And I'm told he tried everything to get rid of it - - color remover, nose liposuction, nose reduction pills, nose calisthenics. But nothing worked. A couple times his nose did get smaller, but it always grew back -- bigger and redder than ever! Researchers dubbed it the "yo-yo nose syndrome." He always dreamed of doing great things, but felt he had to wait until he had a nose of normal size and color.

He was at his wit's end when Santa came and asked for his help guiding the sleigh. At first, he was dumbfounded. He was so accustomed to viewing his nose as a limitation and a disadvantage that he never stopped to think about how to use it to his advantage. You know the rest of the story. They couldn't have made the journey without him. He showed the others that even though he looked a bit different, that difference could be put to a positive use. He ended up as "leader of the pack" and even went down in history. And so can you. But not until you stop letting your perceived imperfections hold you back and prevent you from achieving your full potential.

Make a list of the positive things living in a larger body has taught you:

• Strength of character (it's not easy living in this thin-obsessed society -- if you're doing it, you've developed a great deal of inner strength).
• Feelings of physical strength and power.
• Better at fending off and recovering from illness.
• Less prone to some diseases and conditions such as osteoporosis.
• Greater sensitivity and tolerance to those who are different in any way.
• Creativity -- I've seen larger people develop many creative solutions as they try to fit into a world designed primarily for thin people.

Continue to make your own list. As for me, I realized I am here to make a difference and to join together with other size acceptance advocates in making this world a better place for ample-bodied people. And through this process, I have traveled, I have had to develop speaking and leadership skills, I have met many wonderful people. I have had to meet and respond to challenges I never would have encountered as a thin person, but this has enriched my life in so many ways.

Instead of beginning the new year with yet another resolution to go on a diet, ask yourself:

• What has living in a larger body taught me?
• How can I use this to my advantage?

Then, every time you have a negative body thought, stop and replace it with a body thank-you, with something positive your body has taught you, and begin compiling a "Positives of Being Plus" list.

Editor's Note: This article is reprinted with permission from Carol's quarterly newsletter, On A Positive Note in which she packs info on self-esteem, body image, exercise, nutrition, style and fashion - and many other issues of interest to large people. For information on subscribing to Carol's newsletter, or to request back issues, check out Carol's website. Or, email Carol at positive@execpc.com.

Click here for Carol's current column.

       

I am not in favor of schools measuring heights and weights in children. However, I know it was going to happen so in preparation, we did a pamphlet, "Guidelines for Weighing and Measuring Children in School Settings" which can be found at our Center for Weight and Health Center website (http://cnr.berkeley.edu/cwh). It does include a sample letter that can be sent home. Again, this is not something we are advocating, but we know it's going to be done so we want it done with sensitivity!

I am aghast when I see school districts who have fast food restaurants in their school cafeteria, no quality PE program, and soft drink vending machines lining the halls, and then send a letter home to parents of children who are "overweight!" If the schools are really concerned about overweight in children they should straighten out their own act first! Schools need to practice and model what they teach kids about healthy eating and physical activity rather than selling out by signing contracts with soft drinks companies and fast food restaurants! Every parent knows that what a parent does has a much bigger influence on how kids act than what a parent says! Schools need to create environments where children and teachers can practice healthy lifestyles. (Joanne Idea, MA, RD, is a nationaly recognized expert on pediatric obesity and is affiliated with the University of California at Berkeley).

       

According to a recent news release:

Vogue magazine has opened its coveted fashion pages to a plus-size woman for the first time. Model Kate Dillon, who is a size 12-14, was photographed for the April issue. "The issue is dedicated to women of all shapes and sizes who often have felt excluded in the fashion world," Editor in Chief Anna Wintour said.

