Ok, it may not be the most ridiculous, but this one is definitely a contender.  It’s well known that most people can lose weight on most diets in the short term, and almost everyone gains it back long-term. In fact there is no study where more than a tiny fraction of people are able to maintain weight loss long-term. The diet industry, and shows like The Biggest Loser, have long taken advantage of this fact to tout their ability to “transform” people, ignoring the fact that those people “transform” right back within a few years, often “transforming” into a bigger body than the one they started with. ABC’s “My Diet is Better Than Yours,” will take this fraud to the next level. Here’s what they say about the show:

“My Diet Is Better Than Yours” is the first weight loss competition show to put its experts to the test. Hosted by fitness mogul Shaun T (creator of the workout phenomenon “Insanity”), “My Diet Is Better Than Yours” features celebrity trainers Carolyn Barnes, Jovanka Ciares, Jay Cardiello, Dawn Jackson Blatner and Abel James, who will change the lives of five ordinary Americans with their unique diet and exercise plans. In an interesting twist, the competitors hold the power of elimination and the trainers and their plans can be sent packing if their teams do not feel that they are hitting their fitness goals. Throughout the journey, contestants will be presented specific milestone fitness challenges, designed by celebrity trainer Anna Kaiser, that will test their progress along the way while learning tips and tricks to help them achieve their long-term weight loss goals, all while helping America decide who’s diet is better than who’s.

Right. Now let’s translate this into reality:

“My Diet Is Better Than Yours” is yet another weight loss competition show to promote so-called experts who are either legitimately deluded about weight loss or just willing to take advantage of fat people for money.  Shaun T will host this piece of crap show in which people who sell fad diets will set up five ordinary Americans for another ride on the diet roller coaster with their most likely ineffectual diet plans. In a move that is best done on the first day, moments before quitting the show, competitors will be allowed to fire their trainers.

The competitors will be put on display in a way reminiscent of a Roman Colosseum for the entertainment of the masses.  They will be given tips and tricks that supposedly will help them achieve their long-term weight loss goals but in reality will have absolutely no basis in evidence, and will be no help.  That doesn’t matter as long as they successfully set up the contestants, to blame themselves when, almost inevitably, they gain the weight back.  Because the cameras will stop before the contestants gain their weight back, people will be fooled into doing these fad diets and buying the products from the celebrity trainers who will each be issued their “Fat Person Whisperer” club membership and jacket.

Not horrified already?  One of the diets highlighted will be  The “cLEAN Momma Plan,” which “promotes burning calories through performing different household chores” and includes something called Taskercises (“Pillow Plump and Pump” – I wish I were kidding, but this is real and even my alliteration addiction can’t make it ok)  adding a delightful side of outdated gender expectations to unrealistic weight loss promises.

We don’t yet know if, like The Biggest Loser before it, this show will simply become an ode to the physical and emotional abuse of fat people for sport, but regardless it exploits America’s negative attitudes about fat people, conflation of body size with health (you’ll notice there are never shows about thin people adopting healthy habits,) and incredibly stubborn ignorance about the realities of weight loss.  And you probably won’t be surprised to learn that I won’t be tuning in.

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Book Me!  I’d love to speak to your organization. You can get more information here or just e-mail me at ragen at danceswithfat dot org!

I’m training for an IRONMAN! You can follow my journey at www.IronFat.com

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When Oprah first bought stock in Weight Watchers last year I blogged about it and said “while Oprah has every right to join Weight Watchers, be a spokesperson for Weight Watchers, buy stock in Weight Watchers, get “I Love Weight Watchers” tattooed on her ass or whatever, that doesn’t make long term weight loss any more likely, and it doesn’t make Weight Watchers any less of a scam.” I was going to leave it at that, until I heard her first commercial for WW.

It’s tricky criticizing Oprah because she has done truly amazing things, fighting racism, sexism, misogyny, and a crushing pressure to be thin to do them.  There are so many things about Oprah and her work that are incredibly admirable, but this Weight Watchers thing is a problem. First of all, her choice to promote Weight Watchers seems to mean one of two things:

Scenario 1:  After all her years of yo-yo dieting, all the weight loss gurus that she has made famous and rich (even though their methods proved not to work long-term), the private chefs and the private trainers, after being unable to lose weight despite having every resource imaginable at her disposal, despite the mountain of research (including their own) that shows that Weight Watchers almost never works, Oprah may actually believe that the only thing standing between her and permanent thinness is joining Weight Watchers.

Scenario 2:  She is a shrewd business-woman and she knows that many women are desperate to be thin, and that many women are so enamored of her that they will do anything she recommends even if a mountain of evidence (and perhaps their own experiences) show that it doesn’t work. And so she bought stock in Weight Watchers and then became a spokesperson (though in none of the commercials so far does she divulge her ownership or profit motive.) If this scenario is true, the money-making part is working – her stock was worth $43.2 million the day she bought it, and was valued at over $145 million (and climbing) in November.

Or maybe it’s something else? It doesn’t really matter, the problem for me is what she’s saying.  In her first commercial she sits in a chair and says earnestly to camera:

Inside every overweight woman is a woman she knows she can be. Many times you look in the mirror and you don’t even recognize your own self because you got lost—buried—in the weight that you carry. Nothing you’ve ever been through is wasted, so every time I tried and failed, every time I tried again, and every time I tried again, has brought me to this most powerful moment to say, ‘If not now, when?'”

