Just when people were gearing up for another chance to lose weight The New York Times published “The Fat Trap” to discourage them, or at least to remind them that the odds are not in their favor. Many readers could probably relate to wellness columnist Tara Parker-Pope’s story of gaining, losing, gaining and eventually giving up. Unfortunately, her professional take on the matter is poorly researched and biased by her own experience.
There are two major problems with the article: First, it generalizes the problem of weight regain from that occurring after weight loss on a medically supervised very-low-calorie diet to weight loss on any kind of diet or healthy eating plan. Secondly, Parker-Pope is overtly dismissive of weight loss success stories that any fitness and weight loss professional would recognize as worthy of role-model status.
“The Fat Trap” focuses on the effects of “very-low-calorie diets” rather than healthier “low-calorie-diets”. The distinction is critical because very-low-calorie diets cut your intake to less than what your body needs to survive. The cutoff is known as basal metabolic rate (BMR) and it refers to the amount of calories burned without any activity at all, not even getting out of bed or having your morning coffee. Dieting below one’s BMR is not recommended because it causes the metabolism to decline which makes weight loss and weight maintenance much harder. For a point of reference, low-calorie diets are roughly 1,500-1,800 calories a day while very-low-calorie diets are between 500-800 calories a day. Medical supervision is required with the latter and compliance is especially hard. Short term results are better but long-term results are not. The very research quoted in this article bears this out.
While citing studies using very-low-calorie diets, Parker-Pope only gives lip service to the alternative. She admits that scientists are looking into whether slower weight loss might be different from fast weight loss. Yet she seems to be unaware that numerous studies have in fact used low-calorie diets and they are the basis for the gold standard of recommending gradual weight loss. For a review of more than 30 scientific research articles on the subject see this 2006 article in the Canadian Medical Association Journal.
Gradual weight loss can be achieved with low-calorie diets that do not require medical supervision and do not require that people learn how to eat right after losing weight. In fact, learning how to eat right from the beginning is likely what helps protect people from regaining lost pounds. Parker-Pope actually describes such success stories but she does so with a whiny dismissal of the lifestyle changes and motivation needed for them to work. She rejects the need to know what you’re putting in your mouth, measure out appropriate portions, stick to a calorie budget and, the worst part, “not cheat” on weekends and holidays. She makes it clear that permanent lifestyle changes are not desirable.
When describing the National Weight Control Registry which tracks thousands of people, albeit a minority, who have lost weight and kept it off, Parker-Pope sounds like she’s defending a group that’s been discriminated against or unfairly punished:
“…to lose weight and keep it off, a person must eat fewer calories and exercise far more than a person who maintains the same weight naturally. Registry members exercise about an hour or more each day…They get on the scale every day…The eat breakfast…Most watch less than half as much television as the overall population. They eat the same foods and in the same patterns consistently each day…”
Most fitness and weight loss professionals see this approach as something to applaud and celebrate. Parker-Pope is “exhausted” just thinking about it. Basically, she devotes much of the article to the less understood genetic aspect of obesity and neglects the healthy body of research behind lifestyle and environmental factors.
Parker-Pope quotes Rena Wing, one of the National Weight Control Registry creators. Attributed to Wing, a professor of psychiatry and human behavior at Brown Medical School, is the idea that:
“…the larger problem is environmental…people struggle to keep weight off because they are surrounded by food, inundated with food messages and constantly presented with opportunities to eat.”
This food-saturated environment is really the obese gorilla in the room. Everyone wants the freedom to eat exactly what they want, when they want it, and in the quantity they want. But given the abundance of food advertising and cultural pressures to eat, you are not really free. External messages about eating and hunger are more powerful than the internal cues, even when people know better. Success in weight loss starts with turning down the external noise and focusing on what you need to do to lose weight. Sticking to a healthy eating plan is really about taking control of your diet away from advertisers and others who have way too much influence. The book “Mindless Eating” made this perfectly clear.
Finally, environmental and psychological factors can be modified by education and healthy lifestyle choices, compared to genetics which cannot be controlled. Whether research in genetics leads to new weight loss strategies remains to be seen. Until then, learning new eating and exercise habits is the way to go. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to know that losing just a few pounds a year is better than yo-yo-ing for decades.
My experience as a fitness trainer over the past 20 years has confirmed that people who make moderate, but permanent, changes in their diet and lifestyle can lose weight and keep it off. These lifestyle changes do require discipline, but they are not the horrible fate that Tara Parker Pope makes them out to be.
For more information about weight loss, exercise and fitness join my Live Better Fitness page on Facebook and follow LiveBtrFitness on Twitter. I am currently working on my own personal story about body image and weight loss.
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