‘What Happens Next?’: Why Is It So Hard to Lose Weight?
As difficult as the COVID-19 lockdown periods were, one silver lining is that it gave many of us the time to think more about our health and wellness.
Some people’s physical health thrived in lockdown – there was an enormous global boom in bicycle sales in 2020, for example, and the home gym’s popularity still hasn’t slowed down.
For others, lockdown meant much less physical activity and more snacking and drinking. (Turning Point reports that one in five Australian households purchased more alcohol than usual during the pandemic, and in those households 70% were drinking more alcohol than usual.)
The result is that many of us are thinking a bit more about our weight than we were back in 2019 – specifically, how to lose it, and keep it off.
Read More: How to maintain those good routines after lockdown
You can’t go anywhere without hearing about the latest fad diet or workout, which often promise miraculously quick – and permanent – results. Does science support them? Is losing weight as simple as exercising more and eating less, or is there more to it? How has our understanding of obesity changed as our grasp on genetics and environmental factors grows stronger?
And if physiologists’ views have evolved, society’s views certainly haven't. There are underlying issues of shame and otherness in the way we think about fat, and even the way that doctors treat overweight patients. There’s pressure to lose weight even for people who feel comfortable in their bodies, and failure to do so is often perceived as a failure of willpower, or a reflection of inherent laziness. Even the way we talk about fat is fraught.
Season six of Monash University’s What Happens Next? podcast kicks off with a conversation about weight loss. What does science really have to say about weight loss? Should we change how we think about – and therefore talk about – diet, exercise and wellness?
Host Dr Susan Carland sits down with 2009 Australian Life Scientist of the year Dr Michael Cowley, founding director of the Monash Obesity and Diabetes Institute; general surgeon and specialist upper gastrointestinal surgeon Mr Ahmad Aly; psychiatrist and psychoanalyst Dr Hilary Offman; and celebrity personal trainer Michelle Bridges.
“It's hard to lose weight, and it's really hard to keep it off. The clinical data suggests only about 20% of people who lose weight can keep it off. But we know most people can lose weight, or at least a little bit, early, but very few keep it off. One in five keep it off.”
Michael Cowley
What Happens Next? will return next week with part two of this series, “Should We Change How We Think About Fat?”.
If you’re enjoying the show, don’t forget to subscribe on your favourite podcast app, and rate or review What Happens Next? to help listeners like yourself discover it.
If you’re enjoying the show, don’t forget to subscribe on your favourite podcast app, and rate or review What Happens Next? to help listeners like yourself discover it.