In many ways, I think things are getting worse, not better. In a March 31, 2002 article in the New York Times titled "The Tyranny of Skinny, Fashion's Insider Secret," writer Kate Betts observes:

For the last decade, the images in fashion magazines have been increasingly divorced from the reality of their readers. Models get skinnier and skinnier. The average model in 1985 was a size 8, while today the average model is a size 0 or 2. Yet the average American gets bigger and bigger. It's almost a perverse relationship; the fatter the country gets, the thinner its icons must be. The disconnect is widening at the very moment an alternative to the high-fashion combine is gaining momentum -- namely, the plus-size market. Once plus sizes were a fashion ghetto. Now they have their own runway show, CurveStyle, which was introduced in February in New York and will continue on the same semiannual schedule as the designer ready-to-wear collections.

I fear that re-categorizing a size 12 as "plus-sized" will lead a whole new group of women to the yo-yo diet merry-go-around. It's a dangerous trend because anyone who wears a size 12 is most assuredly at a healthy weight. Can size 12 women be happy? Probably not. Despite the best efforts of the size acceptance movement, most women still find it tough to be regarded as "plus-sized."

So where will it end? A size minus 1? I don't want to seem ungrateful to Vogue. Any degree of progress is welcome. I plan to commend Vogue for even allowing thoughts of "plus-sizes" to creep into its pages, but I will also urge them to reconsider their definition of "plus-size" and to include women in future issues who truly represent this ideal.

Editor's Note: This article is reprinted with permission from Carol's quarterly newsletter, On A Positive Note in which she packs info on self-esteem, body image, exercise, nutrition, style and fashion - and many other issues of interest to large people. For information on subscribing to Carol's newsletter, or to request back issues, check out Carol's website. Or, email Carol at positive@execpc.com.

Click here for Carol's current column.

       

I keep hearing about how much I'm costing society, as a larger person. The most recent figure I could find is about $99 billion annually.(1) Is this to make me feel guilty? Figure out my share and pay it back? According to my calculator, this amounts to about $1,053 per larger person, given the contention that one-third of the population is overweight (some estimates go as high as one-half the population in which case my share would be less). The U.S. population currently stands at about 281 million. I would be happy to send a check if the "fat police" would agree to quit bugging me -- and if I knew where to send it.

There is a not-so-subtle message contained in these figures that fat people are an economic burden on society. Even if this were true, what are we supposed to do about it? Scientists admit that obesity is a complex problem, a problem not well understood. They also acknowledge that a permanent cure has not yet been discovered.

What then is the purpose of continually throwing these cost figures at us? Don't we already have enough to deal with? We don't look good, we are presumed lazy and weak-willed, and now we get a bill for how much we are costing everyone.

In fairness, I uncovered the annual costs for some additional health conditions:

You can see that the economic impact of most of these is more than that of obesity, and yet we rarely hear about how much they are costing the country. The point I am trying to make is that we are all human, all imperfect in some way, and all costing something to exist on this planet. Larger people are not intentionally trying to rack up bills for the country to pay, and neither are people involved in auto and workplace accidents or who suffer from cancer or other diseases. None of us has made a conscious decision to add to the national debt.

I suppose at some level we need to know the financial impact of certain diseases and injuries, but not surrounded by an aura of "blame." Instead of pointing out how much obesity costs, can't we put more time and effort into providing accurate information and fighting discrimination -- and into research that may someday find an answer?

(1)AM Wolf and GA Colditz, "Current estimates of the economic cost of obesity in the United States," Obesity Research 1998 Mar; 6(2):173-5.
(2)P Holland and M Mushinski, "Costs of alcohol and drug abuse in the United States," Statistical Bulletin Metropolitan Insurance Co, 1999 Oct-Dec; 80(4):2-9.
(3)"Tobacco Facts," www2cancer.org
(4)"Costs of Cancer," www3cancer.org
(5)"The economic cost of motor vehicle crashes, 1994," www.nhtsa.dot.gov (National Highway, Traffic, and Safety Administration)
(6)TR Miller and M Galbraith, "Estimating the costs of occupational injury in the United States," Accid Anal Prev 1995 Dec; 27(6):741-7.
(7)LA Chilcott and CM Shapiro, "The socioeconomic impact of insomnia. An overview." Pharacoeconomics 1996; 10 Suppl 1:1-14.

