WEDNESDAY, Dec. 29, 2021 (HealthDay News) -- Red-meat lovers may raise their risk of heart disease through a chain of events that plays out in the gut, a new study suggests.

Many studies over the years have tied diets heavy in red and processed meats to a heightened risk of heart disease and stroke. That type of evidence does not, however, prove red meat is the problem -- or, if it is, why.

The new findings offer more clues about the "why."

Researchers found that particular gut bacteria, more abundant in red-meat eaters, are key in turning a dietary nutrient called carnitine into a foe: a chemical known as TMAO, which helps promote blood-clotting and clogged arteries.

For the average person, the insights reinforce what's already known about heart-healthy eating, said study co-author Dr. Stanley Hazen, who directs Cleveland Clinic's Center for Microbiome and Human Health.

In particular, he pointed to the traditional Mediterranean diet, which has been shown in clinical trials to cut the risks of heart disease and stroke.

That diet is high in fish, fruits and vegetables, legumes, olive oil and nuts -- and low in red meat and processed foods.

The new study was published Dec. 23 in Nature Microbiology. It is among the latest to delve into the relationship among diet, the gut microbiome and human health.

"Microbiome" refers to the vast collection of bacteria and other microbes that naturally inhabit the human body, especially the gut. Research in recent years has begun to reveal just how vital those gut microbes are -- not only in digestion, but in immune system defenses, brain function and the health of the cardiovascular system.

It's well-established, Hazen said, that people with diets high in red meat typically have a higher risk of heart disease and stroke than those who eat little red meat.

The traditional suspect was saturated fat, found almost exclusively in animal products. Saturated fat can boost "bad" LDL cholesterol, which contributes to cardiovascular disease.

But, Hazen said, research has shown that any ill effects of saturated fat are not enough to explain the excess heart disease risks linked to heavy red-meat consumption. There had to be other mechanisms.

The new findings point to one, said Lauri Wright, chair of nutrition and dietetics at the University of North Florida, in Jacksonville.

There is still much to learn about the gut microbiome, said Wright, who is also a spokesperson for the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics. But in general, she said, diets rich in foods like vegetables, fruits and high-fiber grains help "feed" beneficial gut microbes.

"It still goes back to food," Wright said.

Hazen, too, said he is a "big supporter" of using diet to change the gut microbiome, rather than adding certain bugs via probiotic supplements.

"Changing your diet changes the soil" that feeds gut microbes, he explained.

The latest findings build on earlier work by Hazen and his colleagues focusing on TMAO. The chemical is generated when gut bacteria break down carnitine, a nutrient particularly abundant in red meat.

The researchers had already shown that TMAO appears to raise the risk of heart disease and stroke. And in a 2019 study, they found that adding red meat to healthy people's diets for a short time boosts blood levels of TMAO. Those levels went back down, though, when red meat was swapped for either white meat or vegetable proteins.

In the latest study, looking at both humans and lab mice, the researchers found that a cluster of gut bacteria -- within a group called Emergencia timonensis -- transform carnitine into TMAO. While meat-eaters harbor a decent amount of those microbes, longtime vegetarians and vegans have very few.

In the experiments with mice, the researchers found that introducing E. timonensis boosted TMAO levels and the blood's propensity to form clots.

The researchers also analyzed stool samples from people who took part in the 2019 diet study. They found that when participants were eating a lot of red meat, their stool harbored more of the culprit E. timonensis microbes; when they switched to non-meat protein sources, those microbial levels dropped.

There are blood tests available to measure people's TMAO levels. And Hazen said that these could potentially allow health-care providers to give patients more personal diet advice: If someone's TMAO levels were high, limiting red meat would be particularly important.

But what you take in, Wright noted, is as important as what you limit. She said that fermented foods like yogurt and kimchi, which contain certain microbes, can be good choices. But again, she stressed, overall diet is what's key in supporting a healthy gut.

More information

The American Heart Association has advice on heart-healthy eating.

SOURCES: Stanley Hazen, MD, PhD, director, Center for Microbiome and Human Health, Cleveland Clinic, Ohio; Lauri Wright, PhD, RDN, assistant professor, chair, nutrition and dietetics, University of North Florida, Jacksonville, Fla.; Nature Microbiology, Dec. 23, 2021, online

See original here:
Science Reveals How Red Meat Harms the Heart - HealthDay News

Getty

The start of a new year means a new slate. Many take the opportunity to try something different, especially when it comes to health. You might be consideringdietingor setting a goal tolose weight.

