The Obesity Paradox, health and Longevity

Obesity and Health

Obesity Research may Shock you

Am I overweight? What is my optimal body weight?

Weight Loss Advice Myths

Research on why Diets don't work

What exactly ARE you losing when you lose weight quick?

The Obesity Paradox

Bacon et al. Int jnl of Obesity 2002

Weight and Diabetes

Wellness and Obesity Articles from other experts

I'm also interested in bringing you obesity articles, self esteem and wellness articles by other writers and experts in the field of health at every size (HAES); these articles on dieting and articles on weight have something important to offer critical thinkers.

Isabel Foxen Duke speaks passionately about her work with women and body image and how to stop food craziness.

Evelyn Tribole co-authored Intuitive Eating over 20 years ago.  Since then Intuitive eating as a movement has grown and is a household name.

Melissa Fabello is a proud feminist and FABulous body positive activist.  She wears a t-shirt that proudly proclaims:  Riots not Diets and eagerly takes on the weight loss industry.

Traci Mann has been researching dieting, willpower and self control for over 20 years.  In her book, Secrets from the Eating Lab, she wants you to know it's NOT that you don't have enough willpower.

jean fain, self compassion, jean fain video

The Self-Compassion Diet is authored by Jean Fain.  She shares the research with donuts that lead to her 'aha moment' and which lead to her writing the book.

lindsey averill, fattitude

Fattitude: The Movie tells the story about how the issues around cruelty towards fat bodies came about and it discusses solutions.  It consists of 48 interviews of experts from the HAES, and body positivity movement.

Food and Feelings:  Karen Koenig is one the early pioneers of the 'let's get back to normal eating' movement.  In her 30-years of working in this field she has come to one conclusion - the issue is seldom about food.

Am I fat?  Virgie Tovar is a 250 pound women, a fierce fashionista and an articulate and fat revolutionary.  She was born to a fat mother, was bullied as a child and now she helps others live a happy size life.

im in love with myself, libra forde

How to love yourself:  Libra Forde stands 6ft 5 (when she's not wearing her 4 inch heels).  She was that tall by age 11 and endured terrible teasing and bullying. She's a domestic abuse survivor - she'll touch and move you.

Hilary Kinavey, promoting a postive body image

Body Shame:  Hilary Kinevy (MS, LPC) from 'Be Nourished' talks about body shame and it's not so sexy origins and how, as we have no formal rituals, sadly.... the ritual to enter womanhood in the Western world is dieting.

Diet Mentality:  Katcha Sanderson is a lay Intuitive Eating Practitioner and the moderator at the Intuitive Eating Forum.  She shares her wisdom about the sneaky ways that thoughts about dieting trip us up.

Size Stigmatization.  Dr. Lucy Aphramor (Phd. RD) discovered that diets didn't work and that weight isn't the health ogre - but many other social factors including size stigmatization are!

linda bacon, haes, health at every size

Health at Every Size An interview with health professor, Linda Bacon who is a beacon of hope as she demands social justice, and tackles our fat phobic culture with courage, conviction and empirical evidence to back her up. Watch her powerful interview.

Abigail Saguy

Obesity Article. An interview with assistant professor, Abigail Saguy from UCLA who investigates the effects of how the media report on obesity and how this impacts our culture. 


Ali Hale

Body Sense:  An interview with articles on dieting, Ali Hale on what she has learned throughout the year about diets that supposedly 'work.' She has some interesting ideas.


The obesity paradox is alive and well in the Western world.  Over the years, I've written many obesity articles, wellness articles and articles on dieting for magazines like Shape, FitPregnancy, Men's Health and others. However, the weight articles you'll find here are different.  They are designed to make you think, to question what you've always known to be true about weight, health and longevity. Because there's a lot of 'research' out there that says fat is bad fullstop,when frankly not even their conclusions are supported by the raw data! And as Mark Twain says:  "It ain't what you don't know that gets you into trouble. It's what you know for sure that just ain't so."

In these longevity and obesity paradox articles I'm looking to provide you with research and articles on dieting, weight and how that might affect your longevity that you just don't readily find anywhere else.

Sometimes I'll be putting together bits of research that you may not normally think belong together to perhaps come to a conclusion that isn't a conventional one. Sometimes I'm going to be interviewing experts that have researched this area for years, and sharing those with you.

Wellness, weight and Obesity articles to make you think deeply

I want to stir up your thinking, and hopefully lead you to a few 'aha moments' where you think: "Oh my gosh, why haven't we heard about this before!"

As Thomas Dewar reminds us:  Minds are like parachutes, they only function when open. 

So, a word of warning - if you're simply stuck in the "fat is bad, bad, bad" or "fat is unhealthy, fullstops" or "I hate fat people paradigm"  and you aren't open to contemplating that there is an obesity paradox going on... please go and find something that will make your heart happy and skip this page!  

I totally 'get' that we've all heard the same old drumbeat that fat=poor health=disease and death, that it's hard not to believe it may not all be true. But read on, look at the research and make up your mind for yourself.

Want to live better longer?  Sign up for our occasional newsletter.  Receive this free ebook, soma ceremony and other event updates and other valuable snippets.  Your address will never be sold.

 and receive our free ebook!