Editor's Note: This article is reprinted with permission from Carol's quarterly newsletter, On A Positive Note in which she packs info on self-esteem, body image, exercise, nutrition, style and fashion - and many other issues of interest to large people. For information on subscribing to Carol's newsletter, or to request back issues, just email Carol at positive@execpc.com or check out her website at www.largelypositive.com. Carol's book Self-Esteem Comes In All Sizes is newly republished and available for purchase from the Grand Style Bookstore.

Click here for Carol's current column.

       

"Child Obesity Research Suspended" reads the headline. The Office of Human Research Protections (OHRP) has suspended a federal study involving 200 children, charging that the study posed "a larger risk to the children than is allowed by law." The study was to be a 15-year look at how obesity develops in children and how it affects the children of obese parents. The children were to repeatedly undergo a battery of procedures including psychological testing, radiography, blood sugar tests and magnetic resonance imaging of the abdomen. Of most concern were tests involving overnight hospital stays, insertion of intravenous blood lines, and hours-long durations of extremely high and low blood sugar levels.

OHRP investigators said that such studies pose "more than minimal risk of pain, allergic reactions or, most problematic, blood clots or phlebitis." More than minimal risk is permitted when research promises to help fight the child's ailment. But the problem was that the children's "ailment" in this case was simply their risk of developing obesity. OHRP said that healthy children of obese parents do not have a disorder. (Reported in Healthy Weight Journal, May/June 2001, www.healthyweight.net)

Well, thank heavens! What are we doing to our big kids -- or potentially big kids? I recently saw a show on heavy children on Oprah where some of the children were brought to tears by the so-called therapists. One boy who said he felt pretty good about himself was basically told that he really didn't -- he just thought he did -- and if he really did, he shouldn't. Talk about a huge blow to their self-esteem!

These children are not old enough to comprehend the complexities of obesity and the widespread prejudice. All they know is that "something is wrong with me" and the way everyone is acting, "it must be my fault." I know because this is how I felt. The answer then was to go on a diet. Today, the emphasis has shifted more to physical activity. There is nothing wrong with this on the face of it. Kids today are less active than when I was a child. But will increased activity be enough to make them all thin? I doubt it. As a child, I walked to school, walked home for lunch, walked back from lunch, and then back home at the end of the school day. The distance was almost a mile one way. I rode my bike like crazy. I played outside with my friends. I swam all summer. I did not become thin. And I was not eating compulsively.

Do children today do as much of this? Probably not. We did not have computers and video games and all that "sedentary" stuff. But is it the children's fault that society continues to progress technologically?

It is hard for us to admit that we just don't have all the answers yet. Some -- if not many -- larger children will still grow up to be larger adults. Are we going to raise them to feel as though there is something wrong with them and they are to blame or are we going to tell them the truth -- that science does not yet have the answers to the obesity puzzle; that it is not their fault; that, yes, the more physical activity they get, the better it will be for them; but people will continue to come in all shapes and sizes for the foreseeable future.

For a copy of Largely Positive's handout, "Raising Largely Positive Kids," send a self-addressed, stamped envelope to Largely Positive, P.O. Box 170223, Milwaukee, WI 53217.

Editor's Note: This article is reprinted with permission from Carol's quarterly newsletter, On A Positive Note in which she packs info on self-esteem, body image, exercise, nutrition, style and fashion - and many other issues of interest to large people. For information on subscribing to Carol's newsletter, or to request back issues, just email Carol at positive@execpc.com or check out her website at www.largelypositive.com. Carol's book Self-Esteem Comes In All Sizes is newly republished and available for purchase from the Grand Style Bookstore.

Click here for Carol's current column.

       

Largely Positive went to Shape Up America -- and survived! To the very end, I didn't even get voted off the island! How did that ever happen? Well, last summer I met Barbara More, Ph.D., head of Shape Up America at a gathering of obesity researchers and size acceptance advocates at the University of Pennsylvania. We chatted and became acquainted. When I saw that Shape Up America was planning a "diabesity" conference to explore the link between the growing incidence of both diabetes and obesity, I was concerned about what they would do to address this situation, which is undeniably occurring.

