weight control

Body Shaming Fails Vegans and Vegan Advocacy

A couple of months ago, I was among several dietitians who voiced concern to PCRM about their Your Abs on Cheese campaign. Based on the thoughtful feedback I received, I felt confident that this body shaming approach to vegan advocacy wouldn’t continue. So when I saw the group’s latest media effort targeting obesity, I was stunned to say the least.

The “tongue-in-cheek” commercial suggests that airline passengers should be allowed to pay $10 to sit next to a “trim and fit” vegan.  For those who don’t opt for this perk, there is the risk of “getting squeezed […]

By |2012-04-01T12:43:33-04:00April 1st, 2012|Tags: , , |142 Comments

More on Vegan Diets and Weight Control

I want to offer a bit of follow-up to my last post on weight control, and address some of the comments and emails that the post generated by looking at three important questions.

Is it possible to maintain a weight loss? Absolutely. By no means do I want anyone to think that they are completely doomed to gain back weight that they’ve lost. But for many, long term maintenance of weight loss is difficult, and it’s good to understand that there are real reasons for this. In the meta-analysis that I referred to in my last post, the authors […]

By |2012-01-09T15:15:44-05:00January 9th, 2012|Tags: |27 Comments

Should You Go Vegan to Get Skinny?

Here comes the New Year with all its fresh-start possibilities. We’ve survived the season of caloric abundance and millions of us are ready to shed a few pounds.

But the latest research on weight management—some of which was highlighted in a recent article in the New York Times (see below)—raises questions about the pursuit of a slender body.

The evidence suggest that the majority of people who lose weight regain as much as 95 percent of it within five years.   And it’s not necessarily just because people can’t stick with the plan that helped them lose weight.  Dieting changes metabolism in ways […]

By |2012-01-01T11:59:14-05:00January 1st, 2012|Tags: , |73 Comments

U.S News Rates Vegan Diets (and Gets a Few Things Wrong)

U.S. News brought together a team of  nutrition experts to rank popular diets commonly used for weight control. According to the report, the best diets were “relatively easy to follow, nutritious, safe, and effective for weight loss and against diabetes and heart disease.”

At the head of their list were the DASH and Mediterranean diets — not too surprising since these are well-studied approaches to eating that have a good track record for protecting against disease. The surprise was that a vegan diet ranked pretty low on the list (below Slimfast and Jenny Craig!) While it seemed that the […]

By |2011-11-03T15:47:44-04:00November 3rd, 2011|Tags: , , |21 Comments

Vegans are Compassionate at Every Size

Some 2 billion pairs of eyes will be focused on Kate Middleton as she takes the long walk down the aisle of Westminster Abbey tomorrow, and apparently she’s been slimming down in anticipation of that scrutiny. Naturally the media is all over Kate’s recent weight loss, speculating that it was achieved through France’s (and soon to be America’s) new diet craze from Dr. Dukan. The Dukan Diet is an updated and equally unhealthy twist on Atkins and it promises weight loss by restricting food choices to a few plant […]

By |2011-04-28T10:25:42-04:00April 28th, 2011|Tags: , , |28 Comments

Weight Control the Vegan Way

Vegans are less likely than omnivores to be overweight or obese on average, which is a nice selling point for veganism. In general, our diets are somewhat lower in fat and much higher in fiber—two important factors for weight management.
But not everyone loses weight when they go vegan, and promising people that they will is unfair. There are plenty of vegans who struggle with their weight. Some overweight vegans feel guilty about their body size because they believe that they aren’t a good advertisement for veganism. But anyone who makes an effort […]
By |2011-04-01T09:47:54-04:00April 1st, 2011|Tags: , |50 Comments
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