The pressure to get fit or shed holiday weight is significantly higher at the beginning of the year. As a woman, I feel the extra obligation to stay slim. I began wondering what other women have to say about the demands to lose weight and diet.

I scoured the internet and my bookshelf for the best body-positive books out there, written by women who understand the burden of societal expectations. I read reviews from other well-known authors, critics and media organizations and researched what other bookworms had to say. From those critiques, I drew up this curated list of the most popular and celebrated books about loving your own body.

Whether your New Year's resolution is to work out, try a new diet, accept yourself more or just read, these books are for all of us.

Established writer, professor andavid Twitter user, Roxane Gay published her seventh book and first memoir, Hunger: A Memoir of (My) Body, in 2017. It quickly became a New York Times Best Seller for its honesty about weight gain and the struggle with food, health and body image.

I currently have two other books by Roxane Gayon my bookshelf: Bad Feminist and Not That Bad. Both are a collection of essays from Gay and other contributing writers. I'm a fan of creative nonfiction, and Gay captures exactly what I love about the genre in all three books -- authenticity.

In Hunger, Gay explains that her memoir is not a weight-loss success story and that she won't be describing how she went from a plus-size to thin. (Spoiler alert: She doesn't lose any weight.) Instead, what Gay learns is much more, such as self-love, compassion, companionship and acceptance.

Another reason why I enjoy this memoir is that Gay doesn't write from a pedestal. Instead, she speaks to her audience directly and in ways someone who has also struggled with body acceptance would understand.

"This is a book about my body, about my hunger, and ultimately, this is a book about disappearing and being lost and wanting so very much, wanting to be seen and understood. This is a book about learning, however slowly, to allow myself to be seen and understood." -- Roxane Gay

You might like this book if

You enjoy raw, vulnerable work or prefer nonfiction or memoir writing. This book is for those who aren't looking for that perfect fairytale ending but seeking a piece of work that is human and relatable.

Following a very successful online career, blogger, photographer and self-love advocate, Jes Baker published her first book, Things No One Will Tell Fat Girls: A Handbook for Unapologetic Living. Her blog,The Militant Baker, has been featured in prominent media outlets, such as Time Magazine, People, Buzzfeed and CNN.

Things No One Will Tell Fat Girls: A Handbook for Unapologetic Livingdetails the life-changing movement of learning to love your body. At the forefront of the fight, Baker encourages her readers to reject fat-shame and to challenge preconceived notions about the "perfect body."

Baker writes that her book is for those with a body who are sick and tired of apologizing for it. She believes that you should be allowed and expected to do all the things that make you happy, which includes just being able to live your life.

A unique aspect of this book is that it includes challenges. Baker calls them "The Fat People: Do All the Things" challenges. The idea is based on one of her satirical blog posts calling out things fat people are told they aren't allowed to do. Readers can choose to participate by accepting these challenges.

"We are more likely to be told by the world that we are good people than anything else. Funny, creative, intelligent, commutative, generous, maybe even extraordinary. What we are not told is that our bodies are perfect just the way they are. Like, ever. We are taught that our outsides are flawed, and not only that, but the majority of our worth lies in our physical appearance." -- Jes Baker

You might like this book if

You are someone who wants something more from a book. Jes Baker's guide is for those who want to make the lessons in this book and the movement of self-love a lifestyle.

If you've followed any body positivity accounts or body-positive women on Instagram in the past couple of years, chances are you've already heard of this book by Caroline Dooner. As an ex-dieter, Dooner has healed her unhealthy obsession with food and weight.

Dooner believes that you don't need to change your diet or try something new -- you need to change the way you think about food. She says diets aren't sustainable, at least not in the long run, and thinks that putting your body through constant dieting and binging is not a healthy or enjoyable way to live.

A memoir with heart and humor, The F*ck it Diet: Eating Should Be Easy encourages readers toeat. That means understanding when your body is hungry and meeting your body's needs with food. Dooner says eating should be simple, and she breaks it down to its truest and natural form.

"When you eat, you are actually bringing 'the earth' into your body -- tying you to the planet and keeping you alive. It's bringing weight to your physical existence. The act of eating and coming back into your body is asking you to accept being human. It is asking us to integrate with the most uncomfortable, messy, earthly, painful, and base parts of our existence." -- Caroline Dooner

You might like this book if.

