DIETS ARE INCONSISTENT WITH MY CORE VALUES

Erica Leon Eating Disorder Specialist & Registered Dietitian

Objectives

•  Learn Why Diets Don’t Work

•  Explain rationale of Health at Every Size®

•  Learn how a traditionally-trained registered dietitian (me!) changed her position from weight to health

•  Learn about a method called Intuitive Eating

Diets Don’t Work!

•  Diets have a 95% - 97% failure rate after 1-5 years*

•  $60 billion industry based on premise of YOUR FAILURE

*Statistics on Weight Discrimination: A Waste of Talent, The Council on Size and Weight

Discrimination, Retrieved July 18, 2011, from (http://www.cswd.org/index.html)

How Dieting Affects Your Body

•  Decreases metabolic rate

•  Increases preoccupation with food and body image

•  Increases binge eating: •  Starvation leads to binge behavior •  Wired to prefer CHO – sweets/fats

How Dieting Affects Your Emotions

•  Increases feelings of deprivation

•  Increases sense of failure and leads to shame

•  Decreases sense of willpower and self-esteem

•  Decreases trust with food

•  Increases social withdrawal

Diets Lead to Weight Gain

Diets Cause Harm

•  You stop practicing self-care

•  Can lead to disordered eating/eating disorders!

Biggest Loser is Biggest Example!

Ali Vincent (Season 5 Winner) •  First woman to win •  Starting weight: 234# •  Ending weight: 122#

Biggest Loser is Biggest Example:

Kept weight off for 7 years! •  Tearful Facebook Post in 2016: •  “I gained most of the weight back. •  I swore I would never be over 200#

again. I feel: ü  ashamed. ü  embarrassed. ü  overwhelmed. ü  like a failure.”

Ali Vincent today, trying to lose weight again!

Disordered Eating from Dieting

Disordered Eating from Dieting

•  Almost half of American children between 1st – 3rd grade want to be thinner!

•  50% of 9-10 year old girls are dieting!

Source: Rate of Eating Disorders in Kids Keeps Rising, US Department of Health and Human Services, Retrieved July 18, 2011, from (http://www.healthfinder.gov/news/newsstory.aspx?docID=646574)

)

Disordered Eating from Dieting

•  75% of American women surveyed endorse unhealthy thoughts, feelings or behaviors related to food or their bodies

Source: Three Out Of Four American Women Have Disordered Eating, Survey Suggests, Science News, Retrieved July 18, 2011, from (www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/04/080422202514.htm)

)

Disordered Eating from Dieting

•  35% of “occasional dieters” progress into pathological dieting, (disordered eating)

•  As many as 25% advance to full-blown eating disorders

Source: Pathological dieting, precursor to eating disorder, Philadelphia Eating Disorder Examiner, Retrieved July 18, 2011, from (www.examiner.com/eating-disorder-in-philadelphia/pathological-dieting-precursor-to-eating-disorders)

Disordered Eating from Dieting

•  10 million females & 1 million males suffer from ED

•  >1 million struggle with Binge Eating Disorder

Source: Information obtained from the National Association of Eating Disorders, Retrieved July 18, 2011, from (www.nationaleatingdisorders.org/index.php)

Disordered Eating From Dieting

•  Quit dieting, food & weight preoccupation

•  TREAT patients of ALL sizes with EQUAL respect!

•  Weight Bias in Medical Treatment

What is Intuitive (or attuned) Eating?

Evelyn Tribole, RD & Elyse Resch, RD

What is Intuitive Eating?

•  Method of honoring health

•  Meet physical and emotional needs

•  Attuned to hunger & fullness

•  Better way to attain health rather dieting

What is Intuitive Eating?

•  Process-based approach that develops healthy relationship with food.

•  YOU become the expert of your own body.

•  Learn to trust ability to meet your needs.

•  Learn to distinguish between physical and emotional feelings.

•  Develop body wisdom and Interoceptive Awareness!

Hunger-Fullness Scale

Dieting Vs. Internally-Driven Eating

Studies on Intuitive Eating •  http://www.intuitiveeating.org/resources/studies/

Intuitive Eating

What is Health at Every Size (HAES®)?

•  HAES® supports people in adopting health habits for

the sake of health and well-being rather than weight

control.

Source: “Weight Science: Evaluating the Evidence for a Paradigm Shift”

Bacon and Aphramore Nutrition Journal, 2011, 10:9

Health at Every Size (HAES®)Promotes

•  Flexible eating that values pleasure.

•  Honors internal cues of hunger, satiety & appetite.

•  Finding joy in movement.

•  Accepting & respecting body size/shape diversity.

Why is Weight Different Than Height?

Messages About Health in Media

•  Health depends on weight! ü Thin = healthy ü Fat = unhealthy

•  Eat better and you will be healthier! ü Good Foods/Bad Foods

•  Exercise more and you will be healthier!

My Journey to Non-Diet Nutrition

•  Education: –  BS in Nutrition Cornell University 1980

–  Dietetic Internship

–  MS in Nutrition New York University 1984

•  Learned Nutrition Facts

•  Learned Medical Nutrition Therapy

Work Experiences

•  Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center: –  Diet Technician/Dietitian

•  Mead Johnson Nutrition – Nutritional Supplements –  Sales and Marketing

Work Experiences

•  Gail Becker Associates – Manager, Health Communications and Public Relations •  Sweet ’N Low, Splenda •  Dorman’s Light Cheese •  Vitamin Company

Work Experiences

•  Burson Marstellar Public Relations –  Account Executive •  Optifast Program •  Other Pharmaceticals

Work Experience

•  Ogilvy and Mather Public Relations – Account Supervisor •  Nestle Nutrition •  Slogan: Breast is Best!

Work Experiences

•  New York Hospital Outpatient RD – MNT for: •  WEIGHT LOSS •  Diabetes •  PCOS •  Gestational Diabetes •  Cardiovascular Nutrition •  Gastrointestinal Health

Work Experiences

•  ACE-Certified Personal Trainer and Weight Loss Dietitian

Work Experiences

•  Private Practice established in 1998. – Shapedown ® Provider

•  For “Overweight/Obese” Children/Adolescents/Families

Shapedown®

•  Problems with Shapedown ® •  Pathologized Kids •  Pathologized Parents •  Focus was on Weight – NOT just habits •  Scale was Traumatic

Work Experience

•  Started Seeing EATING DISORDERS!

•  Kids on Diets were bingeing/emotionally eating •  Started seeing teens with anorexia and other EDs •  Saw lots of yo-yo dieters

Work Experience

•  Did not know any other RDs who were aware of level of dyfunction with food

– Found Supervision & Training with Therapists – Worked at Cedar Associates

Found Resources

•  Books: – Overcoming Overeating – Moving Away From Diets (2003) – Health at Every Size (2008)

Found Community

•  Health at Every Size Community – Association for Size Diversity and Health

Found Community: NAAFA

Found Community

•  Through Social Media – Facebook: Groups for Health at Every Size –  Instagram: Bloggers/Influences in HAES – Twitter

– Followed Fat Activists on All Platforms

– Worked to Undo my Own Internalized Fat/Weight Bias

Became Community

Became Community