Are We As Overweight As the Diet Industry Keep Telling Us We Are?

I've just been watching a documentary about how the dieting industry got started and, frankly, it shocked me.

Apparently, around 60 years ago, a study was made in Minnesota, that showed dieting to be the worse thing we could do to our bodies, because, as we all know now, by drastically trying to cut out calories, our bodies automatically go into starvation mode and so, when we begin to eat 'normally' again, we put the weight back on quite quickly - plus more - thus starting a vicious circle of diet and gain, diet and gain!

The charts that are now commonly used to gauge our weight, were invented in the early 1940's, by the chief statistician of an insurance firm, called MetLife, based in Manhattan. The statistician was a man called Louis Dublin, who had no medical training whatsoever. He had been looking at the records of all their 4 million customers, and he compared the age and weight  that they were when they first took out their policies, with the weight they were when they died, and concluded, with no scientific evidence whatsoever, that if somebody is overweight, then they were more likely to die young.

He then went through all of the figures, and drew up a chart to show how much he thought everyone's ideal weight should be to avoid an early death, basing it on the weight of people between the ages of 25-30, and using this for everyone, young and old.

By altering the figures in the way that he did, he hadn't bothered to research what would happen with our bodies as we got older - and, without any medical training, he arbitrarily changed the percentage of Americans who were considered to be overweight from a tiny minority, to about half of the population, whether they were actually overweight or not! (about 60% nowadays apparently).

Without that research, which would have given other factors, such as people who were naturally very slim, or those who were a little overweight, but completely healthy - or the effect that ageing has on the body (my doc told me our bodies naturally gain about 7lb for every decade we age over 30) he decided - no doubt to save money for his firm - to reclassify half of the American population as being overweight, which, of course, would affect the premiums they would have to pay for their insurance!

With a stroke of his pen, normal, healthy Americans suddenly had a weight problem - and a diet industry was born!

Unfortunately, his chart defining what was classed as overweight was adopted by the medical establishment, and then the US Government of the day, to the point that every country in the world now seems to use it.

All of this is relevant to me, in that, just after my child was born, I looked at the chart, and it told me that, for my height and age, I should be 8 stone 4. At that time I was 13 stone, and had never been on a diet in my life.

So, believing the chart, I went on a diet, and eventually reached that goal - but was so ill all the time my doc got very concerned, and advised me to gain back some of the weight. I got between 9.5 - 10 stone, and felt the best I'd ever been in my life! So much for the chart!

But, because I had started to diet, I've been fighting my weight all my life ever since that first one. If I hadn't dieted, I reckon just being a mother would have taken care of it all, and so I would have got back into shape naturally for my body.

I've been at war with my body for 27 years now, and I've decided to stop, and just eat as healthily as I can, without worrying about the occasional treat :) 

The way I've got my life organised now, I think my healthy eating plan will be the best thing to do for my body - and I won't be fattening the purse of any diet company, whose only concern is to get as much of my money as they can, never worrying that there is only a tiny percent of people who are actually helped by their diet plans!