I emailed Barbara and said that if they did not include the perspective of a larger person, they would have a serious gap in their agenda. She got back to me immediately and said that they had actually been trying to contact me to ask me to speak. I accepted without hesitation. Then I arrived at the conference, sat down, looked around and wondered, "What the heck am I doing here?" surrounded by "the enemy."

Here's what I found out. Most of these people are not our "enemies." They truly feel that they are working in the best interests of larger people and trying to find ways to help us. The problem is that they are slender people who have never had the experience of living in larger bodies. They can't possibly understand out experiences. And that's what I tried to share with them.

It was clear that many stereotypes of fat people are alive and well. I heard comments like "You can't get sedentary people to come to an exercise class." "Many of these heavy people just don't care." "They just don't understand the risks -- perhaps we need to sound the alarm." When I got up to speak, I said, "Believe me, you don't need to sound the alarm for us. I have been hearing that alarm go off every day of my life!" And it's not that we don't care. Many of us try our darnedest to live healthy. But living healthy will not necessarily make us thin.

The people who came to this conference form a continuum, as do most groups, with some being more moderate and open-minded and some being more hard-nosed and unbending. Many people approached me after my talk and congratulated me. A dietitian approached me and said she plans to change the way she practices as a result of my talks. Others aid they would subscribe to our newsletter and buy my book.

The fact that I was even invited to this conference is a step forward. I can't say I changed everyone's thinking, but here's a summary of what I told them:

In whatever campaign Shape Up America is planning:

So this is what I told the audience. I hope it has some impact on the way the "diabesity" campaign evolves. I will be watching it closely and will keep you posted! In the meantime, I was a "survivor." And as I was sitting waiting to leave, a conference attendee passed by and said, "Keep up the good work!" I replied, "Thanks -- I guess someone has to do it."

Editor's Note: This article is reprinted with permission from Carol's quarterly newsletter, On A Positive Note in which she packs info on self-esteem, body image, exercise, nutrition, style and fashion - and many other issues of interest to large people. For information on subscribing to Carol's newsletter, or to request back issues, just email Carol at positive@execpc.com or check out her website at www.largelypositive.com. Carol's book Self-Esteem Comes In All Sizes is newly republished and available for purchase from the Grand Style Bookstore.

Click here for Carol's current column.

       

1. Do not use your weight to measure your self-worth. What does weight have to do with self-worth? Your self-worth is the sum of everything that makes you special and unique - not just your thigh and waist measurements! Add up your assets, talents, how you treat others, how you treat yourself, the contributions you make to your family, friends and community. Now you have self-worth.

2. Count your blessings. You have a lot of things to be thankful for a home, a loving family, friends you enjoy, a job, a sunny day, the knowledge you've acquired - even things like shoes, a coat. Many people don't have these things. A mind that counts blessings has no room for self-pity. So you don't wear a size 2? Neither did Eleanor Roosevelt!

3. Are you continually playing negative tapes in your mind? Eject them and insert new tapes! You may have to make a conscious effort. When the critical tape starts playing, picture yourself hitting the "stop" button and insert a new, positive tape.

4. Don't use "all or nothing" thinking. No one is a "total" failure. Most things you do right. Just because you sometimes make a mistake or take a wrong path does not make you a "total" failure. It makes you human. Besides, the president of CBS was recently asked for his secret to success. His answer: failures - because how else would we learn?

5. No one starts from zero. You probably eat pretty well a lot of the time. We can always make improvements, but consider the glass half full, not half-empty!

6. Strut your stuff! Shine! Show the world your talents. We all have them. Capitalize on what you do well. I'll never dance Swan Lake, but then again, I'll bet that ballerina doesn't play a mean piano like I do.

7. Give thanks to your body for what is does for you. Appreciate its functional nature. It's a pretty remarkable machine. You can use it to take a walk along the beach, hug someone, listen to a concerto, make love - or go shopping! And it can do all of these things no matter what shape or size it is.