You're looking for a laugh while you read, Dooner does a great job describing and poking fun at the struggles we all face. The book, which resembles laughing and conversing with a friend, is for those looking to no longer feel guilty for eating and gaining weight.

Former beauty fanatic Anuschka Rees wrote Beyond Beautiful: A Practical Guide to Being Happy, Confident, and You in a Looks-Obsessed World as a captivating self-care publication. Don't just take my word for it -- Caroline Dooner (author of The F*ck it Diet above) called this book a "self-confidence bible that every woman should read."

Beyond Beautifulreads like a guide for a college course, and the first chapter is adequately named Body Image 101. This book has taught me a lot, for instance, I had never heard of the term "body neutral." Rees explains that being body positive is a step in the right direction, as we need to change beauty standards in society, but we also need to be body neutral. It's a call to respect ourselves as human beings, not just body parts that we shrink and pick apart.

Rees's guide is unique in that over 600 real women were interviewed about their struggles with body image. Their quotes and real-life stories are scattered throughout the chapters. There are also reflection questions, colorful artwork and advice about when and how to receive professional help.

"A healthy body image is a bit like a great work-life balance: we know we definitely want it, but we are not 100 percent clear on what it actually looks like, or how to get it. And the fact that body image is a hot topic right now hasn't made things any more straightforward; because mixed in with all the good advice, there is a whole bunch of conflicting information and misconceptions that have muddied the waters further." -- Anuschka Rees

You might like this book if.

You are looking to take a crash course on positive body image and self-love. I would recommend this guide to those new to the present-day movement who want to learn but don't know where to start.

Lindy West began her writing career as an opinion writer for The New York Times. With this professional background, you wouldn't expect West to produce such a comical piece of writing as her memoir, Shrill: Notes from a Loud Woman.

The title of this memoir might sound familiar to you -- as it did to me -- because the book has recently been adapted into aHulu seriesof the same name, starring Aidy Bryant fromSaturday Night Live. Bryant's performance in the series earned her a nomination for a 2021 Primetime Emmy asOutstanding Lead Actress in a Comedy Series.

West's Shrill: Notes from a Loud Womanis a feminist, and most times, humorous, take on women's body image. It describes the experience of many women who feel they need to shrink themselves down to hide and to blend into society. West writes about her personal struggles with body weight and that exact feeling.

"Please don't forget, I am my body. When my body gets smaller, it is still me. When my body gets bigger, it is still me. There is not a thin woman inside of me awaiting excavation. I am one piece." -- Lindy West

You might like this book if

You're looking to expand your library on feminist commentary, especially around body positivity. This memoir is also for those who enjoy or are interested in Roxanne Gay's Hunger. Both are from the same genre and tell a story with intimate detail.

Our Health & Wellness newsletter puts the best products, updates and advice in your inbox.

This is far from an exhaustive list of body-positive books. As this movement becomes more popular, I hope this list grows and the audience expands.

These books are important because they offer a voice to those who feel shamed or discounted by diet and exercise-excessive culture. They also provide a supportive community for those who struggle with society's beauty and weight standards.

Positive body image and self-love are ideals that everyone should bring into the new year. Here's hoping these books encourage and guide you into a more profound love of self.

The information contained in this article is for educational and informational purposes only and is not intended as health or medical advice. Always consult a physician or other qualified health provider regarding any questions you may have about a medical condition or health objectives.

View original post here:
Top body-positive books to read in 2022 - CNET

Our favorite people and our favorite stories become so not by any inherent virtue, but because they illustrate something deep in the grain, something unadmitted.

The past is entered through creaking iron gates laced with fog.

We who love Joan Didion each have our own, a version that, when we think of her, glides smoothly through the recesses of our minds just as the Monorail circles Disneyland. Most likely this version also includes an image of ourselves, who we were, where we were, when she first imprinted herself on our consciousness, our subconscious when she changed how we see, and, if we write, undoubtedly and most distinctly how we do that as well. Always she returns, circling.

