Weight Science: Evaluating the Evidence for a Paradigm Shift

Weight Science: Evaluating the Evidence for a Paradigm Shift

Research Summary:

We need to shift our focus from weight to health.

“Randomized controlled clinical trials indicate that a HAES approach is associated with statistically and clinically relevant improvements in physiological measures (e.g., blood pressure, blood lipids), health behaviors (e.g., eating and activity habits, dietary quality), and psychosocial outcomes (such as self-esteem and body image), and that HAES achieves these health outcomes more successfully than weight loss treatment and without the contraindications associated with a weight focus (such as food and body preoccupation, repeated cycles of weight loss and regain, distraction from other personal health goals and wider health determinants, reduced self-esteem, eating disorders, other health decrement, and weight stigmatization and discrimination.”

This article breaks down assumptions including:

• Adiposity poses significant mortality risk

• Adiposity poses significant morbidity risk

• The pursuit of weight loss is a practical and positive goal

• Anyone who is determined can lose weight and keep it off through appropriate diet and exercise

• The only way for overweight and obese people to improve health is to lose weight

• Obesity-related costs place a large burden on the economy, and this can be corrected by focused attention to obesity treatment and prevention