WIXLIB

INTRODUCTIONYou want to lose weight. You look in the mirror and you see “fatand ugly.” You’ve heard the obesity fears trumpeted repeatedlyin newspapers, magazines, and on the television news: 65 percent of Americans are overweight or obese . . . growing numbers ofoverweight kids . . . we don’t know how to eat . . . we’re not exercising enough . . . we’re the first generation that’s going to die youngerthan our parents . . . blah, blah, blah. So you buy one diet book afteranother, desperate for the one that will finally save you. But theynever do, at least not in any lasting way.Face it, the “D” word is dead. A new diet isn’t going to get youwhat you want. You’ve been there, done that, and there’s no point intrying again. Even exercise programs don’t deliver.So you picked up this book, Health at Every Size: The SurprisingTruth About Your Weight, hoping it will finally provide the cure. Thisbook can cure your weight woes, but the answer may be differentfrom what you’ve imagined.Health at Every Size is not a weight-loss book. It’s not a diet book.It’s not an exercise program. Health at Every Size is a book abouthealthy living, one designed to support you as you shift your focusfrom hating yourself and fighting your body to learning to appreciateyourself, your body, and your life. It’s a book designed to help youbreak free of the weight-loss mentality and embrace the health-andhappiness mentality. Because really, what’s beneath your weight-lossquest? Isn’t your ultimate goal to feel better about yourself, to feellove, acceptance, vitality, or good health? 1 Excerpt from Health at Every Size: The Surprising Truth About Your Weight (2nd Ed.)by Linda Bacon (www.HAESbook.com)Copyright Linda Bacon 2010.

2 HEALTH AT EVERY SIZEThat’s the Health at Every Size promise. You can feel better aboutyourself. You can feel loved, accepted, and vital—and you canimprove your health—regardless of whether you lose weight.Health at Every Size is not speculation or unproven theory. It’sbased on a scientifically tested program. The program was evaluatedthrough a government-funded academic study, its data published inwell-respected scientific journals.1, 2, 3 It showed that the programcan give you what you want. Even the United States Department ofAgriculture (USDA) touts the Health at Every Size program as the“new hope” for people struggling with their weight.4“Oh, no, no, no,” you may be thinking. “To feel better aboutmyself, I’ve got to lose weight!” That’s what the women in ourresearch study initially thought. When my colleagues and I recruitedparticipants for the study, we ran open-ended ads for large womenwho were struggling with their weight and interested in feeling better about themselves and improving their health. Every respondentassumed they were applying to participate in a weight-loss program.After all, they figured, how can large women feel better about themselves and improve their health without losing weight?The disappointment was palpable during the orientation sessionwhen the women randomly assigned to the Health at Every Size program learned they would not be part of the weight-loss group (thecontrol group). If they could have walked out then, I think theywould have. Fortunately, they all decided to stay through the initialmeeting.During that meeting, I asked the women to reflect on their history of trying to lose weight. We shared stories of diet and exerciseroutines; stress management techniques; years spent working withnutritionists, physicians, psychotherapists, hypnotherapists, personal trainers, clergy, and psychic healers. We laughed and cried aswe remembered the money and energy we wasted on fat magnets,slimming slippers, thigh creams, ear staples, and even headbandspurported to help dream the fat away.We bonded over the underlying pain and desperation that led usto try everything and anything, from the mundane to the outrageous, and repeatedly go back for more. It became clear that, in contrast to the negative stereotype of the lazy and undisciplined fatExcerpt from Health at Every Size: The Surprising Truth About Your Weight (2nd Ed.)by Linda Bacon (www.HAESbook.com)Copyright Linda Bacon 2010.

