Everything I Loathe About Women’s Magazines…

Posted By elissa on Mar 26, 2009 | 3 comments

…is captured in a slide show – “10 Reasons You’re Not Losing That Weight” –  from “Women’s Health.” 

For starters, it was trite and poorly thought out… For example:

Roadblock number 1: Always a go-getter, you work out at 6 a.m.

This made no sense to me…I know plenty of very lean people who workout at the crack of dawn.  Sure, there are a few precautions they take, depending on the nature of the exercise (high-intensity vs. low-intensity/endurance), but I couldn’t see any intrinsic reason(s) why early morning exercise – in and of itself – would be detrimental to weight loss.

As it turned out, the author couldn’t either…her point was about inadequate sleep!   Ok – getting enough sleep IS important, but – needless to state – a 6 a.m. workout time doesn’t automatically mean you’re burning the candle at both ends.  If you’re in bed by 9:30 – 10:00 p.m., you should be good to go.

But the sparks really started flying when I read Number 6…I couldn’t get over how much WRONG was packed into these short paragraphs:

Roadblock number 6: You’re shooting for a realistic size 6 instead of a near-impossible 2.

What’s wrong with that? We know size 2 jeans look like they were made for a 10-year-old, but, according to a study of 1,801 people published in the International Journal of Obesity, women who set unrealistically high weight-loss goals dropped more weight in 24 months than those who kept their expectations low.

Detour: The study authors concluded that having an optimistic goal motivated women to lose more weight. And the participants who failed to reach their magic number did not quit trying to drop the weight. Could aiming for Sienna Miller’s figure really help you reach your goal weight healthfully? “If you’re a driven person and a lofty goal motivates you,” says Blatner, “it can work.”

EPIC FAIL.

It starts with the research.  The actual study cited is behind a firewall, but a smaller, very similar study by the same lead researcher (Jennifer Linde) is open-source…so it will serve as a proxy.  And it confirmed what I already suspected: the word “unrealistic” means something quite different than what’s implied above. 

Here’s how Linde and her colleagues define it:

Using the best current treatments for obesity, most individuals will not reach their weight loss goals in treatment, and much of the weight they do lose will be regained within 3 years (5). Recently, there has been much clinical emphasis on moderating weight goals to reflect what is achievable rather than what is “ideal.” The observation that weight reductions of 5% to 10% result in significant improvements in physical health and psychosocial well-being and the fact that weight reductions of this magnitude are possible for most people have been used to justify encouraging more modest goals in weight loss programs (4,6,7,8,9,10).

Not surprisingly, hopes and expectations of obese people seeking weight loss are not as modest. When asked about weight loss objectives, overweight individuals typically select goals that are two to three times larger than average weight change outcomes observed in the best available treatments (8,11,12).

Emphasis mine.

In this context, “unrealistic” means “greater weight loss than studies predict people will achieve/maintain.”  To summarize:

Realistic Goal = Obese —> Slightly-Less-Obese
Unrealistic Goal = Obese —> Normal Weight

In other words, simply wanting to achieve a normal weight is “unrealistic,” since – according to the data – the odds are firmly against it.

Thus, the motivating nature of “unrealistic” goals makes perfect sense (which is why the researchers use the words “not surprisingly” to describe them).  If I weighed – say – 200 pounds, the prospect of losing only 5% – 10% of my weight (i.e., a goal of 180 – 185 lbs.) wouldn’t motivate me, either…I’d want to LOOK – as well as feel – a lot better.  In the actual study abstract, those “unrealistic” goals equated to a 21% – 27% reduction in weight.  To use my 200 pound example, this would be a goal of 158 – 146 lbs…not exactly a size 6, let alone a size 2.

Furthermore, the researchers weren’t studying how “lofty” goals contribute to weight loss…they were challenging an increasingly common clinical practice.  As they put it:

“Our findings are consistent with prior studies that assessed the impact of goals on weight loss (11, 17, 18, 19, 20); results call into question the popular idea that unrealistic goals undermine weight loss success and that clinical resources should be devoted to lowering treatment expectations. Although most people’s goals are clearly at odds with empirical “reality,” until stronger evidence for the importance of weight goals in determining therapeutic outcomes is forthcoming, patients might be better served if practitioners focused on factors known to predict successful outcomes, such as consistent monitoring of weight and weight control behaviors, dietary restraint, and physical activity (5, 41), rather than on counseling them about their goals.”

In essence, the study wasn’t about the value of encouraging dieters to set unrealistic goals – the subjects were doing that already.  It was about the value of NOT DISCOURAGING those goals.

Compare this to the bizarro-world interpretation offered by Women’s Health:

Roadblock number 6: You’re shooting for a realistic size 6 instead of a near-impossible 2. 

I can just picture the look on the researchers’ faces… Their definition of “realistic” is probably closer to size 20, not size 6.  But this simple sentence reveals more than just a failure to understand some research…See the problem?

Here’s a hint…next time you’re out in public, look around and then ask yourself:  just how “realistic” is a size 6 for most women?  You’d have to be pretty detached from reality to see size 6 as a ho-hum, uninspiring, “realistic” goal.

But “detached from reality” is probably a good description of the author…who evidently sees “near-impossible” thinness as a goal all women should dream of achieving.

All I can say is…Wow.  Just wow.

Who – in her right mind – dreams of being a SIZE TWO????  I sure as hell don’t. I’m a size 6 right now: to be a size 2, I’d have to sacrifice my muscle mass – which is what gives my body its shape and definition.  I wasn’t even a size two when I weighed ( a too thin) 115 lbs.  To squeeze into a size 2 pair of jeans, I’d have to shrink down to 100 – 105 lbs.  That would leave me looking like I had AIDS or some other muscle-wasting disease.

Why the author of this piece imagined that fitting into jeans “…made for a 10-year-old” would be a motivating vision for an adult woman is anyone’s guess.  But this is exactly the sort of “advice” that women DON’T need…the pursuit of extreme, unnatural thinness is a path to eating disorders and distorted body image/self esteem. 

To be blunt, NO ONE should be encouraged to go there – even in their dreams.  It’s bad enough to see this sort of thinking enshrined in the pages of “Cosmo” or “Vogue”…to see it in a mag (allegedly) concerned with women’s health is nothing short of appalling.