I question the idea self-esteem would make an overweight person complacent.

This particular realisation made me ask some questions of myself. Questions about what was more important to me – looking good, feeling good, or being good (another set from the GROW program); questions about whether the particular social mores and norms I’d absorbed since childhood were actually healthy or harmful. I wound up concluding the whole dieting process, with its negative self-talk and constant mental putdowns, was not likely to be helping my mental health. Priority-wise, I decided mental health was more important for me than being thin – if I was thin, but still depressed, it wouldn’t matter how damn pretty I was, I still wouldn’t be interested in enjoying life anyway. So I gave up weight-loss dieting, and discovered how much it had been *adding* to my mental illness as I slowly broke a lot of the bad habits of thinking and acting I’d built up over the years.

As for him advising women on looking good? Puh-leaze. He should start working on his own looks.

Raft Tree, I take your point — certainly, liking yourself will lead to an increased desire to take care of yourself — but I find the phrase “healthier weight” hugely problematic, for reasons that should be obvious if you read this blog.

One thing I do find amusing about this whole myth is that on the Brit version of How to Look Good Naked, you often see these women, after their self esteem goes up hugely finally feeling comfortable enough to think about becoming a healthier weight, or just do more exercise for fun or drink more water. Because once they stop hating themselves, they start to actually care!

It completely pisses me off that anyone has the nerve to decide who has the “right” to self-esteem and who doesn’t. I’m glad you put this into words, because they escape me. Which is unusual, for me.

Presumably because not everyone finds him as annoying as you do?