INTRODUCTION 3person, everyone in this group had exhibited tremendous determination, strength of character, and willpower in their persistentattempts to lose weight.You’ll read more about the study later in the book, but let meshare with you one story that will show you how life-changing thisbook and its program can be.Kelly was one of the quieter participants that first night.Although highly motivated to make changes in her life, she was alsodubious about our approach. Like the other women, she very muchwanted to lose weight and had a long and painful history of fruitlessattempts. She’d often felt that initial hope and enthusiasm at tryingsomething new, only to be disappointed in the end. She was pessimistic that we could provide anything significantly different thanwhat she’d already tried (and failed at) countless times before.It wasn’t until the end of the session that Kelly finally spoke.Slowly at first, then with increasing intensity and emotion, shedescribed the ways in which her inability to lose weight and the subsequent self-hatred controlled much of her life. Other group members nodded in recognition as Kelly admitted that she rarely ate atrestaurants because she dreaded the looks of other diners as she ate,feeling their judgment and disapproving looks at her body and thefood she chose.She described how her self-hatred led to isolation, how she’dsometimes cancel plans with friends because she couldn’t bear to beout in the world in such a fat body. She kept returning to the refrainthat she had tried to lose weight, she had really tried, but she wasjust too weak to keep up the regimen of dieting or exercise.I suggested to Kelly—to all of us—that perhaps we hadn’t failed.Maybe, I said, we had successfully tested many weight-loss regimensand they had failed us. Had it ever occurred to them that maybe wedid everything right, but the techniques we tried just weren’t capableof delivering on their promise?They all looked at me blankly. This possibility was clearly something they hadn’t considered. They had spent years viewing theirweight as evidence of their own personal failing.The women were provided with a rough draft of this book andmet weekly to discuss the personal meaning of its contents. As theyExcerpt from Health at Every Size: The Surprising Truth About Your Weight (2nd Ed.)by Linda Bacon (www.HAESbook.com)Copyright Linda Bacon 2010.

4 HEALTH AT EVERY SIZElearned more about the science behind weight loss, why some bodies naturally weigh more than others, why conventional recommendations to diet or exercise may not have much impact on weight inthe long run, and that weight is not such an important factor inmeasuring one’s health or worthiness anyway, an incredible transformation occurred.In the end, the women participating in the Health at Every Sizeprogram emerged with better physical health, higher self-esteem,and a relationship with food that’s as healthy as their cholesterol andblood pressure levels. The women participating in the diet programexperienced none of these benefits and regained the weight they initially lost.You’ll read more about the Health at Every Size study later in thebook. I bring it up now because I want you to know that even if youpicked up this book looking for a weight-loss solution, you maywant to stick with it, even though you know up front that you won’tbe getting the prescription you seek.I want you to read what Kelly wrote in her journal shortly afterthat first meeting:It was powerful to realize how hard we had all triedto lose weight, how humiliating some of thoseattempts were, to feel one another’s desperation. I soempathized with the other group members as weshared stories of our hopes getting dashed again andagain.What motivates us to keep trying? I’m short andI don’t like that, but I don’t read growth books,attend heightening groups, or consider going to asalon to get stretched. That’s because I just don’t seemy height as changeable. But weight is different: Itseems like I should be able to change it.When I start a diet, I have a feeling of hope. Iwas on a real high on my way to that first meeting, Ilet the fantasies run wild. This is an actual government-sponsored university study, state-of-the-art. I’llfinally lose weight: Guys will notice me as I walkExcerpt from Health at Every Size: The Surprising Truth About Your Weight (2nd Ed.)by Linda Bacon (www.HAESbook.com)Copyright Linda Bacon 2010.

INTRODUCTION 5down the street, my mom will tell me how proud sheis, I can have confidence when I apply for a job.And then I heard Dr. Bacon say that weight lossmay not be possible and would not be a goal. I feltlike I had just been popped, like she inserted a needle into my big balloon, and my insides were leakingout. Life didn’t seem worth living without the hopethat I could be thin.But as this thought crossed my mind, it helpedme to see the extent of my magical thinking, howmuch I have riding on the fantasy, why I keep tryingso desperately to lose weight. Inside, I believe thatweight loss is the only thing standing between meand happiness. So if I never get thin, I can never behappy, I can never become the person I want to be.In that moment, I understood: It was the dreamof weight loss that clouded my ability to be happywith myself—not the weight itself. Perhaps Health atEvery Size can finally help me feel better about mylife and myself?The Health at Every Size program won’t ask you to give up onyour dreams; it will help you to actually live them. It will give youthe tools to realize those dreams, to live in a body you love, and tofocus on things like feeling good and enjoying life—no matter whatyour weight.Decades of research—and probably your own personal experience—show that the pursuit of weight loss rarely produces the thin,happy life you dream of. Dropping the pursuit of weight loss isn’tabout giving up, it’s about moving on. When you make choicesbecause they help you feel better, not because of their presumedeffect on your weight, you maintain them over the long run. You doit because you want to, not because you believe you should.When you stop trying to control your weight through willpower,your body starts doing the job for you—naturally, and much moreeffectively. If you stop fighting yourself, achieving and maintaining ahealthy weight is effortless. Consider Kelly’s experience:Excerpt from Health at Every Size: The Surprising Truth About Your Weight (2nd Ed.)by Linda Bacon (www.HAESbook.com)Copyright Linda Bacon 2010.