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"Slimming Slippers" Tops the Year's "Worst" Diet Products
In contrast, Healthy Weight Week honors size diversity,
health and well being at your natural size
Women in the media are extremely thin, hollow-cheeked, and seem to all look alike. It's a stereotype that sets nine-year-olds dieting and tells teenage girls their bodies will never be good enough. Awards given during Healthy Weight Week, Jan. 20-26, aim to change that message by encouraging advertisers and television producers to portray healthy, active women of all shapes and sizes.
Winners of awards for their positive portrayal of size diversity are:
- QVC shopping channel (Advertising). For many clothing items, two or three models of different sizes come out wearing the same item in various sizes.
- Coldwater Creek (Catalog). Small and large sizes are listed together; shoppers don't have to go to a separate section of the catalog for large sizes. Their stores reflect this philosophy, with all sizes of a particular style displayed together rather than having a section of large sizes at the back of the store.
- Family Law (Television show). This show added an actress who is very short this season; she is an intelligent character with a meaningful role.
At the other end of the spectrum, the 13th annual Slim Chance Awards, presented Tuesday, January 22 on Rid the World of Fad Diets and Gimmicks Day, spotlight these worst diet products of the past year:
- Slimming Slippers (Worst gadget). Advertising copy claims, "The Get Slim slippers...using reflexology science, magnets, and the laws of gravity to get slim! Increase your metabolism naturally [and] stimulate the untouched sole of the foot, thus activating the nerves responsible for digestion and eating habits
- 16-Plant Macerat Weight Loss Plan (Worst product). "Recent experiments have shown that the extract of the 16 plants, when combined together, can reverse the effect of calories. In other words, instead of transforming calories into fat, the calories are consumed and eliminated by natural means...some people have lost 13 pounds the first week."
- Weigh Out (Most outrageous). "It doesn't matter how much weight you have to lose: 20, 40, 100, or 200+ pounds. This will change your life forever."
- Hydro-Gel Slim Patch (Worst claim). "The remarkable dual fat-fighting ingredients, Fucus and Guaranine...boost your metabolism...your very own secret 'fat furnace'...helping incinerate away your repulsive excess adipose tissue
Healthy Weight Week offers an antidote to the restrictive dieting and bingeing that typically begin the new year. It is a time when health organizations and communities join to promote healthy lifestyle habits that last a lifetime and help to prevent weight and eating problems.
We want to change people's focus from a continual struggle with unsafe and ineffective weight loss to improving their health and well-being in a lasting way, says Francie M. Berg, a licensed nutritionist and chair of the event. Our cultural obsession with dieting and thinness is causing enormous problems for women and children.
Berg points to research that shows this obsession is taking its toll on young people. In a study of college women gymnasts, 75 percent had used hazardous methods to reduce, and a new study at a Cincinnati university hospital finds two-thirds of pregnant teens have deficient diets. She says four-year-olds are asking, Mommie, am I too fat? Six-year-olds have full-blown eating disorders; as many as 80 percent of 10-year-old girls are restricting food and feeling guilty when they eat; and half of teenage girls are deficient in many essential nutrients.
Berg is an adjunct professor at the University of North Dakota School of Medicine and the author of the award-winning Children and Teens Afraid to Eat: Helping Youth in Today's Weight-Obsessed World and a companion book for women. Both books document painful and tragic problems surrounding eating and weight, and give sound guidelines for dealing with them.
Healthy Weight Week and the two sets of awards are sponsored by Healthy Weight Network, and endorsed by the National Council Against Health Fraud, and Wellness in Wyoming (WIN) -- whose statewide mission is to educate people to respect body-size diversity and to enjoy the benefits of active living, pleasurable and healthful eating, and positive self-image.
The awards were selected from products nominated by health professionals and consumers and reflect the opinion of the panel making the judgments. Judges include Betty Holmes, MS, RD, Regional Project Coordinator, WIN the Rockies, University of Wyoming, Laramie; Suzanne Pelican, MS, RD, Food and Nutrition Specialist and WIN Wyoming Coordinator, University of Wyoming Cooperative Extension Service; and Mary Kay Wardlaw, MS, Project Education Specialist, WIN the Rockies, University of Wyoming (www.uwyo.edu/winwyoming/index.html).
