Grab the Lapels

Health at Every Size by Lindo Bacon

Originally published in 2008, Health at Every Size: The Surprising Truth About Your Weight, by Lindo Bacon, is one of those foundational texts that helped folks get on board with Health at Every Size (HAES) and intuitive eating. I’ve read many books in which authors describe the science behind why your weight doesn’t dictate your health, meaning thin people can have supposed weight-related diseases, and a fat person may not have any health issues. Typically, the problem is in how fat and thin people are treated medically, and even after their deaths. So, I knew about HAES and realized I should probably read the book. Here we are.

The author previously went by Linda Bacon.

Lindo Bacon has a PhD in physiology, and I double checked what that means. In physiology, people study how bodies function on the small level — our cells. Later, Bacon became a nutritionist after their interest in weight and weight loss developed through the all-too-common story about them being fat and thinking fat was a personal problem. The author no longer focuses on or writes about weight due to a fallout with the HAES community, which you can read about.

Health at Every Size provides information about how diets don’t work, diet drugs and surgeries are dangerous, women (though the number of men is growing) feel they will fail to earn a promotion or find love if they are fat, and weight gain and loss is harmful to your organs. Cool, right? Here is the problem.

HAES, which Bacon calls a program, sounds an awful lot like a diet . . . you know, program. You don’t need to exercise to punish yourself because you’re fat. Instead, try dancing with your vacuum cleaner, throwing away your TV remote, asking your colleagues to walk with you instead of having a sit-down meeting, avoid having coffee dates with your friend and choose to chat about your lives at the basketball court, and march in place while you use your computer. I’m not kidding. Does anyone enjoy these activities? They all sound like punishment to me.

One of the frustrating things about fat-hating people is they have stupid one liners, like “Put down the Twinkie!” Bacon isn’t different. Instead, they ask, “Do you really need that Twinkie?” Readers are prompted to ponder why they want the Twinkie, are they eating with their emotions, does the Twinkie even taste good, etc.

There are several sections on how to eat intuitively, which includes convincing yourself that a hamburger is bigger by using less meat and more lettuce, only giving in to that white rice with your Chinese food if you really must, and, generally, eating a plant diet. If you eat more plants, there is less room for meat, and if you have less room for meat, there’s definitely not room for processed foods. Also, use a small plate to stop overeating, put your fork down between each bite, and chew slowly.

This is all dieting advice! I’m sure, if you are fat, you’ve heard that you need to eat less and move more. And in more than one personal anecdote, Bacon uses children to explain that eating cake or ice cream at a celebration is really just emotional eating and boredom. If a pool is available, the kid will put down the ice cream. If the kid is happy eating cake, you can convince him that even though he thinks eating cake made him happy, hunger isn’t an emotion. When, other than that opening scene in 1993’s Free Willy, have you ever seen someone eat cake because they’re hungry?

While Bacon says that the HAES program likely won’t make you lose weight, they also strip away celebratory food (birthdays, weddings) and just-because food (I’m at the beach and I want ice cream) and instead repeatedly conjure up the demon Twinkie, as if that yellow log of plastic-wrapped cake is a food item fat people eat constantly. “Eat real food,” Bacon writes, as if what is edible isn’t real. Thus, the book is classist, forgetting that poor people lack good grocery stores, money to shop at them, and, oftentimes, the transportation and time off multiple jobs to get there. You can’t keep “real food” for a week; you have to have the privilege of driving to the store a few times a week. I go probably three times to pick up perishable foods, and I’m grateful I have that advantage.

The only part of the book I found interesting is when Bacon wanted to set up a study in which white women in a certain age range were either part of a diet group, led by a dietician and following the goal of eating less and exercising more to lose 1-2 pounds per week, versus the HAES group, led by Bacon, who talked to them about the contents of Health at Every Size, which was in an early draft. Half of the dieters dropped out of the study while less than 10% left the HAES group. Although the dieters lost weight during the length of the study, which was six months, they also put it back on. Overall, neither group lost weight, but one group stressed about their every choice (the dieters) while the group accepted their bodies.

And really, the result of the study was my focus. Looking at someone is not a way to understand their health. We all know lots of thin people who don’t exercise and eat snack foods. More often than not, you’ve met a fat person who’s constantly eating salad. But, around that important message was a barrage of advice diets give. Oh, and the misguided advice to reply to fat haters with “A heart as loving as mine wouldn’t fit in a diminutive body.” Thin people aren’t unloving, they’re people, too.

I ended up stopping at 82% of the book because I just couldn’t listen to the mantra “eat real food” for another minute. Also, Bacon veers out of their lane by trying to employ some psychology tools of motivation, but not really doing a convincing job. Perhaps a book by a psychologist would be better?

