The Anti-Diet approach is an inclusive, non-restrictive approach to health which emphasizes that:

1) body diversity is natural and real

2) long-term sustainable weight loss is nearly impossible to achieve for most people 

2) everyone, regardless of body size, can pursue and benefit from healthy behaviors

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The Anti-Diet approach focuses on behaviors, rather than weight loss, and emphasizes that

health includes nourishing our mental, emotional & psychosocial health needs just

as much as our physical ones.  

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In today's wellness culture, "health" has become synonymous with diets & weight loss. But research, and our own personal experiences, continue to show us that ​diets don't work. In fact, a study from the Journal of the American Medical Association reported that after following up with a cohort of overweight individuals three years after they'd been placed on a clinically-supervised diet, 97% of participants gained back almost all, or more, weight than they had lost on the diet.  

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Another study in the American Journal of Public Health found that the probability of an obese person attaining normal weight status was 1 in 210 for men and 1 in 124 for women, which is less than 1%.   

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So if sustainable weight loss doesn't work - what's the answer?

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This is where the Anti-Diet approach comes in. The Anti-Diet approach does not use weight loss as a measure of success, but rather, it focuses on the practice of health-promoting behaviors. Research from the Journal of the American Board of Family Medicine shows that practicing health-promoting behaviors, such as eating 5 or more fruits and vegetables daily, exercising regularly, consuming alcohol in moderation, and not smoking, improve people’s health long-term and significantly decrease mortality risk, regardless of weight. Focusing on these behaviors is a more effective, more ethical, and more inclusive way to improve health.

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•  Weight Science: Evaluating the Evidence for a Paradigm Shift

           Bacon, L., Aphramor, L. Nutr J 10, 9 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1186/1475-2891-10-9 ​ ​

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• The Weight-Inclusive versus Weight-Normative Approach to Health: Evaluating the Evidence for Prioritizing Well-Being over Weight Loss

         Tylka, et al. Journal of Obesity (2014). https://doi.org/10.1155/2014/983495

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• Dieting and Restrained Eating as Prospective Predictors of Weight Gain

         Lowe MR, et al. Front Psychol. 2013;4:577 (2013). doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2013.00577

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• Intuitive Eating Longitudinally Predicts Better Psychological Health and Lower Use of Disordered Eating Behaviors: findings from EAT 2010-2018

         Hazzard VM, et al. Eat Weight Disord. 2020;10.1007/s40519-020-00852-4. doi:10.1007/s40519-020-00852-4

 

• A Systematic Review of the Psychosocial Correlates of Intuitive Eating Among Adult Women.

         Bruce LJ, Ricciardelli LA. Appetite. 2016;96:454-472. doi:10.1016/j.appet.2015.10.012

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