Im 24, riding the L train from Lorimer St. in Brooklyn to Union Square in the city, where Im a junior at Eugene Lang, having transferred from Pasadena City College in Los Angeles, where Im from. I turn pages reverently, gingerly: Slouching Towards Bethlehem. The book has been assigned in my intro to nonfiction class. I stand rocking between the heels and balls of my feet, pulling a slim green peacoat around my small frame, leaning, looking into the darkened tunnel, waiting for train lights to bloom out of the darkness and whoosh to a stop before us, the doors opening onto a florescent city. Eager to sit and read again: a coronet of seed pearls held her illusion veil.

I saw Eve Babitz before I ever laid eyes on her writing. A high school classmate was the daughter of photographer Julian Wasser. I was hanging out at the long defunct Penny Lane on Melrose, it was the late 90s, and the street had become slightly more famous, caught up in the glitz of the television show but still holding on to its punk grunginess. In the middle of the store stood the rotating postcard rack. I stood before it and from a sea of James Dean, Drew Barrymore, Salvador Dal, and Edward Scissorhands emerged Eve, hunched forward, breasts voluminous, hair shrouding her face, playing chess with the then unknown to me Marcel Duchamp. I plucked her from the display. Alexis dad took that, a friend said casually. What? I asked. Yeah, like, a bunch of years ago. Its some writer and a famous artist. I returned the card to its place but never forgot the image. This was the most Babitz way to have first encountered Eve Babitz, through gossip and a tenuous connection to celebrity.

The Stingray, the scarf, the glasses. Bobbed beach hair parted loosely down the middle. Didion was a master of persona. She gave modern women possession over car culture, so that they were no longer just objects in it. Freeways were that cultures veins and escape routes, but where? The beauty and irony in Didions work was that she made Southern California such a delicious velvet coffin that most of her characters had nowhere better to go. In many ways she herself appeared to be without needs, happy only to observe. She hardly seemed to need food, as evidenced by the many profilers who delighted in describing her diet: almonds, a single ice-cold diet coke, cigarettes, slicing edges off slim cucumber sandwiches, sipping, flicking. As Michiko Kakutani wrote in The New York Times in 1979,

Wearing a faded blue sweatshirt over brown corduroy levis, Didion at 44 strikes anyone who sees her for the first time as the embodiment of the women in her novels: like Lily McClellan in Run River, she is strikingly frail (Didion is 5 feet 2, and weighs 95 pounds); like Maria in Play It as It Lays, she used to chain-smoke and wear chiffon scarves over her red hair; and like Charlotte in A Book of Common Prayer, she possesses an extreme and volatile thinness she was a woman with a body that masqueraded as that of a young girl.

Joan was cool to the touch and helped paint a picture of a new Californian, the woman girl or girl woman who was more interested in standing in the corner at a party than in the center of it. Before her eyes, swingers, rockstars, drunk struggling and non-struggling actors soaked up 1960s and 70s reverie, while just outside the tall, wide glass windows, coyotes stalked the Hollywood Hills, traipsing through Beachwood Canyon as lights blossomed below. Bret Easton Ellis pays homage to the same coyotes in Less Than Zero, a book that borrowed heavily from Play It as It Lays detachment, malaise, the time we spend driving L.A.s wonderland of on-ramps and off-ramps, back alleys and city streets, afraid, apparently, to merge.

Like so many, myself included, Ellis tried to capture and emulate the mysterious drama of Didions prose, sun bleached, languorous yet taut. How can one write about L.A. without veering into her territory? She knew L.A. like the back of her hand. Not satisfied with Bukowskis one-trick-pony show of low-lifes, Didion moved through Los Angeles seeking the complete picture, from Malibu to the Ralphs in Hollywood.

Each piece of Joans writing was in service of a larger narrative, this story of the United States, often using California as microcosm for our American ailments. She looked through and under L.A.s facades, revealing the forces that shaped them:

Outside the Miramar Hotel in Santa Monica a hard subtropical rain had been falling for days. It scaled still more paint from the faded hotels and rooming houses that front the Pacific along Ocean Avenue. It streamed down the blank windows of unleased offices, loosened the soft coastal cliffs and heightened the most characteristic Santa Monica affect, that air of dispirited abandon which suggests that the place survives only as an illustration of a boom gone bankrupt, evidence of some irreversible flaw in the laissez-faire small business ethic.

That she included women as prominent figures in this narrative, made her writing all the more meaningful, radical.

