Regarding the article I recently posted:  The Fat Trap,  I am one of those people who believes that saying “weight-loss and maintenance is easy” is an unhelpful lie, and that telling people the Truth about weight-loss and maintenance is what is Helpful.

Below are a couple of follow-up questions and answers about the article that I think are worth posting at here at DietHobby.

Reader’s Question:
Were you at all worried that by writing a high-profile article about this research you would discourage people who are unhealthily overweight from trying to lose weight?

Answer from Auther, Tara Parker Pope:
I was really worried that the story would be discouraging to people, but I have been so pleased by the hundreds of e-mails and comments sent by readers. So many readers said to me, “Finally, my life made sense….” and “Now that I understand what’s happening, I’m really encouraged to try again…” One reader wrote that she found the article to be “sobering, challenging, and comforting all at the same time.” We don’t do dieters any favors by telling them that it’s easy and simple. I think telling people the truth about weight loss leaves them far better equipped to tackle the problem.

Reader’s Question:
A fascinating and disturbing part of this article is the section where you detail the extremely regimented lives of a few formerly obese people who have managed to keep off the weight. These rare individuals, as you quote a Yale scholar saying, “never don’t think about their weight.” A Slate article on your piece argues that the mentality of these people “resembles the symptoms of an eating disorder.” They suggested that our fat problem is not obesity but that we encourage people to adopt an eating-disorder mentality to fight obesity. How would you respond to this?

Answer from Auther, Tara Parker Pope
I think if a person had epilepsy and needed to adopt a very regimented diet to control that disease, nobody would accuse them of having an eating disorder. A person with high blood pressure might cut back on salt and take medication, and we don’t judge him. A person with Type 1 diabetes has to be very careful about what they eat and constantly monitor blood sugar to stay well. Again, we don’t question this behavior or call it disordered eating. But a person with obesity as a medical condition is ridiculed for gaining the weight in the first place and then they are criticized for being hypervigilant about maintaining a healthy weight. That said, I thought the Slate article made a good point, concluding “that a society that stigmatizes people for a physical attribute that they can’t change is the real fat trap we ought to be trying to escape.”

Research exists showing that a biological and metabolic backlash is triggered by weight-loss. 

Learning about the way our own biology operates to influence us with regard to food and weight issues helps make sense out of our dieting struggles, and provides a better understanding of the challenges that overweight / obese people face.

  Here is an excellent article that was published in the New York Times about that issue. 

The Fat Trap 
                    by Tara Parker-Pope -- The New York Times 12/28/11

For 15 years, Joseph Proietto has been helping people lose weight. When these obese patients arrive at his weight-loss clinic in Australia, they are determined to slim down. And most of the time, he says, they do just that, sticking to the clinic’s program and dropping excess pounds. But then, almost without exception, the weight begins to creep back. In a matter of months or years, the entire effort has come undone, and the patient is fat again. “It has always seemed strange to me,” says Proietto, who is a physician at the University of Melbourne. “These are people who are very motivated to lose weight, who achieve weight loss most of the time without too much trouble and yet, inevitably, gradually, they regain the weight.”

Anyone who has ever dieted knows that lost pounds often return, and most of us assume the reason is a lack of discipline or a failure of willpower. But Proietto suspected that there was more to it, and he decided to take a closer look at the biological state of the body after weight loss.

At that point, the 34 patients who remained stopped dieting and began working to maintain the new lower weight. Nutritionists counseled them in person and by phone, promoting regular exercise and urging them to eat more vegetables and less fat. But despite the effort, they slowly began to put on weight. After a year, the patients already had regained an average of 11 of the pounds they struggled so hard to lose. They also reported feeling far more hungry and preoccupied with food than before they lost the weight.

While researchers have known for decades that the body undergoes various metabolic and hormonal changes while it’s losing weight, the Australian team detected something new. A full year after significant weigh...