These days they're talking about weight maintenance or 'weight management' rather than 'weight loss.'

If you listen closely you will notice that obesity specialists are quietly adjusting the message through a subtle change in language. Plus, there are risky side effects, and many will end up gaining some of that weight back. But most people will still be obese after the surgery. Research suggests bariatric surgery can induce weight loss in the extremely obese, improving health and quality of life at the same time. If diets don't result in weight loss, what does? At this point the grim answer seems to be that there is no known cure for obesity, except perhaps surgically shrinking the stomach. Healthy stuff is still healthy, it just doesn't make you thin - Traci Mann, University of Minnesota But if they find out their weight probably won't change much, they tend to lose motivation. The research shows that most people are willing to exercise and limit caloric intake if it means they will look better. 'It just doesn't make you thin.' We are biological machinesīut eating right to improve health alone isn't a strong motivator. 'You should still eat right, you should still exercise, doing healthy stuff is still healthy,' she said. Traci Mann says the emphasis should be on measuring health, not weight. Health experts are also afraid people will abandon all efforts to exercise and eat a nutritious diet - behaviour that is important for health and longevity - even if it doesn't result in much weight loss. 'That's one of the reasons why this myth of weight loss lives on.' 'You have to be careful about the stigmatizing nature of that kind of image,' Caulfield says. In part, that's because it's such a harsh message. 'You'll be in a room with very knowledgeable individuals, and everyone in the room will know what the data says and still the message doesn't seem to get out.' It should probably save its money if the current science is right. Last fall, the Dubai government launched a 30-day weight loss challenge called 'Your Weight in Gold' to encourage dieters and combat growing obesity in the Gulf Arab emirate. 'You go to these meetings and you talk to researchers, you get a sense there is almost a political correctness around it, that we don't want this message to get out there,' he said. Tim Caulfield says his fellow obesity academics tend to tiptoe around the truth. So if most scientists know that we can't eat ourselves thin, that the lost weight will ultimately bounce back, why don't they say so? When Traci Mann analyzed all of the randomized control trials on long-term weight loss, she discovered that after two years the average amount lost was only one kilogram, or about two pounds, from the original weight. This has been tested in randomized controlled trials where people have been separated into groups and given intense exercise and nutrition counselling.Įven in those highly controlled experimental settings, the results show only minor sustained weight loss. But the weight creeps back, usually after about a year, and it keeps coming back until the original weight is regained or worse. Our biology taunts us, by making short-term weight loss fairly easy. But in fact those are really exceptions.' 'You have this confirmation bias going on where people point to these very specific examples as if it's proof. 'Those kinds of stories really keep the myth alive,' says University of Alberta professor Tim Caulfield, who researches and writes about health misconceptions. Those people are the outliers, but we cling to their stories as proof that losing weight is possible. Only about five per cent of people who try to lose weight ultimately succeed, according to the research. They become the legends - the friend of a friend, the brother-in-law, the neighbour - the ones who really did it.īut if we check back after five or 10 years, there's a good chance they will have put the weight back on. We all think we know someone in that rare group. 'Long-term weight loss happens to only the smallest minority of people.'

'It couldn't be easier to see,' she says. For psychologist Traci Mann, who has spent 20 years running an eating lab at the University of Minnesota, the evidence is clear. After years of study, it's becoming apparent that it's nearly impossible to permanently lose weight.Īs incredible as it sounds, that's what the evidence is showing. There's a disturbing truth that is emerging from the science of obesity.

Almost impossible book