Hi, I’ve been reading your site, this and the-f-word.org. I first found out about fat acceptance in 2006, stumbling across bigfatblog.com. I am supportive of Health at Every Size and combating bigotry in all its forms.

I just have to say I am a huge fan of Gary Taubes. His pieces “What If It’s All Been a Big Fat Lie?” and “The Soft Science of Dietary Fat” changed my life – because I became more healthy. I own his book but I had somehow missed the publication of two articles referenced in the post, so thank you for that.

I wanted to make a comment about bread. My reading has brought to my attention the difference between bread in its most common, cheapest, and most profitable form these days – and old fashioned bread, the kind that has existed as long as human civilization. Older bread was dark, thick, directly from cooking grains, often water-softened and sprouted grains. New white bread is made from flour that has been stripped of its fiber and additives we do not yet know the exact effect of, for better or worse – it’s just different.

Thanks for the site, it’s great.

1. Taubes does take the point of view that being obese is not a good thing, but his position is quite nuanced, and he’s far from being an opponent of fat acceptance (which doesn’t come up in the book at all, this is just my sense from the overall tone of what he’s writing)

2. Taubes points out (and cites the relevant data) that obesity is not a cause but a concurrent symptom of a metabolic syndrome brought on IN SOME PEOPLE by eating a western type of diet that contains many simple carbohydrates. He spends a lot of time showing how in cultures around the world that were not exposed to western ideas of eating & western foods, diabetes (and cancer) was almost nonexistent, as was obesity; once these cultures had their food traditions interrupted by western influences (or the people emigrated to western countries), diabetes rates skyrocketed. (Whether you want to argue that obesity is on the increase or even bad at all, I don’t think anyone is defending diabetes — which is on the rise worldwide — as a neutral condition to have.)

3. Taubes sees the diabetic state as the extreme end of a continuum of health that we’re all on, and that the western style of eating in general has a tendency to promote, due to the marked change since the middle of the 19th century in the way people in the western world eat — a marked demonstrable increase in the pounds of sugar consumed per capita per year in the last 150 years. He shows the data that points to sugar as having seriously adverse effects on most physical systems due to its activation of insulin. And again, he makes the point that not every single person is as susceptible to insulin resistence as every other — otherwise we’d all be diabetic. But for that percentage of people who are very susceptible, the standard western diet may be poisonous.

4. He also shows how the recommendations of the last 40 years to eat a low fat high carb diet for “heart health” is in fact one that leads to cardiovascular disease, diabetes, and an increase in obesity, obesity being, as he shows, an additional symptom rather than a cause. And he shows why calories from carbohydrate cause people to lay on fat in a way that is unique compared to calories from protein and fat — ie, that a calorie is not a calorie, and that merely restricting calories while still eating a lot of carboydrate just makes a dieter tired without actually taking off any weight.

I recommend checking out the book’s epilogue first, which lays out the whole thesis, and then reading the book as a whole from the beginning.

If your insulin is under 8 and your triglcyerides are under 150 and you don’t have a Pattern B LDL subparticle profile, elevated fibrinogen or CRP you are probably pretty healthy no matter what size you are.

I was recently diagnosed with hypothyroid and am menopausal. Hello fat! My lipid profile is great, no elevated glucose or insulin levels. I rather enjoy my new curves and as long as my metabolic markers remain healthy and my arthritis is not made worse by the weight why worry? By the way, worry increases cortisol hormone which increases insulin which might increase fat deposition.

I exercise to keep my mitochondria healthy and my hormones healthy. What happens to my size and shape is genetic and irrelevant to my health.

But for the record, my post isn’t prescient — it’s all old news, really. :) It’s just that the results of studies are frequently spun by both the researchers and the mainstream media to make fat seem much worse than it is — and studies that show different results are rarely reported. That’s starting to change, with books like Paul Campos’s The Diet Myth and Gina Kolata’s Rethinking Thin — and now Taubes’s new book. But much of this info has been known since at least the ’50s.

I will read through that entire post.

But from what I skimmed so far, I think you’ll be amazed at how prescient your post is…especially after reading Gary’s book.

But, again, the reason I respect Gary’s courage (and yours) is that he is not blindly accepting the “politically correct” interpretation of the science; he is asking us to reconsider/do more real science/research.

