television | Lazy Fit

As a follow-up to The Men Who Made Us Fat, the fairly-predictably-titled The Men Who Made Us Thin was, on the basis of its first episode, a disappointment.

Now, you may feel that as someone who writes about diet approaches and offers weight coaching, I’m biased. And I am. Totally. I’m biased because I believe the central proposition of the programme was faulty. The host, Jacques Peretti, stated that only around 5% of people who try to lose weight keep it off. But he misspeaks. Firstly, the study he cites is limited to WeightWatchers- a weight loss approach I feel is outdated. Secondly, only 5% of people keep all of their weight off. Of course dieters are likely to put a few pounds, a kilo or three, back on once they adjust to a weight maintenance lifestyle. But in Peretti’s argument, they’ve failed.

It’s not to say that the episode made no good points. One aspect that was hammered home repeatedly was that someone on a diet is starving their body and the body responds appropriately – attempting to conserve as much of that energy as possible, slowing down metabolism and increasing food cravings. This is well known; it’s the source of the ‘starvation mode’ urban myth.

It’s telling that many of the facts shared in the original programme were omitted from this. For example, the first study that was referenced was explained to be from Ancel Keys– demonised as the ‘fat maker’ in the last series as he unscientifically identified fat, rather than sugar, as the main cause of obesity. This wasn’t mentioned here. Equally, the mention of Atkins was carefully phrased; something like “his detractors said that his diet caused his heart attack” without clearing up that misconception.

The whole thing was made to sound calculated and distrustful- when in fact, you could sum it up in two sentences.

Every diet works, if you stick to it.
Stop using the diet’s rules and you’ll regain your weight.

18% of people who watch less than two hours of TV a day are obese.

30% of those who watch more than 4 hours are obese.

Not enough? OK, how’s this:

Overweight participants who cut their daily TV time in half (from an average of 5 hours to 2.5 hours) burned an extra 119 calories a day. And a recent study of people who successfully lost weight found that 63 percent of them watched less than 10 hours of TV a week.

Yikes.

Listen, I love a little telly-time too. So what can you do to improve this? First, make sure you’re posture’s perfect – no slumping like kitty up there. (We’ll talk about this later in the week, too). Second, try some exercises during the advert breaks – yes, that means without fast-forwarding, those with Sky+. I’ve linked to some ideas in the sources, below. Don’t be an armchair athlete – someone who watches sport on the TV but never takes part. If you can ‘earn’ your programmes by paying for it during the breaks, everyone gains – and you still get to watch Sherlock, too.

Lazy Fit

Small changes. Big results. Low effort. Life improved.

Tag Archives: television

The men who made us thin