8. Educate yourself (and those around you) about issues of size and weight. Learn what's fact and what's fiction. What the research really says and what most people believe are two entirely different things. Reputable researchers will tell you that obesity is still a complex, poorly understood condition that has very little to do with lack of willpower and a whole lot to do with biology and physiology. Most importantly - especially for those who are considered "overweight" - stop blaming yourself. It's not your fault. The research continues to show this over and over.

9. Become preoccupied with the world... not with dieting. When we're constantly dieting, weighing, measuring, counting calories, calculating fat grams, recording our feelings in food diaries and agonizing over what to eat and what not to eat, we have little time left for what's going on in the rest of the world. And it's such an interesting place!

10. Put nothing on hold as a reward for weight loss. A Largely Positive member recently suggested:"The best advice I ever got was to make a list of the things I would do differently once I was thin - then pick the top one and do it right now. The item at the top of my list was to take flying lessons and now I'm a single-engine land pilot!"

11. Develop a personal style that announces you. Find some signature pieces. Never ever put off buying attractive clothes until you lose weight - you don't have to wear a 10 to be a 10! Don't buy into the silly notion that you can only wear dark colors because they're more "slimming". At best, dark colors shave off five pounds. Big deal! If I have a choice between looking five pounds thinner or wearing lime green, I'm going for the lime green!

12. And Women of America: We do not have "figure flaws," despite what many of the magazines tell us. Each of us is simply shaped differently. It's called diversity. We appreciate it in flowers. Why not in people?

13. Surround yourself with positive, supportive people. Tell weight critics that your size and shape are no longer topics on the conversational buffet table! Eliminate negative people from your life. Surely you have enough supportive people in you circle of family and friends that you'll never miss the "nay-sayers."

14. Look into your past for sources of low self-esteem. Retrieve critical comments that were made to you, especially as a child. You will probably discover that your body image was shaped by other people and outside influences. You are an adult now. You have better information. Refute these old messages and from now on, shape your own body image.

15. Concentrate on developing a healthy lifestyle rather than losing weight. Developing a healthy lifestyle is positive and can be measured in lots of ways. Losing weight has only one measure of success: the scale.

Editor's Note: This article is reprinted with permission from Carol's quarterly newsletter, On A Positive Note in which she packs info on self-esteem, body image, exercise, nutrition, style and fashion - and many other issues of interest to large people. For information on subscribing to Carol's newsletter, or to request back issues, just email Carol at positive@execpc.com or check out her website at www.largelypositive.com.

Click here for Carol's current column.

       

I saw a commercial recently that caught my attention. Work on what makes you different, it advised. I thought about this. We're always “working on” some aspect of ourselves, but not on what's different. All too often we're working on making ourselves into something or someone we're not. Instead of working on what sets up apart from everyone else, we're trying to be like everyone else.

Although no two individuals are born alike, the pressure starts at an early age to “fit in, be alike, gravitate toward the middle”:

This is especially true when it comes to our bodies. We buy into society's dictate that there is but one ideal shape, and we make ourselves miserable “working on” chiseling our shape into that one mold -- “clone bods,” I call them. I always felt my hips were misshapen, out of proportion. So I jiggled them, rolled them, steamed them. But even if they got a little smaller, they were still the same shape. Nothing I did changed my basic contours. I have since realized that they were not meant to look like anyone else's hips. They're different, mine alone. When the Creator make them he broke the mold!

The concept of “sameness” is alien to nature, if you stop to think about it. Nature is filled with a variety of sizes and shapes, all considered beautiful -- because they're unique. One flower is not “better” or more beautiful than another. They're simply different sizes, shapes and colors. What a boring world it would be if they were all alike.

But when it comes to the human form, we can't seem to embrace nature's blessing of diversity. Only one flavor is allowed. Magazines are constantly advising us “how to camouflage our figure flaws.” I finally realized that none of us has any figure flaws. We simply have different shapes. How does this quality as a “flaw”? These articles usually go on to advise us how to cover up or minimize parts of our bodies that are out of sync with the one and only shape decreed acceptable. Often this involves limiting our choices and anything that would make us “different.”