I think it is necessary, though, to fully deal with the “carb” part of Gary’s hypothesis.

He is NOT just recommending a low carb diet…so we can lose weight. It is a 600+ page book and there is nothing in the book that slightly resembles a diet book. He is recommending a low carb diet because his interpretation of the science tells him that carb consumption (not necessarily obesity) is the nutritional evil.

Excess carbs=Excess Insulin
Excess Insulin can lead to MANY serious health issues (heart disease, cancer, diabetes, etc.).

He is NOT saying eat less carbs…lose weight…you’ll be healthier because you weigh less.

He is saying (irrespective of your weight/fat levels) too much insulin in our systems is dangerous.

If you ( or your readers) are disagreeing with the concept of “fat equals unhealthy,” you may (or may not) be correct.

But, if you were to agree with Gary’s interpretation of of the science, you would probably consider reducing insulin’s role in your daily life…and the easiest way to do this is by lowering carb intake.

Whether you did or did not lose weight, you might still consider lowering carbs…because insulin is bad.

Absolutely. I am so sick of hearing people (not you, Robert) say, “When I was 20 and weighed X, I could do all these things, but now I weigh Y and I can’t!” Never putting it together that “now” is 10, 20, 30 years later, and that might just have something to do with it.

I’m 32, and a lot of things aren’t as easy as they were when I was just about the exact same weight at 25 — let alone when I was thinner and, you know, SIXTEEN. But then, a whole lot of other things — such as not hating myself and not listening to fatphobic assholes — are much easier now. It’s a trade-off I’m cool with.

You’d be surprised! Check out the “But don’t you realize fat is unhealthy?” tag at the top of this blog.

Meanwhile, of course you should try to live the best you can in the body you have. I do encourage you to consider the fact that, as a father of four… oh Robert, I’m so sorry to say this, but you’re probably over 30. Possibly even over 40. *whispers* Sometimes things get more tiring.

I’m going to assume that we have scientific proof that aging can have some negative physical and emotional consequences. :)

Ok, I tease, but I do honestly think that one of the effects of fat panic is that people scapegoat the effects of illness, aging, and poor habits onto fat. There’s a lot to read around here on the subject — check out the HAES tag in the sidebar. Meanwhile, I’m glad you stuck around with an open mind.

That’s why it’s got a permanent link at the top of the page.

I know that I may have stepped into a longstanding discussion that I do not fully understand (fat acceptance). If I did it ungracefully, I apologize. I DO NOT fully understand all (or most) of the “fat acceptance” tenants.

But…

I would have to assume that no one is arguing for accepting an unhealthy state.

Why I thought Gary’s book was so courageous is that he challenges MANY assumptions about what does/does not make us healthier/live longer. And, he does it based upon (his interpretation) of the science.

If part of the “fat acceptance” mindset/tenants is that being overweight has NO impact on health and/or longevity and you are able to demonstrate this scientifically, then KUDOS to your willingness to challenge conventional wisdom.

But, just as many of the people that Gary pokes in his book ASSUME that obesity is a simple calories in/calories out equation, I am ASSUMING that there is fairly good science to back up the hypothesis that excess weight IS unhealthy.

Again, I may need to poke through the rest of the blog to find references to such studies, but I ASSUME that most agree that excess fat has deleterious effects on overall health and longevity.

I am married and the father of four. I am (almost) beyond the vanity reasons for caring about losing weight. It is the negative physical and emotional consequences that I no longer wish to tolerate (lethargy, depression, inability to participate in sports I enjoy). And, again, my opinion is my own. I have been relatively thin and now am not. In my opinion, I experience these detrimental effects. I assume this is not the case for all.

Although I may be wrong, I really don’t feel that I am in the “all for tolerating fat” camp for any cultural reasons. I happen to find larger women more attractive than skinny women. I have very honestly expressed this “preference” to my wife. But, based on the evidence that ( I think) I have seen. I would still be concerned about her long-term health…if she were to become too obese.

And, I think it is unrealistic to ask someone to “accept” that they can no longer participate in things that they truly love, simply because they are obese…and be happy about it.

I love sex. Sex is less enjoyable at my current weight. Not because of vanity…because of physics.

I love martial arts and basketball and riding bikes…none of which I can comfortably participate in right now.

Am I supposed to believe that this is “all good?”