For more information, visit the web site at www.healthyweight.net or contact:
Beverley E. Brink
701-567-2646
fmberg@healthyweight.net
Health Weight Journal Articles:
Reading resources are presented for your convenience. Opinions presented in these features do not necessarily represent those of the sponsors of HOOAH 4 HEALTH.
- AUTHOR: Gast, Julie A., PhD, CHES and Hawks, Steven R., EdD, CHES
TITLE: Examining Intuitive Eating as a Weight Loss Program
SOURCE: Healthy Weight Journal, May/June 2000; Vol 14:3.
The underlying assumption of the intuitive eating paradigm is that the body wants to eat healthy food, and once diet restrictions have been removed the individual will crave and eat primarily nutritious foods. The intuitive eating paradigm is unique from other weight loss paradigms in that calories, fat, and physical activity are not central concerns.
- AUTHOR: Ernsberger, Paul. PhD and Koletsky, Richard J., MD
TITLE: Part 2: Rationale for a Wellness Approach to Obesity
SOURCE: Healthy Weight Journal, March/April 2000; Vol. 14:2:20
ABSTRACT: Continued from Jan/Feb issue, page 7.
To establish if obesity shortens life expectancy, it must be shown that obese people consistently die sooner than appropriate controls. Most studies have shown a U-shaped relationship between BMI and mortality, with both low and high body weights associated with increased risk of death. Adjusting the mortality data for smoking has no effect on its relationship to body weight. Low body weight is a reliable harbinger of decline and death in persons over 60 years of age, while the net adverse impact of obesity on median life expectancy is minimal to nonexistent. There are advantages as well as disadvantages to being heavy: obese persons are less likely to later develop cancer and various infectious diseases. These health benefits of obesity might potentially offset its hazards. Much of the increased risk of disease and death in obese people is the result of repeated cycles of weight loss and regain. Equal time should be devoted to treating underweight as overweight.
- AUTHOR: Hawks, Steve R., EdD, CHES and Gast, Julie A., PhD, CHES
TITLE: The Ethics of Promoting Weight Loss
SOURCE: Healthy Weight Journal, March/April 2000; Vol 14:2:25.
Health educators must publicize the fact that body size is less important for holistic health than activity level, diet composition, spiritual well-being, and emotional health.
- AUTHOR: Ritenbaugh, Cheryl, PhD, MPH, Kumanyika, Shriki K., PhD, MPH, Antipatis, Vicki J., Msc, Jeffery, Robert W., PhD and Morabia, Alfredo, MD, PhD
TITLE: Caught in the Causal Web: A New Perspective on Social Factors Affecting Obesity
SOURCE: Healthy Weight Journal, Nov/Dec 1999; Vol 13:6:88 - November/December 1999
ABSTRACT: The causal web represents a new concept in linking a wide variety of elements that have an impact on energy input and output. Although seemingly complex, it is a true reflection of the nature of the obesity problem from a public health perspective. The factors that operate at similar social structural levels are labeled across the top of the web: international factors, national/state, communities, work/school/home, and individual behaviors. The causal web challenges the notion of individual "free will" regarding food choice and energy expenditure. It demonstrates that although population mean BMI or obesity prevalence is the targeted outcome, appropriate indicators of success are needed at many different levels of causation. In this web there is no single organizational locus where motivation to change behavior can result in a decline in obesity without interference from competing interests.
- AUTHOR: Hammer, Roger L, Ph.D.
TITLE: Health and Fitness for the Obese Person
SOURCE: Healthy Weight Journal Jul/Aug 1999; Vol. 13 No. 4 1999
ABSTRACT: The benefits of regular exercise include increased aerobic exercise capacity and cardiovascular endurance, a small change in weight and fat loss, slight preservation of fat-free mass, prevention of significant weight gain, improved maintenance of weight loss, an improved blood profile, decreased risk of disease, and possibly an improved psychological state.
- AUTHOR: Ernsberger, Paul, Ph.D.
TITLE: Exploding the myth: Weight loss does not make you healthier
SOURCE: Healthy Weight Journal Jan/Feb 1999; Vol. 13:1:4
ABSTRACT: Weight loss plays a major role in the medical management of diabetes type 2, hypertension, and hypercholesterolemia. The author explores the effects of weight loss programs on these diseases. Rapid drops in risk factors may be a biologic response to the state of mild starvation rather than loss of body fat stores. Overall benefits of weight loss in reducing risk factors are short-term and can lead to more serious problems. Modern drugs combined with sustainable lifestyle changes are more reliable and effective treatments.
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