Who are some of the most memorable people? They're the ones who stood out, were different in some way. Maybe even a little odd or unusual. Why would you choose to be a second-rate, one-of-a-kind, “you-nique” you!

Instead of following the crowd, start to work on what makes you different. Embrace it. Emphasize it. Call attention to it.

When it comes to your body, stop trying to make it into a “clone bod.” Of course, take care of it. Make it strong. Make it healthy. But don't try to force the proverbial square peg into a round hole. There's room in the world for all sizes and shapes of pegs!

Like the commercial said, “Work on what makes you different!”

Editor's Note: This article is reprinted with permission from Carol's quarterly newsletter, On A Positive Note in which she packs info on self-esteem, body image, exercise, nutrition, style and fashion - and many other issues of interest to large people. For information on subscribing to Carol's newsletter, or to request back issues, just email Carol at positive@execpc.com or check out her website at www.largelypositive.com.

Click here for Carol's current column.

       

It may be time to reiterate and revisit the Largely Positive philosophy. People sometimes feel that there is a conflict of interest between our philosophy and weight management. But just because we promote size acceptance does not mean we are anti-weight management.

I think it would be helpful to go back to the time when I decided to create Largely Positive. I had been attending a group diet program where the format was starting to disturb me. The leader had us feverishly making lists of "all the freedoms we lose when we're overweight," "how weight loss can restore our confidence and self-esteem." If I stepped on the scales and hadn't lost weight the past week, she would ask if I knew "what I was doing wrong?" People who lost 10 pounds in a week were cheered and applauded. The whole thing wasn't making any sense to me. There was a reason ...

At the same time I was attending this program, I was also in the process of discovering the obesity research, first through a book called The Dieter's Dilemma and then by plowing through scientific literature on obesity. It became startlingly apparent to me that what the research really said was NOT what was being taught to me at my weight loss program. I became increasingly frustrated and more than a little annoyed with a program that was based on myths and inaccuracies, and decided I could no longer be part of it. But I still felt it was important to look for an effective way to manage my weight, and, more importantly, my overall health.

The thing that no longer made sense to me was the traditional approach of "larger woman feels bad about herself, loses weight, it now a good person, regains weight -- bad person again." It no longer made sense to me that I couldn't have a life or feel worthwhile until I lost weight. I didn't understand why I couldn't be a secure, confident, attractive woman and live my life fully while concurrently working on my weight. What I -- and many others -- needed was a positive weight management program, a program where my weight would no longer be the focus of my entire life, but merely a small aspect of it.

A good analogy is to think of the solar system. Before Largely Positive, I felt as through my weight was the sun and everything else revolved around it. Now I am the sun, the planets are the important things in my life and my weight is just a small asteroid!

So where does that leave weight management? It's not unusual that it got lost in the shuffle. When Largely Positive was emerging, the self-esteem and self-acceptance components kind of took charge. Looking back, this actually made sense. So many larger people have been "starving" for self-esteem and a sense of self-worth for such a long time that it made sense for these things to lead the way.

It was also quite apparent that science has not yet found a permanent weight loss solution for the majority of larger people. If it's so futile, why bother to harp about it?

For these reasons, weight management gets shoved aside. I don't mean for it to. Many of our members have legitimate reasons for still wanting to shed some pounds. They should not feel they have to abandon Largely Positive in order to do this. I have always wanted this to be "the positive approach to weight management."

But I also want it to be "the realistic and accurate approach." For instance, there has been a great deal of emphasis lately on the benefits of moderate weight loss. This makes sense to me. I always managed to lose 20-25 pounds. But I never felt as though I was "finished." When the scales refused to budge any further, I gave up.

I now know that this really was enough! And when the group leader asked what I was doing wrong if I went a week without losing weight, we now know I wasn't doing anything wrong! My body was simply taking a break, a break that we now know enhances weight management!

