A dynamic list of ongoing fat research.

“BMI has been malleable over time in response to the desires of the weight loss industry. In 1998, a committee recommended that the NIH lower the BMI categories, shaving 15-20 pounds off the definition of “healthy/normal weight.” Seven of the nine committee members had direct ties to the weight loss industry. The committee chairman was a former Executive Director and current board member of the Weight Watchers Foundation. Their recommendations gave the weight loss industry about 29 million new customers, literally overnight. Katherine Flegal (one of the two committee members without ties to the weight loss industry) explained that they were pressured to conform to the WHO standard. That standard was created by the International Ob*sity Task Force, which receives funding from Hoffman-La Roche (makers of diet drug Xenical) and Abott Laboratories (makers of diet drug Meridia) and has a primary mission of lobbying governments for pharma companies’ agendas.”

Part 3 of 3

So what we typically see with dieting is that people make behavior changes. After those changes are made, those folks often see health improvements, and sometimes see a small amount of weight loss (at least in the short-term.) Even though the weight loss is small, and often largely simultaneous with the health improvements, the weight loss gets credited with the health changes, rather than seeing both the health changes and the (at least short-term) small amount of weight loss as resulting from the behavior changes.

Giving the credit to weight loss, rather than the initial behavior change, drives a lot of profit to the weight loss industry, but drives a lot of harm to fat patients.