Babitz was a child of Los Angeles, born to a film composer father and a painter mother. She wrote in a tone that in many ways was the opposite of Didions, even though they shared a love of Los Angeles. If Joan was in the corner smoking and observing, Eve was in the mix, laughing loudly, flirtatiously, but always with a sense of ownership. There is joy and levity in Babitzs writing. She makes you feel like her newest best friend. Despite her insider status she refuses to be a snob, and her openness about the pageantry of Angeleno society is one of her most endearing qualities. She hits the ground running on the first page of Slow Days, Fast Company:

This is a love story and I apologize; it was inadvertent. But I want it clearly understood from the start that I dont expect it to turn out well. Im not going to give you an although I am wry and world-weary, me and Sam have found the answer together which only we share and you cant come in except to press your nose against this book. Its bad luck for one thing. I know this lady who just made a fortune writing about her uplifting redemption, practically, from Falling In Love, and while she was on tour promoting the paperback the light of her heart ran into the night and disappeared off the face of the earth. Besides its being bad luck to even whisper that youre happy, its also not nice basically.

I discovered Babitzs writing after Id aged out of her characters demographic and was taken back immediately to my early 20s, before moving to New York, when I was still a drug-snorting hottie, hanging off bar stools. In those twilight years after high school and before a DUI that forced me to get serious about my future, life was a kaleidoscope of ascending hillsides viewed from jalopies into which my friends and I were stuffed like sardines, dressed in a feathery color wheel of thrift store clothes Id stolen from my job as the manager at the Buffalo Exchange on La Brea. Stumbling into crowded kitchens in search of cigarettes, booze, and warm bodies; shouting into cell phones the size of dildos at the end of the night to see if a friend was going to wake up next to a future member of Maroon 5 or was puking in a bush nearby and needed assistance getting back to the car.

Babitz had done it all, predicted it all. She makes you her uninvited plus one. She introduces you to her many lovers, opens her lingerie drawer and says, dont worry, only ignorant people think sex is taboo. I once wrote a short story about the artist Ana Mendieta that in many ways was influenced by Babitzs insider voice, in which I announced that having big tits at 13 was like getting a chainsaw for Christmas and being asked to carry it around in a bra: I had power but no idea how to turn it on. Babitz understood and utilized this power, as in the famous photograph of her and Duchamp. She understood that women had been reduced to objects and that their bodies were deemed consumables, like products at Ralphs, and yet she did not allow shame or fear to be deciding factors in her life. Instead she openly embraced her sexuality, leaning hard into her eras bohemian ethos. The L.A. women in her books defied classification.

Didion, too, had a knack for attracting the most fascinating and happening people into her orbit. Harrison Ford, still a carpenter, arrives at her home in Malibu to do renovations, stays three months, then explodes into a galaxy far, far away. In Slouching, Joan stumbles upon Sarah, a small child on Haight Street whos just dropped acid, licking her white-lip-sticked lips and turning pages in a childrens book. In a telling scene in her nephew Griffin Dunnes documentary The Center Will Not Hold, he asks Joan what it was like to stumble upon a child on acid. After some thought, replies, It was gold. Even Joans metaphors mine the depths of Californian consciousness.

Didion was a pure Californian, a fifth-generation descendent of manifest destiny. She wrote herself into the fabric of her larger California narrative. Even when she wasnt on the page, her persona loomed over it. When she was present, she was honest about her failings to compartmentalize, realizing that what she had created was in some ways a monster. From Where I Was From:

I began trying to find the point of California, to locate some message in its history. I picked up a book of revisionist studies on the subject, but abandoned it on discovering that I was myself quoted, twice. You will have realized perhaps by now (a good deal earlier than I myself realized) that this book represents an exploration into my own confusions about place and the way in which I grew up, confusion and misunderstandings so much a part of who I became that I can still to this day confront them only obliquely.

Although Babitz stayed mostly within the confines of L.A. County, her pages were full of striking insight. In Eves Hollywood, she announces:

Culturally, L.A. has always been a humid jungle alive with seething L.A. projects that I guess people from other places just cant see. It takes a certain kind of innocence to like L.A., anyway. It requires a certain plain happiness inside to be happy in L.A., to choose it and be happy here. When people are not happy, they fight against L.A. and say its a wasteland.

