The Link Between Weight Loss Organizations and Eating Disorders

More of my hard-earned dollars have found their way into the coffers of weight-loss organizations than I care to count. I am embarrassed to admit that I have tried them all. Finally, though, I can say that I lost the weight I wanted to lose and have maintained it for over five years. It’s a small success but it is still a success.

However, this success is tempered by the very people who purportedly helped me get to my personal goal. While I may be happy and comfortable with the amount of weight I lost, the weight loss organization where I finally lost the weight does not agree. After meeting my personal weight goal, one that was agreed upon between the organization and me, I was encouraged to drop another five to ten.

“You’ll like yourself better if you’re skinnier,” I was told.

Actually to get skinnier I would have had to starve, not something I was willing to do.

With the media focused on the negative messages sent to young women by anorexic models and starving actors, and Tik-Tok actually teaching young girls how to “successfully starve”, no mention is ever made of legitimate weight-loss organizations. Believe it or not these organizations can be just as much to blame for eating disorders as Tik-Tok. Here’s why.

Let’s say you join a popular weight loss group. You only want to lose twenty pounds but are advised to lose thirty. You are then told that, “It is always best to get at least five pounds below goal.”

So now, instead of the twenty pounds you felt were right to lose, you’re being told to lose thirty-five. That’s fifteen pounds more than you wanted to originally lose and you’re paying for every pound. The impetus to lose the weight at any cost is high.

A woman in a popular weight loss group could not lose the last seven pounds of the sixty she was told she needed to lose. Fifty-three was all her body was willing to give up. Yet she was pressured relentlessly by the person in charge of the meetings to ‘lose that extra baggage.’ She was also told that she should try Ozempic.

“I am really ashamed to say that I was almost willing to try a medication I didn’t need or that I wanted to just starve to get rid of the so-called extra baggage. I briefly contemplated taking laxatives to help me and then laughed at myself for such a ridiculous thought.”

My colleague belonged to a nationally known organization. She was told to leave half of all her meals on the plate. The problem was the meals, which came from the organization itself, were already excruciatingly small. When she protested, her weight coach said: “Come on! Don’t you want to shoot for a size zero?”

Zero? Since when did a zero become the poster number for looking your best?!

According to a new Canadian, there is solid evidence that not reaching a size zero or even having ten to fifteen pounds of extra weight on your body may actually be healthier for you and help you live longer. There is, it appears, a big difference (no pun intended) between carrying a bit of extra fat and being obese. A healthy weight, not a size, is what you should ‘shoot’ for.

We are bombarded with images from well-known weight-loss organizations that subtly, and not so subtly, hint at how horrible our lives will be if we aren’t a certain size and weight. We are made to feel that there is something wrong with us if we don’t achieve the ;right’ number on the scale and the smaller that number the better.

The public needs to remember that the weight-loss industry is a highly, competitive multi-billion dollar a year business. The commercials, the testimonials, the celebrities involved, the before and after pictures are all advertising at its best and it works.

Your weight is subjective. Make your own decision about what is best for you and not what someone else says is best. Skinnier is not better. Being healthy should be the prime objective.

? 2023 copyright Kristen Houghton all rights reserved.

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