119: Challenging the War On Obesity

After being on the road for some conferences and workshops related to my business, Wayza Health, I’m glad to be back to share all the amazing learning I did with fellow coaches! I do sometimes encounter vitriol when I talk about health at every size, though it’s usually online. So it caught me off-guard to have such an encounter in person. It’s that interaction, as well as the conversation with other women that followed, that prompted me to engage on this topic today: the weight-centric health paradigm we all live in. Our society equates weight with health and I want to address why this persistent attitude prevails and why it’s a fallacy.

The World Health Organization regularly publishes information that shows increasing obesity rates globally, and those graphs are used to make weight a public health and social issue. Of course, those graphs are also based on BMI which we all know is a useless tool that I’ve addressed many times on this podcast. We live in an obesogenic environment and studies that are often quoted are incomplete or don’t factor in other key factors. We also seem to have this unshakeable belief that weight loss is as simple as calories in, calories out or energy intake and energy expenditure. Nothing is that simple, certainly not weight. So what I want to do in this episode is address all these beliefs and counter them with facts and studies that prove, sometimes, the exact opposite of the “weight is the issue” outcome that most people cling to. Join me as I unpack the weight-centric paradigm and examine some truths about bodies and health.

About Dr. Michelle Tubman

Dr. Michelle Tubman is a physician and health coach. She helps women ditch dieting and thrive at any size. For the longest time she believed that weight loss was the answer to all her problems. But decades of yo-yo dieting and restriction left her miserable, unhealthy, and exhausted. Now she teaches women how harmful dieting can be and shows them the way to true health and wellness.

As a physician specializing in both emergency and obesity medicine, with additional training in nutrition, eating psychology, and coaching, Michelle can tell you with certainty that dieting is dangerous. Studies associate compromised health more with yo-yo dieting than higher body weight. Yet, everywhere you turn, shrinking your body is hailed as the solution. Women don't need to change. Attitudes do. So let's stop self-shaming, speak out against sizeism, and fiercely champion unconditional self-celebration!

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Resources mentioned in this episode:

• “What’s Wrong With the ‘War on Obesity?’ A Narrative Review of the Weight-Centered Health Paradigm and Development of the 3C Framework to Build Critical Competency for a Paradigm Shift” by Lily O’Hara and Jane Taylor, May 16, 2018
• Ignaz Semmelweis and ‘the Semmelweis Reflex’

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Learn more about Dr. Michelle Tubman and Wayza Health:

• Website: www.wayzahealth.com
• Follow me on Facebook and Instagram