Kids hate it. Parents hate it. Why? It makes almost everyone feel bad about themselves or children they care about for no good reason.
There’s some evidence that tests like these make kids hate physical activity. That’s the opposite of what we wanted, right?
Oh, and there’s overwhelming evidence from tons of research that physical activity does not have strong effects on body weight. Physical activity is predictive of all sorts of great health outcomes like longevity, improved mental and cognitive health, and loads of other things we blog about regularly. So, bringing back the test will arguably have no positive effects on distribution of body weight among school children.
Here’s a great quote from Aubrey and Michael:
There was no evidence to do it in the first place. The evidence that it works is non-existent. And the evidence that getting rid of it is good is out there.
Need I say more? Oh, I want to. There’s so much wrong with these tests. But I’ll leave it for another time.
In the meantime, dear readers: do you recall taking these tests in gym class? What did you think? Was there one kid who climbed the rope all the way to the top, and can you remember their name?
You would think that, after study upon study shows how body weight is significantly genetic, that weight stigma would go away.
You would think that, given that virtually all medically-prescribed diet programs result in regaining the weight lost during them after 2–5 years, blaming people for regaining weight would go away.
You would think that. But, no, it hasn’t. Weight stigma is still very much alive and well and out there. However, researchers are studying weight stigma in more detail, with the goal of addressing it (both internalized and external forms) and reducing its harms to all of us. That’s a good thing.
Here are a few examples of what some researchers have been doing about it.
Weight stigma was directly associated with greater depressive and anxiety symptoms. Moreover, the relationship between weight stigma and greater depressive and anxiety symptoms was mediated by greater perceived stress. Perceived stress explained 37% of the relationship between weight stigma and mental health outcomes, even after accounting for Body Mass Index.
Using standard measures for anxiety, stress, and depression, the researchers found not only that being stigmatized for one’s weight gives rise to anxiety and depression, but that perceived stress from weight stigma also brought on these mental health symptoms. This was regardless of BMI in the participants.
In this 2024 study by Janet Tomiyama, David Figueroa and others, the researchers examined how changes in information for recruiting people for human research studies might affect the number of higher-weight people participating. They note that higher-weight people are often absent from scientific studies, and considered “difficult to recruit”. As a result, studies in which they are absent are subject to sampling bias. Here’s what this study did:
…this study experimentally manipulated the phrasing of weight‐related information included in recruitment materials and examined its impact on participants’ characteristics.
Two visually similar flyers, either weight‐salient or neutral, were randomly posted throughout a university campus to recruit participants (N = 300) for a short survey, assessing their internalized weight bias, anticipated and experienced stigmatizing experiences, eating habits, and general demographic characteristics.
Although the weight‐salient (vs. neutral) flyer took 18.5 days longer to recruit the target sample size, there were no between flyer differences in respondents’ internalized weight bias, anticipated/experienced weight stigma, disordered eating behaviors, BMI, or perceived weight.
That is, researchers have choices over how they present initial information to potential participants in studies; if they mention weight-related procedures (in this case gathering data about height and weight), they should know recruitment might take longer, but not necessarily affect the outcome of the study.
A paper that came out in 2021, based on the Eating in America study, also by Janet Tomiyama and colleagues, gathered data on some of the negative health outcomes associated with weight stigma. They found:
…weight stigma was significantly asso- ciated with greater disordered eating, comfort eating, alcohol use, and sleep disturbance, after controlling for covariates. No such relationship was observed for physical activity.
They also found that lower BMIs don’t reduce the negative health outcomes for those experiencing weight stigma:
In our sample, individuals across the weight spectrum, not only those with overweight or obese BMIs, reported weight stigma. In fact, moderation analyses indicated that individuals with lower BMIs showed greater disordered eating and alcohol use in the face of weight stigma.
They conclude, quite reasonably:
Taken together, these findings highlight weight stigma as a potential barrier to healthy behaviors, and suggest that one strategy to improve population health may be to reduce weight stigma. Though more research is needed, it may be important to employ more weight-inclusive approaches to health pro- motion, such as removing stigmatizing language or weight outcomes from health policies and program objectives.
Yes, agreed.
Research on weight stigma shows that it’s still very much present and is associated with very many negative health outcomes. It can and should be addressed, and we have ideas on how to do that.
So how about let’s do that. Maybe now, don’t you think?
CW: discussion of weight, weight loss and fat phobia.
Weight Watchers filed for bankruptcy this month. It’s trying to manage a $1 billion debt after pivoting to a telehealth-focused service that combines its food plans with GLP-1 weight loss drugs and an app to manage eating and weight loss.
This model is a dramatic change from the Weight Watchers founded by Jean Nidetch in 1963. It offered an eating plan, advice about physical activity, and (most important for its members) meetings where people would share their experiences and get support around their weight goals.
Let me say right now that I’m not advocating for Weight Watchers here; quite the opposite. But humor me for a minute while I remind us of what Weight Watchers did and what it has meant (and still means) to some folks.
This 2010 newspaper article about Weight Watchers meetings in Jacksonville, Florida paints a clear picture of the power of Weight Watchers. Meetings feature so-called inspirational talks by women who’ve lost weight (and yes, they include before-pictures; sigh). They also offer nutritional and physical activity tips. All this happens after the initial weigh-in. Yep, they still do that.