This is #5 of the #20BooksofSummer 2023 challenge.

35 comments

  2. I read this, but I have no memory of it whatsoever. I certainly don’t remember the “diet tips!” Ugh. I really hate that eat real food business. And it does cut out the delights of a store-bought cookie cake, or a bag of peanut M&Ms. All food has some nutrients, including important energy. I’m glad that this book has fallen out of favor, whatever the reason.

    Like

    Reply

    • I’m not sure why food has become moralized. We need to know what food means to us individually and go from there. I don’t want to eat because I’m sad, but sometimes I do and I know it. That’s up to me.

      Oh ho ho, I read the whole saga between Bacon and the HAES organization. I think they were spot on and Bacon was wrong. It was some interesting reading.

      Liked by 1 person

      Reply

  3. Also, I have to share this with you: I was reading I Have Some Questions For You by Rebecca Makkai (lit fic/kinda mystery) and the protagonist mentioned Cheetos and how if she let herself eat Cheetos all the time she’d never stop. I was like, Fictional Lady, I guarantee you that if you let yourself eat Cheetos for a week you’d get sick of them and maybe not have them for another month or two. Or maybe you’d decide they weren’t that good to begin with. Or maybe you’d have them once a week. Whatever. I’m having diet culture dialogue in my head with fictional characters! And getting annoyed with authors who put this stuff in, even though, yes, plenty of people feel like this character so I guess it’s a realistic detail? I thought you might sympathize.

    Like

    Reply

    • Laila, I apologize; I’m behind on responding to comments and reading blog posts, so I just got to this.

      I absolutely sympathize, and if the character says something stupid enough, I won’t finish the book. Here are a list of foods I’ve been told I should love and thought I did: gravy, glazed donuts, baloney, Lofthouse cookies, cheese snacks puffs/cheetos/cheez-its, anything made by Little Debbie or her rivals, everything but the ice cream and hot mustard sauce at McDonald’s, Reese’s peanut butter cups, most candy bars, Taco Bell, pizza, pumpkin pie. These are all foods that I learned I DO NOT LIKE, almost ever, that I was told I should love because it’s “yummy” food. Because I spend decades dieting, those foods seemed irresistible because I was mad about food in general. Pretty bonkers. I want to be more like the food critic from Ratatouille: if I don’t love it, I don’t swallow. Now, I do love cake, cake donuts, ice cream that doesn’t have fruit in it, chocolate chips, chips with salsa, sweet potato fries, and Wendy’s chickie nuggs.

      Liked by 1 person

      Reply

      • Don’t apologize! I just added this today! 😁

        Yes, it is eye opening when you discover that the foods you thought you were “powerless” against aren’t even that good. My big one was Thin Mint Girl Scout Cookies. Big yawn now.

        I also don’t want fruit in my ice cream! 😁

        Like

        Reply

  4. I remember this book and how I tried to fit its ideas into my weight cycling. Recently I’ve been reading about semaglutide and how it stops most of the “food noise,” which seems like the real problem. I’m frequently thinking about food and will happily eat “real” and any other kind of food!

    Like

    Reply

    • I’ve come to the conclusion that I’m going to eat when I’m hungry, and I try to eat different food than the other food I ate during the day. Did I have wheaties for breakfast? Okay, I’ll have vegetables for lunch. I had vegetables for lunch, so okay, I will eat meat for dinner, etc. I had fruit for this snack, now I’m having nuts for this snack. Desserts are a whole separate thing, and part of it is I love desserts in the summer. I’m trying to stop moralizing food and accept that I made a choice. Whether it’s good/bad becomes more like was this different from earlier/going to make me happy. I think trying to separate food from feelings overall is silly. No one NEEDS cake, ice cream, etc. Food is part of culture, too. I now see much better what Jessica Wilson was saying in It Has Always Been Ours.

      Liked by 1 person

      Reply

  5. A heart as loving as mine wouldn’t fit in a diminutive body Blech! I’m impressed you persevered past that, to be honest – I think I would have abandoned it there!

    Like

    Reply

    • There was an entire chapter I found very upsetting because it sounded like all diet talk, but Bacon wrote that the chapter would sound sort of diet-y because it was about how food works in the body. I really wanted to quit but feared I was just being sensitive. So, forward I went.

      Like

      Reply

  6. Thanks for this review Melanie. From your post the title sounds like a real misnomer. Sounds like she’s saying higher weight is something not healthy?

    Loved your comments re eating cake!

    Like

    Reply

    • Bacon has the idea that looking at a fat person does not tell you their actual health, and that only a blood test can do that. But, that message gets lost in all the different things you should not eat and the activity you can increase in your life.

