Study

Title: Medicare's search for effective obesity treatments: diets are not the answer.

The authors review studies of the long-term outcomes of calorie-restricting diets to assess whether dieting is an effective treatment for obesity. These studies show that one third to two thirds of dieters regain more weight than they lost on their diets, and these studies likely underestimate the extent to which dieting is counterproductive because of several methodological problems, all of which bias the studies toward showing successful weight loss maintenance. In addition, the studies do not provide consistent evidence that dieting results in significant health improvements, regardless of weight change. In sum, there is little support for the notion that diets lead to lasting weight loss or health benefits.

In the studies reviewed here, dieters were not able to maintain their weight losses in the long term, and there was not consistent evidence that the diets resulted in significant improvements in their health. In the few cases in which health benefits were shown, it could not be demonstrated that they resulted from dieting, rather than exercise, medication use, or other lifestyle changes. It appears that dieters who manage to sustain a weight loss are the rare exception, rather than the rule. Dieters who gain back more weight than they lost may very well be the norm, rather than an unlucky minority. If Medicare is to fund an obesity treatment, it must lead to sustained improvements in weight and health for the majority of individuals. It seems clear to us that dieting does not.

PubMed: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17469900

Full Study PDF: http://motivatedandfit.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/03/Diets_dont_work.pdf

Commentary

Firstly, since it will probably help my argument even if it shouldn't I'll state: I'm not fat. I am not a woman. And I'm not trying to get you to believe that fat is sexy.

TRP-ers seem to think that fat people are fat simply because they lack discipline and self-control. I regularly see comments that suggest fatness is a character flaw, and an easy problem to solve — but I'll bet the people making those comments never actually had to lose a significant amount of weight.

Have you considered that dieting doesn't work? Have you considered that there simply is no cure for fat? Just like there's no cure for baldness.

The vast majority of dieters fail to achieve lasting weight loss.

I'm not one of those people saying that fat should be considered beautiful. Or that fat people should recieve special treatment.

No one is ever going to take a movement like that seriously. Attraction and the perception of beauty is innate, or at least unconscious. Either way, you cannot consciously control or change it. Even if you could, I still think beauty/fat activism is futile. This is where TRP is partially right about fat people.

Am I saying that you should feel sorry for fat people? No. You can do whatever you like with this information.

All I'm saying is that we would be closer perceiving the reality of the situation if we thought that being thin or fat is the same as being tall or short, or white or black in terms of our control over it.

I'm not trying to argue that fatness is actually an irreversible genetic trait, but I am saying that its closer to the truth in order to make a point about how wrong our perception is. With only a few exceptions, fat people have no more lasting control over their fat levels than they do their height or race. That is what these studies show.

Allow me to pre-empt all anecdotal evidence with the question:

Okay, but how long have you/ your friend / your relative kept the weight off? Has it been longer than 5 years? Then you're not really disproving my point. It is possible to lose a lot of weight in the short term. But keep it off for the long term? A lot less possible. If true, you / your friend / your relative maybe be in the tiny minority of people that can do it. They're the exception that proves the rule.