What’s up Warriors? In fitness and exercise world, there seems to be a push and pull between having the perfect/ideal body (whatever that means at present) and celebrating the body you have. Thankfully, as of late, the celebration side seems to be gaining ground. But today I’d like to chat a bit about how I think we got here.

Recently Hulu released Dopesick, a dramatization of true events describing the opioid crisis in the US (go watch it if you haven’t) and it got me thinking. In essence, a cure-all for pain was sold to doctors and the public. And the drug worked really well. But it came with a huge cost… addiction.

Now this isn’t going to be a tirade against medication. More a comparison of industries. See, in a quest to make a bunch of money (which they did), the makers of OxyContin misled people. This resulted in a phrase that is used to describe that particular industry practice: Big Pharma.

Over the years, we have been sold the same idea about body weight. Since life insurance companies started collecting data to determine deductibles and payouts, it has been decided that having a certain body weight is ideal. With time, it morphed from a single body weight based on height and gender to a very narrow range of appropriate weights to the Body Mass Index.

With that came the advent of calorie restriction that we commonly refer to as a diet. Obviously this has transformed over time to reflect not only the changing “appropriate” weight ranges but the whims and wants of the day. And it has exploded into an industry designed to sell us the perfect body.

The 90s are hip again (or so my students tell me) and that was the era of heroine chic. The late aughts and 2010s were defined by the idea of thick-thin – tiny waists and limbs with big booties and boobs for women. Men should be tall with broad shoulders and increasingly more muscular (with hairless chests).

So every time the body ideal changes, the diet (and workout program) to achieve said ideal changes, too. Thus the advent of Big Diet. To stay in business and making money, Big Diet adapts, selling us on the idea that they have the plan that will get us to that ideal body.

I remember WW when it was Weight Watchers and before there was such a thing as their Points system. Now, to Weight Watchers’ credit, they have always claimed that you can eat whatever you’d like as long as you stay in your calorie (or Points) budget for the day. But Weight Watchers has undergone several transformations over the years. From weekly meetings and weigh-ins and food logs, to the Points system, to their current rebrand. And no matter what way you slice it, WW is a program designed to control the number of calories consumed to encourage weight loss. But if WW hadn’t changed with the times, would they still be in business?

And here is my broader point. These companies, consultants, and trainers want to make money. It is easier to sell whatever is popular and slap some fancy marketing on it, than it is to reconcile the idea that bodies are all valuable regardless of weight or size. That bodies come in many different shapes and sizes and whole person wellness is a more important measure. And that our own unique goals and wants for our individual body and the aesthetic that we want for ourselves should be the driving factor in nutrition and exercise practices.

These companies and individuals wouldn’t be making (as much) money if we all banded together and called BS. Now, I want to be clear, there is nothing wrong with a weight loss goal if there is a true medical need (as determined by you and your health care team) or if that is what you truly want and are willing to tackle those changes in healthy and sustainable ways.

The basic math of thermodynamics and calories in/calories out will always rule weight management, so you can call it whatever you want – Keto, Paleo, Whole30, intermittent fasting, WW, macro counting. We need to be thinking more objectively about what we are buying and buying into with these programs. Who is really benefiting from them? Because research has clearly shown that diets don’t work. Which means you are more likely to try again, probably with the next cool thing.

So while Big Diet is raking in the cash, we as individual consumers are suffering. Physically, Mentally, and Emotionally at least. We were promised something for our physical bodies that we are often unable to achieve or maintain. That in turn has a profound influence on our Mental and Emotional Health and may even spill over to Social and Environmental areas, too.

Which says nothing about the mental and emotional manipulation that often happens as a secondary effect of these programs. This leads to feelings of failure and inadequacy that often take longer to overcome than the actual physical affects. My guess is that it is these mental and emotional outcomes that lead to the downward spirals of yo-yo dieting.

Oprah obviously saw an opportunity when she partnered with (and re-vamped) WW. I can guarantee she wants a return on her investment. So let’s call a spade a spade. Call it Big Diet.

Until next time, be well friends!