      Like

      Reply

      • That’s what came across to me from your review – that any positive message was lost in all the advice that seemed to be focused on losing weight though may have been focused on being healthy. A fine line in messaging though it seems.

        Liked by 1 person

        Reply

  8. I read Sunday Lowdown and then thought I’d better come back here to see what set you off about the HAES book.
    Truck drivers sit still for long times and eat “badly” – a discussion for another day – and gain big bellies as they age. I had a foreman/driver in my last job who decided on stomach stapling. After that all he could get down was beer, so that is what he ‘ate’, with predictable results.
    I eat “well”, almost 100% unprocessed foods, and still gain weight – well, until 5 and 2.
    Why would I like to be thinner? I worry in particular about having fat around my heart. Whether or not I actually do, I don’t know.

    Like

    Reply

    • Do you not have to have a yearly physical to keep your trucking credentials? In the U.S., they have what is called the CDL, and to have that you must get a physical every year to prove you don’t have sleep apnea, signs of seizures, etc. I do believe fat around your heart would likely come from animal products, which I don’t think you eat (unless you are one of those cheese-loving vegetarians). The stomach surgery is awful because you are signing up for a lifetime of health problems, from chronic malnutrition to hernias, and increased risk of suicide to ulcers. In fact, the British Journal of Surgery acknowledges, “Despite major health benefits, bariatric surgery is associated with risks of several late-occurring and serious medical conditions that may be difficult to treat, often requiring lifestyle changes, medication, and additional surgery. Understanding these risks is important for healthcare providers and patients.” I saw a news story yesterday in which a doctor argued that having teens do gastric bypass is something they they are not old enough to decide because the post-op maintenance is lifelong.

      I was also reading that it’s pretty normal to gain weight over 60, and there are some benefits to it. Again, something to ask a medical professional at that yearly check up!

      Like

      Reply

      • I am one of those cheese-loving vegetarians. And I know it’s normal to gain weight as I age, I just don’t like it, and I don’t walk enough.
        I do do an annual driver’s medical, the last a couple of weeks ago, and passed with flying colours. I could bend nearly far enough to touch my knees!

        Like

        Reply

        • Heeey, that’s good! That medical check up that you passed should be an indicator that you’re being stubborn about your weight. And really, is there a reason to touch one’s toes? Remember the old guy I told you about who touched his toes and bled all over the bookstore? Don’t be that guy.

          Like

          Reply

  9. Oh my, I see that this book was really not transparent about its content and goals, I hate it when it happens! From what I see, it’s not even just a marketing or publishing distortion, it just is not inclusive at all. Sigh… Dancing with my vacuum cleaner does not spark joy. Your post reminds me of the podcast Maintenance Phase which is quite good at debunking diet culture books / fads. Have you tried it?

    Like

    Reply

    • I have not listened to Aubrey Gordon’s podcast, but I have read and reviewed both of her books on the blog, if you’re interested. I wonder what she adds on the podcast beyond what appears in her books. Okay, now I have to get the podcast!

      Liked by 1 person

      Reply

  10. How disappointing! This sounds really out of touch. The part about food and celebrations stuck out to me because it sounds like she’s ignoring how much food is a part of celebrating and community in so many cultures. And that’s not a bad thing! I know with my kids I try and focus on variety in what they eat and to not use food as a punishment or reward. But we definitely have special meals for certain occasions. I’ve never eaten a Twinkie in my life but I love to bake and sometimes a batch of chocolate chip cookies is like a love letter.

    Like

    Reply

  11. Ugh what a disappointment. Move more, take walking meetings – none of this is groundbreaking, and its annoying that this book would try to frame their approach as ‘different’ when it’s just diet language dressed up in a different way.

    You’re so right that having the time to prepare healthy foods is something many low-income folks just don’t have. Cutting up vegetables and preparing rice takes a long freaking time, and when you have to take the bus for an hour to get to your job, it’s not exactly practical.

    Like

    Reply

  12. My cycling coach was into intuitive eating for awhile and I totally ignored all of her suggestions about it because seriously, I know my body and when its hungry and when and how much I should eat. Granted, she was trying to break a stress eating habit at the time, but still. I wanted to tell her to stick to the bike coaching and quit pushing her food issues off onto the women she is coaching.

    Anywho, the book sounds completely like a diet book. And if a person isn’t allowed to have cake or ice cream at a birthday party, that’s no diet for anyone to follow. Also, as a kid, I absolutely would not have foregone ice cream for a swimming pool. I would demand both, and if I could only have one, I’d go for the ice cream. Unless it was some gross flavor I didn’t like.

    Like

    Reply

Leave a reply to wadholloway Cancel reply