Oprah is allowed to feel this way about herself, I have no judgment or opinion about it. I personally can’t imagine how “the woman [Oprah] knows she can be” would be different than the woman Oprah is, other than wearing a smaller size, but that’s not my business. Oprah is allowed to believe (or say for profit) that joining Weight Watchers is likely to lead to long-term weight loss, even if all the evidence suggests otherwise (that’s what all that small print is for.)  But Oprah has no right to speak for all “overweight,” or as I like to call us, fat, women.

Despite what you may have heard from Oprah, there are plenty of fat women who don’t worship at the altar of thin, who are already the women we know we can be, who look in the mirror and like what we see. Who haven’t bought into the notion that we are thin women buried in fat, but know that we are amazing, fat, women.  Who know that, when it comes to dieting, what we’ve been through isn’t wasted because now we know that dieting doesn’t work and we’ve exited the diet rollercoaster and all the time, money, and energy it cost us to ride.  There are women for whom every time we’ve tried and failed, every time we’ve tried again has brought us to the most powerful moment to say “If not now, when?  How’s never for you – because fuck dieting, that shit doesn’t work!”

I understand that the women who don’t fit into Oprah’s model of “unrecognizable thin woman buried in fat” don’t make any money for Weight Watchers’ shareholders, but that doesn’t mean it’s ok to pretend we don’t exist.  I don’t know what Oprah’s intentions are and I’m not saying that I think she’s a bad person or that she set out to harm people. I’m saying that, regardless of her intentions, the outcomes of her actions here are harmful and I think that she should apologize, but at the very least she should stick to speaking for herself rather than trying to erase all the women who aren’t like her.

Oprah is allowed to try weight loss and sell weight loss, but she shouldn’t act like she speaks for all fat women, because she damn sure doesn’t.

Like this blog?  Here’s more cool stuff:

Like my work?  Want to help me keep doing it? Become a Member! For ten bucks a month you can support size diversity activism, help keep the blog ad free, and get deals from size positive businesses as a thank you.  Click here for details

Book and Dance Class Sale!  I’m on a journey to complete an IRONMAN triathlon, and I’m having a sale on all my books, DVDs, and digital downloads to help pay for it. You get books and dance classes, I get spandex clothes and bike parts. Everybody wins! If you want, you can check it out here!

Book Me!  I’d love to speak to your organization. You can get more information here or just e-mail me at ragen at danceswithfat dot org!

I’m training for an IRONMAN! You can follow my journey at www.IronFat.com

If you are uncomfortable with my offering things for sale on this site, you are invited to check out this post.

Earlier this year Women’s Health Magazine conducted a survey and asked their readers what words or phrases they would like to see less of in their magazine. Now editor-in-chief Amy Keller Laird has announced that we will no longer see the phrases “bikini body” or “drop two sizes” gracing the cover of their magazine.

In a letter to the editor she wrote:

“Dear ‘Bikini Body, You’re actually a misnomer, not to mention an unintentional insult. You imply that a body must be a certain size in order to wear a two-piece. Any body — every body — is a bikini body.”

I couldn’t agree more! Laird also said that they had already eliminated “shrink” and “diet.”

This is a step in the right direction to be sure, but there’s a lot more work to be done here.  First of all, I’m waiting to see if this just becomes euphemism-palooza with words that mean shrink and diet replacing shrink and diet. Because it’s not just about the words, it about the concepts – as you can see in this look at Self Magazine’s cover promises.

I’m not encouraged to find that the January issue (the issue that features the Laird’s letter to the editor I just quoted) features noted fatphobe Jillian Michaels on the cover with “BURN FAT FAST’ in huge block letters.  I’d like to see them put their photos where their mouths are.  If they truly believe that “Any body — every body — is a bikini body” then let’s see some body diversity on the cover.

What about moving completely to a focus on health – with no weight loss or negative body talk at all?  The truth is that, just like everyone else, they have no reason to believe that anything they are touting will actually help people change their body size for the long term so why continue to make promises they can’t keep? A magazine about women’s health that was actually about health is something that I would be interested in reading!

Speaking of surveys, I’m hoping you can help me out. I’m super excited to tell you that Jeanette DePatie and I are really close to wrapping up our long-awaited Body Love Obstacle Course.  We will be releasing it in mid-February, but before we do we want to make sure that we have everything covered, so I wanted to see if you can help us out by answering a couple quick questions?  You’ll find the questions (and get a little more information on the Obstacle Course) at this link:
https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/P6LRG2Q  Thanks!

Like this blog?  Here’s more cool stuff:

Like my work?  Want to help me keep doing it? Become a Member! For ten bucks a month you can support size diversity activism, help keep the blog ad free, and get deals from size positive businesses as a thank you.  Click here for details

Book and Dance Class Sale!  I’m on a journey to complete an IRONMAN triathlon, and I’m having a sale on all my books, DVDs, and digital downloads to help pay for it. You get books and dance classes, I get spandex clothes and bike parts. Everybody wins! If you want, you can check it out here!

Book Me!  I’d love to speak to your organization. You can get more information here or just e-mail me at ragen at danceswithfat dot org!

I’m training for an IRONMAN! You can follow my journey at www.IronFat.com

If you are uncomfortable with my offering things for sale on this site, you are invited to check out this post.