Obesity in the past
American tourist at Dauchau
A type of activism called fat acceptance activism – or in the words of all the isms we’re now afflicted with: Sizeism – is currently on the move. Overweight people who are the movers and shakers of the various fat acceptance groups are trying to make the point that it’s okay to be overweight and that one should revel in one’s fatness and not try to deal with it. I don’t really have a problem with this way of thinking as long as people are willing to accept the risks that ride along on obesity’s coattails.
I think it’s fine that overweight people are trying to gain acceptance. I don’t believe that they should be discriminated against anymore than I believe people with leukemia or high blood pressure should be discriminated against. But, obese people need to realize that in the vast majority of cases their obesity is self inflicted.
I can’t tell you how many patients I’ve seen in practice who say these very words: Doctor, I just can’t understand it. I almost don’t eat anything at all and I can’t lose weight. My husband (it’s usually a female patient that says this) eats everything and he never gains weight. As we’ve seen self deception is an easy task.
I’ve made it a hobby to watch people at all-you-can-eat buffets, and what I see is obese people piling the food on their plates- mainly high-carb food – and going back for more. Thin people go back to their tables with small plates of food. I often wonder how many of these people with the huge plates of food are telling their doctors that they don’t eat much of anything at all yet still can’t lose.
People who tell me that they almost never eat and still can’t lose weight drive me nuts because I know it doesn’t work that way. It puts me in a bad position because I know they’re either fooling themselves or trying to fool me and I either have to nod my head in understanding or basically call them liars. It’s a tough spot.
On our recent trip to Europe MD and I spent a day at Dauchau, the first Nazi concentration camp and the model for all the others. It was a sobering but incredibly interesting experience. Throughout the facility there are photos of the camp inmates during the years the camp was in operation (1933-1945), and I didn’t see a single fat person. These were truly people who “almost ate nothing at all” and they were all thin, very thin.
Most readers of this blog know that there are other ways to lose a lot of weigh without resorting to concentration-camp-style starvation, namely the low-carb diet. But I had to vent a little because I get so annoyed when people tell me that they don’t eat yet can’t lose weight.
The fat acceptance movement – which is what this post started out to be about – is nothing new. Way back in the early 1900s obesity in women was becoming accepted in this country as a positive thing. From the February 1919 Atlantic Monthly:
The fat woman has been so long accustomed to commiseration that it may be difficult for her to realize her new dignity; we have all pitied her, been sorry for the bursting glove-clasp, the exuberant girth, the sweets desired but denied, the chin whose apparent hauteur was so unjust to the kindly heart beneath it; and above all for that plump palm laid upon our arm with its accompanying tremulous whisper, ‘Am I as fat as she, or she, or she?’ [my italics]
But now all that evil time is forgotten. The anti-fat nostrum, the recipes for rolling, the panting mountain climb, all the many-doctored advice, all the beauty-parlor pummeling—all this is obsolete, for obesity has come into its own. The corpulent dame now has dresses made to exhibit, not to conceal, her shapeliness; these throng authentic fashion-sheets. She has her own clothes, not the adapted ‘line’ of the lean and lovely sylph. The fat woman is no longer done out of her inheritance by a cruel and carping world. She has become a ‘stylish stout.’
So sizeism -at least for women – is nothing new. But the country wasn’t yet so accepting of male obesity:
It is a curious fact that in neither East nor West has the stylishness of stouts been extended to the male sex. The norm for man is to be long and limber. As the hero of romance, a man may be brawny; but except in farce, he may not yet be fat. In America this ideal of masculine slimness is explained by our fondness for thinking of our men as lean wrestlers with frontier conditions, for the fact of a frontier is still a pleasant figment of our fancy. As a matter of brutal truth, both our men and our women have swelled perceptibly during a long period of plenty and of ease. Not all our Hooverizing has notably reduced the tendency of both sexes toward an opulent maturity. The pitiful point is that our men are not yet allowed by fashion to grow fat with dignity. Of course, it has never been so hard for a man to be voluminous as for a woman, because he thinks only of how uncomfortable he feels, and not, concomitantly, of how ungainly he looks. And yet the fat man has had pain enough in being the butt of the papers and of his pals; and from this anguish he cannot be relieved until fashion lifts its ban from his person as it has lifted it from that of the lady. No shop is as yet exhibiting styles for the stout man. He is still forced to squeeze himself into clothes designed for the stripling.
The thing I can not figure out is why people on a low fat diet that isn’t working continue to believe it’s just them and not the diet. I tried losing weight the low fat way without success. I finally went to a doctor who put me on Dr. Atkins’ low carb diet. The pounds fell off. My blood profile improved. I feel great.
I was amused by the part about “the shops (retailers) not carrying the styles for the stout.” Boy, have times changed. Now that I’ve gotten beneath my goal weight, I have a 30-inch waist. When I go to the store, I can rarely find my size, and when I do, there are very few. A salesperson told me, “when we get a shipment, it contains only one 30-inch waist.” Even looking for suits at a reputable store, it was very difficult to find slim styles.