Despite almost unanimous critical acclaim there is the notion that what Babitz did was more akin to unadorned autobiography than fiction, which negates her very real and profound talent as an imaginative author. She had a gift for uncovering the secret desire for Los Angeles, specifically Hollywood, within its fiercest critics, despite their continual denouncement of the place as culture-less. In fact, she illustrated that Los Angeles was a continuous center of culture, one that had more pull then the Woody Allens of the world were willing to admit. Just as men wanted Babitz, the snobs wanted Hollywood, and she wasnt going to let them forget it.

In 2018, I was finishing edits on my novel Fade Into You, and it was time to accumulate blurbs. My editor asked if Id put together a wish list of authors. Eve Babitz was first on my list. She had opened a space for unabashed smart girls to exhibit their cleverness without putting on airs. As a fellow Angeleno and former wild child, my affinity for her was beyond measure. After long awaiting a response to our inquiry, her publicist informed us that Eve was no longer doing blurbs, but that she wished me and the book well. That quiet blessing was enough.

Each writer tells a story of a changing culture, of changing attitudes toward women, and their influence can be found everywhere. Not content to let stereotypes dictate the female experience on the page, Babitz opened her lingerie drawer so that I could write, and write about the Lolitas of page and screen on my own terms. Didions contribution to the world of letters is indisputable. Having helped usher in what was then called New Journalism, and has now become the Long Form status quo. That fact that we readers are so accustomed to the style of writing Didion helped pioneer speaks volumes to the force of her talent. Disaffected heroines outside in the pool chaise, plotting and painting their toenails; whip-smart journalist driving full-speed through a headlit Mojave, cigarette hanging from a pair of red lips, a soft pack and hardboiled egg by their side. Restless women in the sunshine, with time aplenty. A sports car and a highway out of town, and always coming home; circling.

Nikki Darling holds a PhD in Literature and Creative Writing from USC. Her debut novel,Fade Into You,was published by Feminist Press in 2018, and is currently being adapted into a scripted series. She is completing her second book,The Call Is Coming From Inside the House. She lives in L.A. with her cat, small dog, and partner.

Read the original post:
Diet Coke and a Game of Chess: The Radical Work of Eve Babitz and Joan Didion - lareviewofbooks

Debunking some weight loss myths

Here are some common myths about weight loss to forget.

Buzz60

In American culture, it's bad to be fat. Rarely is this more apparent than at the start of the New Year, when diet culture, fatphobiaand capitalism converge. Exploiting body shame and people's desire for renewal, weight loss companies ramp up ads, gyms reduce ratesand diet companies promise to help people realize the elusive goal of weight loss that lasts.

Sociologists and medical professionals who treat patients using a model of health at every size say this yearly cycle underscores society's obsession with thinness and fuels dangerous misperceptions about the relationship between weight and health.

January's anti-fatness may be cloaked in wellness and body positivity, but its core message to potential customersis the same it's always been: their body is not good enough and they have not been disciplined enough to lose weight. Sociologists say this message also suggests weight and health are solely the product of individual choices, rather than the result of sexist, racist and classist systems.

"People are doing this to avoid the social stigma, the economic stigma, the moral stigma of being fat or just not being as thin as they could be," said Natalie Boero, a sociology professor at San Jose State University and author of "Killer Fat: Media, Medicine and Morals in the American Obesity Epidemic." "If it were about health, we would be talking about access to healthcare. We would be talking about the toll of discrimination against fat people in medical settings, as well as in social settings. We would be talking about access to food and activity and education and economic security. We certainly wouldn't just be talking about people above or approaching a certain weight."

Implicit in the barrage of New Year's weight-loss ads is the belief that thinner is healthier. Fatness is threatening,and as some scholars such as Sabrina Strings have found, also linked to anti-Blackness.

Glute pumping, lip plumping: TikTok trends insist the body is always something to improve. At what cost?

"By the early twentieth century, slenderness was increasingly promoted in the popular media as the correct embodiment for white Anglo-Saxon Protestant women. Not until after these associations were already in place did the medical establishment begin its concerted effort to combat 'excess' fat tissue as a major public health initiative," Strings wrote in her book "Fearing the Black Body: The Racial Origins of Fat Phobia. "In this way, the phobia about fatness and the preferences for thinness have not, principally or historically, been about health. Instead, they have been one way the body has been used to craft and legitimate race, sex,and class hierarchies."

The relationship between weight and health is complex. Natalie Ingraham, a sociology professor at California State University whose research focuses on the intersections of body size, gender, sexuality and health, said when health is defined and measured by medical professionals who tend to be white and male, that can lead to discrimination against certain bodies. The same is true of wellness and nutrition spaces led by white women.

