Wake Up Weight Watchers! What are you thinking??

Last week, Weight Watchers promoted a free summer diet program for teens ages 13-17. This weekend, Non-Diet Registered Dietitians, other health practitioners and former dieters who subscribe to the Health At Every Size® philosophy took to Twitter to voice their anger over this diet industry giant setting themselves up to make $2 billion from the next generation of girls (and boys).  You can check out the tweet storm by reading through the tweets with the #WakeUpWeightWatchers hashtag.

Why were we so angry?  Here are a few reasons:

  • 95% of all diets fail, meaning that dieters regain the lost weight within 3-5 years, and the majority of them gain more than they lost.
  • 29 out of every 1000 teenagers suffer from eating disorders.
  • Not all dieters have eating disorders, but all those with eating disorders report dieting in their lifetime.
  • Teens who diet are 1 1/2 times more likely to develop Binge Eating Disorder than teens who have never dieted.
  • Dieting leads to body dissatisfaction and disordered eating behaviors.
  • Dieting leads to weight gain over time.
  • By the age of 13, 80% of girls report dieting.
  • Weight is not an indicator of health status.  All studies that claim so do so on the basis of correlation and not causation (meaning there is a relationship but one does not cause the other).
  • Teaching children that their body is wrong if it is not small teaches them to internalize fat phobia, which leads to low self-esteem and continues the oppression of fat bodies by weight stigmatization.
  • Promoting dieting amongst teens directly conflicts with the recently updated recommendations from the American Academy of Pediatrics regarding body weight.

The perpetuation of diet culture by Weight Watchers ensures that the next generation will suffer the same body dissatisfaction, self-loathing, food-obsessed behaviors that many of my clients have worked so diligently to move away from in order to make peace with their bodies and heal their relationship with food.

Want to make a difference?

Here are a few ways to join the crusade against diet culture and the latest plan to lure children into their grasp:

1.  Talk to teens:

  • Let teens in your life know that they are worthy and loved in the body they have right now.
  • Let teens spend their summers counting memories, not points.
  • Let teens know that it is NORMAL to gain 20-50 pounds during puberty.
  • Teach teens to be media literate and know when diet culture is trying to tempt them by preying on their fears and insecurities.
  • Teach teens not to be drawn in by the Seduction of the Thin Promise.

2. Join the next Tweet Storm!

  • On Thursday, June 15 at 8pm EST, there will be anotherTweet Storm, using the hashtag #WakeUpWeightWatchers in response to their response to the first one.  Here is an edited copy of their company’s Manifesto, so eloquently corrected by Gina from @nourishandeat on Instagram:

3.  End the diet cycle for yourself!  You deserve to feel good in your body, just as you are.

If you need help navigating the Diet-Free Living world, reach out to me.  If you would like to share your dieting story from your teen years (or before, like mine), please drop me a line.  We are all in this together.  None of us deserves to feel “less than” because of our body size, and weight cycling isn’t the answer.

xo

B

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Beth Rosen

Eating Attitudes™ & Gut Expert

Beth Rosen, MS, RD, CDN is a Registered Dietitian and owner of Beth Rosen Nutrition. She practices a non-diet philosophy and is a Health at Every Size" practitioner. Her goal is to end the pain of diet culture, one person at a time. Beth's techniques and programs empower chronic dieters, and those who consider themselves emotional and /or stress eaters, to ditch the vicious cycle of dieting, eat fearlessly by removing Food and diet rules, and mend their relationship with food and their bodies. Beth's works face-to-face with clients in Southbury, CT, and virtually with clients, worldwide.

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