Regards,
Charles
Interesting. I never really thought about how retailers would stock clothes today. Must be a real pain to be ‘normal’ sized.
I understand the eat less weigh less theory…yes, it makes sense when you think of it in terms of Dachau. But is a calorie always just a calorie though? as i understand it, some folks are more sensitive to carbs than others? Is Taubes’ book about how all calories are same?
It seems I can gain pretty quickly when I eat a diet low in protein and high in carbs. Even if it is just a few sugary items each day I grow. I always gain on a low fat high carb diet. My doctor put me on Phentermine and I gained 10lbs. I ate less but all I craved was carbohydrate. Of course I stopped taking that crap.
Since then I have had a terrible time “staying on track” and feel I’ve lost my way a bit and have gained an additional 10 lbs in 2 months. Mostly from having a muffin with my coffee, some rice or corn with my dinner, skipping lunches, having flax cereal for dinner. Very random eating. But it has been low protein high carb. And it is a downward spiral for me.
I know if I eat more calories, albeit adequate protein and fats, I lose weight rather quickly. Why is this? It seems hard to eat the quantity of food required to get my protein requirement in. I know this will work. I have lost 50 lbs this way and felt wonderful. I ate a tremendous amount while losing it.
I am certain if i ceased to eat completely I would lose weight, but that is something that i am afraid to consider. As a young woman it is a tempting thought. It is terribly painful being overweight sometimes.
Hi Marcella–
No a calorie isn’t a calorie isn’t a calorie. The idea that it is is nonsense. A calorie represents a precise amount of energy contained in a food but doesn’t tell anything about the hormonal consequences of eating that food. Carbohydrate calories are much more fat inducing that fat and/or protein calories, which is why you did so well on a higher protein, higher fat diet, and is why you’re having so much difficulty when you consume the carbs that you’re now consuming.
I hope you switch back to the protein and fat.
Best–
MRE
A question…
If you are insulin dependant diabetic type 2 does the process of adding more insulin to your body make it even more difficult to lose weight? Or is the use of the insulin to keep numbers in a more normal range, which helps one to feel better and be more active, a good solution.
thanks
Ressy
In my opinion the best solution is to follow a low-carb diet with the help of a physician who understands how low-carb diets work. If the low-carb diet doesn’t almost immediately solve the blood sugar problems a little insulin isn’t problematic. I like insulin in very small doses better than any of the oral drugs that are available.
I think we’re missing a step here. It’s not so much that people are amazingly unaware of how much they eat and are so good at fooling themselves, but that what they are truly aware of is that their bodies are getting NO satisfaction from the food they eat and somehow their mind knows it and feels it. They may be putting large quantities of substance into their mouths, but their body is not getting large quantities of immediate energy-making use out of it. So in this case “I eat almost nothing” defines eating not as what enters into the mouth, but what gets healthfully utilized.
I don’t know if the Protein Power program ever actually goes so far as to say that carbohydrates aren’t really a food (certainly high fructose corn syrup isn’t!), but my determination is that essentially that’s the gist of it. I am trying to get myself to look at substances like sugar and white flour, not as a food, but more like something akin to cocaine–it can go into your body but what does it do when it gets in there? The people you speak about here may as well be eating mounds of dirt, or sand, or sawdust; they’re eating and eating and eating and their body is sitting there waiting and waiting and waiting for some real food to come in. It’s not getting it, so it keeps signaling “I’m empty!” Unfortunately, the “non-food” that they are eating is one that the body can store as adipose tissue. But give them some real food that the body craves and they will won’t have to ingest so much and suddenly even a rather small portion will feel like a lot.
You’ve hit the nail on the head. It’s hunger at the cellular level that is important and that drives the body to seek food and decrease the metabolic rate. If the cells are starved – even in the face of a lot of food calories – the hunger signals go out. And you’re right that carbs tend to feed the fat and not the non-adipose cells creating a hunger even in the face of plenty of ‘food.’
Thanks for the answer! I realize it was a bit off the topic but I appreciate your takeing the time to speak to it.
I agree that I’d much rather use Insulin than other drugs if I need it…and doing low carb helps me to take as little as I can.
My doc is totally supportive of low carb diets for diabetics, which is not the norm for this area.
I lost about 55 pounds when I first discovered the diabetes using Protein Power…got my AC1 down to 5.5 but after my compulsary visits to dieticians who were horrified about my diet…I added in more carbs…which added in more weight. Which added in more Insulin…which added in more weight.
Now we have decided I can skip the dietician classes and do what works for me!
Sorry for the ramble…just some pent up frustration with the dieticians I guess.
Ressy
You’ve learned a valuable lesson: avoid dietitians like death. In all my years of practice I’ve come across only a couple who appeared to have good sense. Their training totally fills their heads with idiocy.