Rebecca
08-23-2001, 07:25 AM
Nice article, although I guess a lot of the meat is in the book. Oh and she recommends The Solution.. yay! :)
http://nutrition.about.com/library/weekly/aa111398.htm
We recently had the oppportunity to interviw Janis Jibrin, MS, RD - author of The Unofficial Guide to Dieting Safely (Macmillan, 1998).
Janis is a Washington- D.C. based nutritionist who has written over 100 articles for publications such as Parenting, Modern Maturity, Family Circle, Mademoiselle, Prevention and others. Ms. Jibrin is a Registered Dietitian with a Master of Science in Nutrition; she received her training counselling children and teens at Georgetown University Hospital. She counsels both adults and children on losing weight and a range of health and nutrition issues. She co-authored Dr. Health’nstein’s Body Fun (StarPress, 1994) a nutrition education CD-ROM for children which won Macworld’s “Ten Best CDs of the Year” award for 1995.
Why did you feel it was necessary to write a book about weight loss?
My book is really a guidebook to all of the weight loss methods available. As a dietitian and health journalist, I'm painfully aware of all the misconceptions, false hopes, snake oil, and dollars lost on unhealthy and useless weight loss schemes. I wanted to warn people about the frauds.
But there's good news too: studies of people who've kept off lots of weight for many years are uncovering their secrets. And there are some terrific programs and books out there that I wanted to tell people about.
Why, in your opinion, is the population is getting fatter despite aggressive efforts to be slim?
No one is completely sure of the reason; the fingers being pointed at two things: an increasingly sedentary population (TV watching, internet browsing, and computer games play a role here) and an increase in food portion sizes. Fast food chains now offer people “super sized” meals at prices cheaper than regular meals, muffins and bagels have doubled and tripled over the past 15 years, and chain family restaurants offer you a plate of pasta that used to feed an entire family.
What is a 'Fad Diet'? What's wrong with a fad diet?
Fad diets sell the fantasy that 'this time it'll be different'. The standard promise: You'll effortlessly lose lots of weight (usually quickly) and keep it off without being hungry, feeling deprived, etc. From there they go in every possible direction: The Beverly Hills Diet (recently revised and selling well) has you eating only pineapple, corn and salad for one day, prunes strawberries and baked potatoes the next. Other diets are high in protein, others have weird rules about combining certain foods, others about not combining certain foods.
Needless to say, most fad diets aren't balanced, some even dangerous. I review many of them in my book. Although the authors often give impressive- sounding “scientific” rationales for their diets, the diets have no decent science behind them.
People do lose weight on fad diets. But they usually gain it back because they get sick and tired of avoiding bread, or eating so much meat, feeling hungry on 1000 calories, or running to the toilet every hour because they've eaten too many pineapples and prunes!
Why do so many diets fail?
If they're fad diets, they fail for the reasons I've just mentioned.
But “good” diets fail, as well. Even good diets and/or exercise attempts fail because they ask too much of people. People often just aren't ready to make such drastic lifestyle changes.. Noted weight loss psychologist Kelly Brownell gave me permission to use his weight loss readiness quiz in my book. Its a great tool to measure you're state of readiness. If all you're ready to do is take a walk twice a week, then start there. When you're more psyched, then think about joining a program, or hiring a nutritionist.
The other reason diets fail is because people have unrealistic expectations of what their bodies can do. Maybe 1% of the population is genetically wired to have a fashion models figure, yet that's become our standard. Trying to whittle yourself down to that figure is a set-up for failure, while moving down to a healthy weight is much more achievable.
In my book I describe healthy weight and offer lots of suggestions on ways to accept your body.
Do any diets really work?
Sure they do, but only if the person is ready to make it work. It helps if you start out with a healthy, balanced plan of that includes all foods and is adequate in calories so you don't drop out because of deprivation.
As far as making it work for you... that's where attitudes toward food, emotional eating, coping with stress, and finding time to exercise all come in. One of the few weight loss programs to show long-term success is The Solution (a book, and a nationally available program) which focuses much more on the head than on diet.
What tools are available to determine the validity of a diet?
Get out a food guide pyramid and compare. I've reproduced three different pyramids in my book for just this reason. If the diet covers the food groups, doesn't forbid any foods or lay down food combining “rules”, it's probably fine.
Is there a 'Magic Bullet'?
Not yet! And there probably will never be. Unlike chicken pox or iron deficiency anemia, or other diseases with an obvious cause, obesity results from so many different lifestyle and genetic factors that one pill can't target them all. However, pharmaceutical companies are working feverishly on developing drugs that will thwart some of the genetic causes of obesity.
How important are non-food behaviors? (exercise, etc...)
While you can lose weight on diet alone, studies show that you need to exercise to keep the weight off.
Also, mindset is a biggie. My book runs through the major attitude shifts that help people stick with a healthful way of eating and exercise.
What about Genetics?
Another biggie: studies of adopted people show that their weight almost always reflects that of their biological parents, not their adoptive parents. Scientists are just starting to pinpoint obesity genes in humans.
But genes can't explain the dramatic rise in obesity in the US. Genes take about 50,000 years to change, our obesity rate has increased by about a third in just 20 years! You can't change your basic shape, but you do have control over how heavy you'll become.
How does one develop and maintain motivation????
That's the million-dollar question. A large part of it seems to be entering the weight loss process at your particular stage of readiness, not making drastic overnight changes. Support is also important (working out with a friend, eating healthily with your spouse/partner). And certain attitudes -like using slip-ups as learning experiences instead of reasons to revert to old ways.
