I’m not a hard-core HAES evangelist, but I agree with the general principles of the movement.
You can read the HAES Manifesto (PDF) for the entire list of assumptions that are worth questioning, but the one that really resonates with me is this one: “The only way for ‘overweight’ people to improve health is to lose weight.”
Here’s a study that suggests that this assumption just isn’t valid (emphasis mine):
The “Spanish Ketogenic Mediterranean Diet” (SKMD) has been shown to promote potential therapeutic properties for the metabolic syndrome. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the potential therapeutic properties under free-living conditions of the SKMD in patients with metabolic syndrome (following the International Diabetes Federation consensus guidelines) over a 12-week period. …
After the diet all the subjects were free of metabolic syndrome according to the International Diabetes Federation definition, and 100% of them had normal triacylglycerols and high-density lipoprotein cholesterol levels, in spite of the fact that 77.27% of them still had a body mass index of >30 kg/m2.
There are of course all sorts of caveats (small study in a not-exactly-mainstream journal), but it’s certainly interesting nonetheless. After 3 months, a change in diet resulted in vast improvement of the markers that indicate metabolic syndrome … despite the fact that more than three-quarters of the subject were still technically obese.
Now, one reason I’m not a HAES evangelist is that I’m still pursuing weight loss. But I’m very sympathetic to the argument that it’s not weight or weight loss that may be the biggest contributor to health.
It just may be what we eat. Hmmm.
Hi Beth:
Thanks for the post.
I have concerns with HAES, for I think it is a small step in philosophy from HAES to relapse. I personally have struggled to recover as much as I have, and have adopted a near paleo lifestyle, because as much as anything, after we remove the toxic food, there is not much else left.
Potatoes, rice, beans, dairy, nuts and fruits are so calorie dense that I cannot eat much of them anyway. Soy and oils have never been part of my foods anyway. Supplements are required as I am unable to but the excess calories to obtain the nutrition from our modern low nutrition cultivars with chemical fertilization.
I think it is important to identify and remove all the cause of eating, hunger and cravings. Once we do that the problem should become much smaller. (pun intended)
There is also a danger for me in not being willing to give up problem foods. Sugar, wheat, chocolate, nuts, cheese, or anything that tastes like more. I think that seeking pleasure from food (hedonic) is one of the problems, and HAES want to hang onto pleasure foods.
Good luck with that. Keep up the fine work.
i believe diet, for whatever reason, is the biggest factor for health. There is no denying that you can be thin and sick or overweight and healthy. I agree with some of HAES arguments, but I myself remember being 215 and only 5’8″, I didn’t feel good about my body.
I still have body image issues, despite losing 80 pounds within 2.5 years time, once you get in the mindset of “I’m fat” it’s hard to budge (and the fact that I’m taking Zyprexa doesn’t help one bit with weight).
I think there needs to be a middle ground between HAES and diets that emphasize weight loss. I’m not a huge fan of losing weight just so I have a better body, and I’m not a huge fan of being obese and being a billboard image for the “American Obesity” epidemic.
My $.02
I agree with your statement that something between HAES and weight-loss diets is needed. I have been reading the posts on a fat-acceptance site that has a certain number of writers. Most of the writers are in generally good health, that is no high blood pressure or cholesterol, etc. However, part of the problem that I see with HAES is that a person needs to have a really positive attitude and be strong to adopt HAES. It takes a lot to say, “I’m this weight and I’m going to be happy with my body as it is.”
I wonder whether it’s possible to lose weight to a point that is still considered overweight and then accept HAES. My best friend could be described as “Biggest Loser” qualified, well over 100 pounds overweight. She has yo-yo dieted for years with extreme diets that I would never have the discipline to follow. She is now losing weight at a slow pace and is eating healthfully. I wonder whether if she could get down to a point where her body stabilizes and she could be happy with herself.
BTW, if my math is correct, you now weigh 135 pounds (215-80). Congratulations on your weight loss. I hope that you get over your thinking that you’re fat because I sense some possible danger to it..
Fred, Jordan — thanks for the great comments. What I really like about HAES is the decoupling of health and weight. I realize that fat tissue is not inert and has hormonal/inflammation implications. And trust me, I realize the impact on joints.
That said, it is not at all clear to me that excess weight is the primary contributor to metabolic syndrome and chronic disease. Studies like the above clearly implicate our industrial diet. And while I don’t agree with Taubes on everything, I definitely agree with “what makes us fat makes us sick.”
Similarly, I’m generally in support of HAES arguments that weight loss is a Sisyphean task, and that traditional “dieting” probably does more harm than good.
But … I’m not sure that HAES’ principles — e.g. “trust yourself” and “adopt healthy lifestyle habits” — are sufficient in today’s industrial environment. There are a number of industries (food, health, & diet) that look to overweight folks as revenue sources who are pretty crafty in their ability to drive our behaviors.
And call me a cockeyed optimist, but I think that there are ways to achieve and sustain weight loss — hence my efforts. So no, I can’t be a hard-core HAES evangelist, but I’m glad they are there to push against the “eat less, move more” crowd.
After years of diets I tried to embrace HAES. Like you I agree with a lot of what they offer, but it is a partial solution at best. I continued to gain weight and have had the problems associated with being obese. I was afraid that if I didn’t find a solution I would eventually be bed ridden. I am a woman over 50 so I was seeing the downhill slide and it scared me silly. So I tried low carb AGAIN. And I lost a little weight and felt better. And I wasn’t hungry all the time. Then I stopped eating wheat and adopted a paleo type diet. And I lost a tiny bit more weight. I stopped weighing myself because weight loss is so slow and I didn’t want to focus too much on weight.
After a few months a couple of amazing things happened to me. First I stopped wanting to graze all the time. I could go hours without thinking about food. So I added intermittent fasting and gradually got to the point where I could fast for 20-22 hours without too much protesting from my stomach. At that point the other amazing thing happened. I stopped craving alcohol. My nightly couple of cocktails or wine drinking stopped without so much as a whimper from me.
This tells me that my food problem was not “all in my head”. There are profoundly life changing reactions to this gradual change in diet. My weight loss continues slowly. I don’t know where I’ll end up. I am not one of those people who can drop 80 lbs in 6 months. I think I may have lost about 20 lbs in that time. But I feel so much better now that perhaps I will eventually be able to be satisfied at my weight, whatever it stabilizes at.
Katie, I’m completely with you!
Katie J and Beth, I had never heard of the Paleo Diet until I read about it on Weight Maven. I could live without cereals and rice. However, I have a problem with the higher meat-to-vegetables/fruits ratio rather than the opposite. My concern is with high cholesterol, which I tend toward. Does the book on the Paleo Diet address high cholesterol?
MrsS, you don’t need to do a higher meat-to-veggies/fruits ratio on Paleo. Some folks (like Nora Gedgaudas of Primal Body, Primal Mind) actually recommend keeping protein intake low. But then you need to get your calories from somewhere, so fat is the safer source than refined carbs. But the key is healthy sources of fats, not fat from industrial oils or feedlot animals.
Re cholesterol, see Chris Masterjohn’s cholesterol-and-health.com. Dietary cholesterol has been wrongly implicated in the war on heart disease.
But also check out the Jaminets’ Perfect Health Diet. This is closer to what I eat. I do paleo (including dairy) but I also eat rice and peas.