The Biggest Loser - Opinions?

[OakLeaf]

when I see myself in a mirror I have problems seeing why people now refer to me as "small" or "petite"

+1

And, while it's true that each individual is ultimately responsible for her own health, it's important not to deny the effects of commercial interests, too. Most processed foods are formulated to actually decrease satiety, so you'll eat and buy more of them without feeling full. They're enhanced with chemical flavors and aromas that target food/nutrition cravings that are hard-wired into our bodies by evolution. Then there's the whole media empire that conflates advertising with news and commercials with science.

Like the USDA's "food pyramid" (ever wonder why it comes from the department of Agriculture, not the department of Health and Human Services? It's because it's there to sell food products...). I haven't really looked at the newest version, which is supposed to be a little better than the prior ones, but the wording is much stronger on what you're supposed to eat more of than what you're supposed to eat less.

And the defeatist news stories bewailing how it's impossible to meet the new sodium guidelines. (Well, no, not if you eat actual food, which none of these writers seem to ever do.) And how supposedly healthy processed foods (that come out of a box, the microwave, or a fast food restaurant) aren't really healthy, but instead we should eat this other set of equally processed foods.

Then, if you've been fed fake food-like substances from childhood, and you've been taught by commercial interests (medical as well as food industry) to ignore the messages your body is sending you, it's very, very difficult to learn to hear those messages, and actually taste the flavors of real food.

You have to have time, inclination, self-respect, and at least a decent high school education, I think, to really be able to sort the truth from the advertising about nutrition. How many people have all those things in this economy?



ETA: Mark Bittman's take on the issue. As usual, he says most things better than I ever could.