There is plenty of room within Largely Positive for weight management -- if we do it the right way and the positive way!

Editor's Note: This article is reprinted with permission from Carol's quarterly newsletter, On A Positive Note in which she packs info on self-esteem, body image, exercise, nutrition, style and fashion - and many other issues of interest to large people. For information on subscribing to Carol's newsletter, or to request back issues, just email Carol at positive@execpc.com or check out her website at www.largelypositive.com.

Click here for Carol's current column.

       

If Drew Carey claimed to have discovered a pill or device that could cure cancer, and you had cancer, would you buy it? And even if you did, chances are you'd still consult with a cancer specialist. After all, who would be foolish enough to rely on a TV star to cure a major illness? And yet, isn't this precisely what we do when we take our weight management advice from celebrities?

I am constantly amazed at the number of people who feel qualified to dispense weight management advice and remedies simply because they are famous and may have lost a dress size (from a 6 to a 4). What amazes me even more is that millions of people spend billions of dollars on the stuff being hawked. In the past couple of months I have seen:

Most of this stuff is either ineffective, dangerous or both. In no other area affecting our health would we take advice from people with no related scientific background or credentials to support their claims. People diagnosed with cancer do not, as a rule, seek treatment advice from celebrities. They look for the best doctors and medical facilities they can find. They check out the credentials of the specialists and institutions they are considering to be sure that they will be receiving the best, most up-to-date treatments. Not so with obesity. Why?

If I were to sit these gurus of girth down on a panel and ask, “What do you think about the recent developments in leptin research?” I would be willing to bet that none of them would have a clue - because most wouldn't even know what leptin is. They wouldn't know about the twin studies, the studies of adopted kids and their biological parents. They wouldn't know what the New England Journal of Medicine had to say recently about obesity (that it is “a much more complex formulation involving a fairly stable set point for a person's weight that is resistant over short periods to either gain or loss, but may move with age”). And they would probably not be too happy with what this reputable publication had to say about their campaigns: “Since many people cannot lose much weight no matter how hard they try, and promptly regain whatever they do lose, the vast amounts of money spent on diet clubs, special food, and over-the-counter remedies is wasted.”

Most of these celebrity experts have never really been fat. Oh, they may at some point have ballooned from a size 6 to a size 8, but, physiologically, their bodies are not the same as someone who has been above average weight since birth. They have no understanding of what it really means to be categoried as “fat” or “overweight” by society's standards. Perhaps their intentions are good and some of their advice is harmless and even helpful at times. I feel, for instance, that Richard Simmons has produced some good exercise videos. And there is certainly nothing wrong with cookbooks that contain recipes for flavorful, lowfat menus.

So why don't we listen to the people who really have the expertise in the area of obesity and weight management?

And yet these are the people we should be listening to, not to sitcom stars or slick-talking, self-proclaimed “nutritionists.”

The FDA (Federal Drug Administration) warns consumers to be skeptical of weight loss claims containing words and phrases like: easy, effortless, guaranteed, miraculous, magical, breakthrough, new discovery, mysterious, exotic, secret, exclusive, [or] ancient. The Healthy Weight Network advises consumers to be wary of anything that:

(For a more complete discussion of “how to identify weight loss fraud,” visit The Healthy Weight Network)

Let's start approaching weight management in the same way we would approach any other aspect of our health - with sound information provided by reputable, credible, objective sources. It may not be as exciting, but it will be much safer and much easier on the pocketbook!

Editor's Note: This article is reprinted with permission from Carol's quarterly newsletter, On A Positive Note in which she packs info on self-esteem, body image, exercise, nutrition, style and fashion - and many other issues of interest to large people. For information on subscribing to Carol's newsletter, or to request back issues, just email Carol at positive@execpc.com or check out her website at www.largelypositive.com.

Click here for Carol's current column.

       

It has become second nature for women to put their bodies down. We do it without thinking. It's almost a national pastime.

This became especially apparent to me in recent days watching my favorite home shopping channel. During that entire time, I did not hear the host