In my book, I collected tips from researchers who've been studying motivation/weight loss maintenance.
http://nutrition.about.com/library/weekly/aa111398.htm
We recently had the oppportunity to interviw Janis Jibrin, MS, RD - author of The Unofficial Guide to Dieting Safely (Macmillan, 1998).
Janis is a Washington- D.C. based nutritionist who has written over 100 articles for publications such as Parenting, Modern Maturity, Family Circle, Mademoiselle, Prevention and others. Ms. Jibrin is a Registered Dietitian with a Master of Science in Nutrition; she received her training counselling children and teens at Georgetown University Hospital. She counsels both adults and children on losing weight and a range of health and nutrition issues. She co-authored Dr. Health’nstein’s Body Fun (StarPress, 1994) a nutrition education CD-ROM for children which won Macworld’s “Ten Best CDs of the Year” award for 1995.
Why did you feel it was necessary to write a book about weight loss?
My book is really a guidebook to all of the weight loss methods available. As a dietitian and health journalist, I'm painfully aware of all the misconceptions, false hopes, snake oil, and dollars lost on unhealthy and useless weight loss schemes. I wanted to warn people about the frauds.
But there's good news too: studies of people who've kept off lots of weight for many years are uncovering their secrets. And there are some terrific programs and books out there that I wanted to tell people about.
Why, in your opinion, is the population is getting fatter despite aggressive efforts to be slim?
No one is completely sure of the reason; the fingers being pointed at two things: an increasingly sedentary population (TV watching, internet browsing, and computer games play a role here) and an increase in food portion sizes. Fast food chains now offer people “super sized” meals at prices cheaper than regular meals, muffins and bagels have doubled and tripled over the past 15 years, and chain family restaurants offer you a plate of pasta that used to feed an entire family.
What is a 'Fad Diet'? What's wrong with a fad diet?
Fad diets sell the fantasy that 'this time it'll be different'. The standard promise: You'll effortlessly lose lots of weight (usually quickly) and keep it off without being hungry, feeling deprived, etc. From there they go in every possible direction: The Beverly Hills Diet (recently revised and selling well) has you eating only pineapple, corn and salad for one day, prunes strawberries and baked potatoes the next. Other diets are high in protein, others have weird rules about combining certain foods, others about not combining certain foods.
Needless to say, most fad diets aren't balanced, some even dangerous. I review many of them in my book. Although the authors often give impressive- sounding “scientific” rationales for their diets, the diets have no decent science behind them.
People do lose weight on fad diets. But they usually gain it back because they get sick and tired of avoiding bread, or eating so much meat, feeling hungry on 1000 calories, or running to the toilet every hour because they've eaten too many pineapples and prunes!
Why do so many diets fail?
If they're fad diets, they fail for the reasons I've just mentioned.
But “good” diets fail, as well. Even good diets and/or exercise attempts fail because they ask too much of people. People often just aren't ready to make such drastic lifestyle changes.. Noted weight loss psychologist Kelly Brownell gave me permission to use his weight loss readiness quiz in my book. Its a great tool to measure you're state of readiness. If all you're ready to do is take a walk twice a week, then start there. When you're more psyched, then think about joining a program, or hiring a nutritionist.
The other reason diets fail is because people have unrealistic expectations of what their bodies can do. Maybe 1% of the population is genetically wired to have a fashion models figure, yet that's become our standard. Trying to whittle yourself down to that figure is a set-up for failure, while moving down to a healthy weight is much more achievable.
In my book I describe healthy weight and offer lots of suggestions on ways to accept your body.
Do any diets really work?
Sure they do, but only if the person is ready to make it work. It helps if you start out with a healthy, balanced plan of that includes all foods and is adequate in calories so you don't drop out because of deprivation.
As far as making it work for you... that's where attitudes toward food, emotional eating, coping with stress, and finding time to exercise all come in. One of the few weight loss programs to show long-term success is The Solution (a book, and a nationally available program) which focuses much more on the head than on diet.
What tools are available to determine the validity of a diet?
Get out a food guide pyramid and compare. I've reproduced three different pyramids in my book for just this reason. If the diet covers the food groups, doesn't forbid any foods or lay down food combining “rules”, it's probably fine.
Is there a 'Magic Bullet'?
Not yet! And there probably will never be. Unlike chicken pox or iron deficiency anemia, or other diseases with an obvious cause, obesity results from so many different lifestyle and genetic factors that one pill can't target them all. However, pharmaceutical companies are working feverishly on developing drugs that will thwart some of the genetic causes of obesity.
How important are non-food behaviors? (exercise, etc...)
While you can lose weight on diet alone, studies show that you need to exercise to keep the weight off.
Also, mindset is a biggie. My book runs through the major attitude shifts that help people stick with a healthful way of eating and exercise.
What about Genetics?
Another biggie: studies of adopted people show that their weight almost always reflects that of their biological parents, not their adoptive parents. Scientists are just starting to pinpoint obesity genes in humans.
But genes can't explain the dramatic rise in obesity in the US. Genes take about 50,000 years to change, our obesity rate has increased by about a third in just 20 years! You can't change your basic shape, but you do have control over how heavy you'll become.
How does one develop and maintain motivation????
That's the million-dollar question. A large part of it seems to be entering the weight loss process at your particular stage of readiness, not making drastic overnight changes. Support is also important (working out with a friend, eating healthily with your spouse/partner). And certain attitudes -like using slip-ups as learning experiences instead of reasons to revert to old ways.
In my book, I collected tips from researchers who've been studying motivation/weight loss maintenance.