Weight Loss Answers: When Something Is Better Than Nothing

If you have obesity, I would be surprised if you have not looked for answers – answers about why you have obesity and answers about weight loss. This is especially likely if you have experienced diminished health, lesser social status, or a negative impact on quality of life because of your weight.

As a nutritionist, many people have asked me for answers to the same questions. Why am I not able to lose weight? Was I lied to when someone told me this or that would work? Is there something wrong with me? Is there some dietary secret I don’t yet know? Am I just not tough enough to stick with a diet? And, how can I ever trust that anything will work and try again?

Looking for answers

Obesity was poorly understood until very recently. Yet people needed answers. This put everyone struggling with their weight in a very vulnerable position. When there is a demand for answers, there will naturally be a supply of answers.

And naturally, when there are no solid answers for a poorly understood health condition, each "answer" is subject to experimentation through trial and error. When cancer was poorly understood, it was highly stigmatized and people would go to extremes to treat it. Odd remedies with very questionable safety were common. Because when there were no cures for cancer, something – anything – was better than nothing.

Does that sound familiar? Until very recently, many "answers" for weight loss were extreme and odd remedies. Crazy fad diets, starvation camps, obesity boot camps, detox concoctions. The show The Biggest Loser is another example. Because weight loss was so difficult and so rare, doing it was a national spectacle and propelled one of the most popular reality television shows of all time.

Obesity care is evolving

It is critical to recognize how experimental and bizarre some of the things that people have tried in the name of weight loss actually are. Too often, people blame themselves when they look back at past weight loss attempts that did not work out. But really, we should be blaming the extreme, unsafe, and unpleasant things people try when something – anything – seems better than nothing.

Extreme and unsafe attempts at weight loss still go on today. But thankfully, as evidence-based medicine begins to shed light on how complex obesity is and how the underlying biology of it works, new treatments are rapidly evolving. And those treatments are safe and effective, and they can actually help people live a longer, healthier life.¹

I hope that by experiencing this, you feel the difference. And I hope you can find some self-compassion and realize that all this time, you really were trying your best with a really difficult situation.