Lots of women love this setup. They are angry and disappointed about the mass closings of WW meetings all over the US and beyond. You can read comments at the bottom of this article to get a sense of how important regular in-person contact with others has been. Many women are what’s called Lifetime Members (having reached their goal weight and fulfilled other requirements). The main perk of the lifetime members is free access to WW meetings. It is this perk that’s ending, or rather switching to virtual or app-based. An app is not what these women want. They want support and connection with others.
A New York Times opinion piece this week praised WW for providing a “third space” for women to gather, connect, support each other despite their social differences. It waxes wistfully about the democratizing effects of WW meetings:
In recent years WeightWatchers meetings became one of the all-too-rare places in America where conservatives and progressives found themselves sitting side by side, commiserating about the same plateaus or the same frustrations or the same annoyance that the powers that be had changed the point value of avocados, again.
Okay, it’s now criticism time. Yes, WW provided a space for women to come together and share their feelings about their bodies. But instead of telling them that they were just fine as they were, it (literally) sold them the idea that their lives would change for the better if only they kept focusing their energies and spending their time on reducing the size of their bodies. And, of course, paying for the WW plan.
Weight Watchers didn’t invent fat phobia, but it’s certainly profited handsomely off it for decades. Weight Watchers doesn’t support misogyny in its corporate charter, but it embodies it by pulling in mostly women (this article estimates that 90% of its members are women) and uniting them with the message that they are not acceptable as they are, that they will be happier if they can just lose enough weight to get to some distant goal. They deputize other women to tell stories of their success, not mentioning that in studies, the average weight loss at one year is very small, and regain of weight happens over time in almost all cases.
The 2015 obituary of Jean Nidetch, the founder of Weight Watchers, is a vivid example of how fat phobia follows women throughout their lives, and (in this case) beyond the grave. The writer made sure to publish her weight when she died, pointing out that she weighed the same as she did after her weight loss in the 1960s.
The piece is filled with body-shaming terms: pumpkin-shaped (yep, it’s in there), overweight (seven times), chubby, and gluttonous (I’m really not making this up).
Yes, it’s 10 years old. And Weight Watchers itself has become more circumspect about weight loss, marketing itself as a health-focused plan. But we know, and all its members know, that it’s all about the weight– the weight of women. It needs to be watched, all the time, for a lifetime. That’s the message that Weight Watchers is trying to hang onto amidst its restructuring and pivot to GLP-1 drugs. New technology, same fat phobia.
CW: some of my recommendations talk about body size, weight loss, fat phobia and weight discrimination. But luckily not all of them…
I love listening to podcasts in the car during my commute to and from work, and especially on long car rides as I go visit friends and family. Here are a few I’ve really enjoyed this year:
Weight for it— One of the panelists on the above-mentioned podcast is Ronald Young, creator and host of the podcast Weight for it. If anyone you know is fatphobia-skeptical, play them 5 minutes of this episode and they’ll be cured forever. It’s about weight discrimination by the airlines and airline passengers. I wrote about this abomination on the blog a while ago here. But you can listen to Ron and also Aubrey Gordon (host of great podcast Maintenance Phase) here: Into Thin Air
Field Trip— I blogged about this podcast last summer while I was driving to and from western New York State. I loved it so much, it convinced me to plan a trip to see nature in Florida this winter. And I did– I’m going to see manatees in February! More on this later. The episode about Everglades National Park is my favorite (obvs) but all of them are great. They illuminate the complex history and rich experience to be had in national parks.
Tested podcast by the CBC–this podcast six-part series is about sex testing in women’s athletics. It offers some historical information and tracks the stories of some elite female runners whose biology conflicts with (outdated and false) views about what women athletes should be. Definitely worth a listen.
Wiser than me with Julia Louis-Dreyfus–I’ve only listened to a few episodes of this podcast, but I’m lookin forward to hearing more as I travel for the holidays. In eachof them, Julia has long, satisfying conversations with older women who have important, funny and insightful things to say. From Nancy Pelosi to Jane Goodall to Patty Smith to Billie Jean King, there’s an interview to suit everyone’s interests and tastes.
Readers, do you have any favorite podcasts you listen to and swear by? There are so many out there, I’d love to hear what you’ve found.
Last week was Weight Stigma Awareness Week. In case you missed it, here are some highlights from their website and from instagram.
They are super clear about the need and importance of fighting weight stigma. And I love the graphics!
From a video by Dr. E-K Daufin: This #WeightStigmaAwarenessWeek is all about taking action. 👊 Taking action against weight stigma means actively challenging harmful stereotypes, biases, and discrimination based on body size or weight—which involves spreading awareness and creating environments where people of *all* body types feel respected and valued. 🧡
Here’s Ragen Chastain on how to ask for weight-neutral medical care:
Call ahead and ask for a provider who is willing to treat you without weight loss recommendations.
Ask the provider to focus on the issue that brought you to the appointment. Not weight.
Ask the provider to prescribe what they would for a thin person.
You can exercise your right of informed refusal to weight-loss interventions.
Instagram graphic version of the list– same info, prettier colors.
If you missed Weight Stigma Awareness Week, it’s definitely not too late to take part. Their motto this year is “Awareness to Action”. We can point out weight stigma when we see it, check it in ourselves (as it’s so deeply entrenched) and support each other in appreciating all bodies for what they are and what they do for us.