Dr. Gregory Dodell of Central Park Endocrinology in New York City said some medical professionals are questioning body mass index (BMI) as a marker of health. Rather than focusing on the scale, Dodell takes a holistic approach by assessinghis patients' overall health and related behaviors, including exercise and nutrition.

"We know that people can be healthy across the size spectrum," he said. "I have patients that are 'normal BMI' that have type two diabetes. And I have patients that are well above 'normal BMI' that don't have any health problems. If you hide their weight, if you just compared their labs to each other, you'd think the person with the poorer labs was the heavier person. It's not always true."

Dodell is part of a growing community of medical professionals who say the risk of obesity, typically defined by BMI, has been overstated.

Lizzo criticized body positivity: What you need to know about body neutrality

"We don't expect you to be healthy because you weigh 300 pounds, and it seems that you're fighting a battle that you were never meant to be healthy, which is just not true," he said. "I have patients all the time who come in and say they avoid doctors because every time they go for a sore throat, for irregular periods, diabetes all they say is, 'well, you really should lose some weight.' And they've made the assumption that that person is not exercising or not eating healthy when they're actually doing yoga four times a week, meditating and eating plenty of fruits and vegetables. There's so much stigma around weight in our culture."

Goal-setting around health in the New Year isn't inherently problematic, Ingraham said, but goal setting towardweight loss, in particular, is setting people up for failure. Ingraham said research shows 95% of people who diet will gain back their weight.

"It's not that people should never watch what they're eating or never have to change what they're eating. But I think the change towards eating particularly focused on weight loss as the main outcome is just a boulder up the hill and your body's going to fight you back on it. It wants to be at a certain weight, a certain size and it's going to do what it can to stay there," she said.

The buff body type is back in style: On social media, teens find inspiration, dangerous trends

Dodell said people in larger bodies are the ones most likely to have dieted in their lives.

"The most likely outcome of dieting is weight regain, which metabolically is shown to be worse for people because you go into this restrictive state, which gets you into this January lose 30 pounds in 30 days. What happens in February?" he said. "This weight cycling increases inflammatory markers, it increases stress response. It actually may even reset our set point so people not only gain the weight back that they lost, but more. And what does that do to your body? Your body just throws up its hand and is like, 'what am I supposed to do now?'"

Ingraham said not every body can or should be thin, and people have less control over their weight than diet culture would have them believe.

"The language is definitely about willpower, it's about overcoming mental blocks to these things," she said. "Much like a lot of public health messaging, it's very individual-focused. It's about how much individual willpower do you have to eat X amount of calories or X amount of points or whatever your system is. It ignores so many structural things."

While everyone can strive to make healthy choices, sociologists sayweight and health are not determined by individual choices alone.

Rethink your resolutions: Make intentions instead

"That message ignores food deserts and poverty, which is such a huge driver of health issues, because what choices do people really even have to make if they can't access good food and there aren't safe places for them to do outdoor physical activity, or if they will never have the money to join a gym, or they're working 60, 70 hours a week," Ingrahamsaid. "The structural pieces make health really challenging because so much of health status is tied to this intersection of race and class."

Boero said the weight loss industry needs people to believe in the myth of self-discipline. Structural realities are not profitable.

"That doesn't sell anything. That doesn't give people a sense of control. That doesn't keep people anxious about where they fit in a social system," she said. "During this pandemic, many of us have felt so out of control, and I think there's a way in which diet companies or various 'wellness companies' or 'body positivity companies' will continue to capitalize on this idea that this is under our control."

The irony, Boero said, is that in the middle of this ongoing pandemic, "we still haven't grasped that our health is about more than our individual behavior."

At the start of the New Year, experts say people who want to renew their focus on health should take time to examine what health means to them.

"Brace for what's coming, know that there's going to be this onslaught of messages in January that you need to reinvent yourself, that there is something wrong with you that needs fixing with a New Year's resolution," Ingraham said. "You can push back on that mentality to say, 'I'm doing OK actually.' Or maybe there is something you're wanting to change about your lifestyle that is in your control, and I think it's OK to set that goal. Just don't let a corporation set it for you."

You may not be able to control your weight, and some medical professionals would argue you may not need to, but you can control eating more vegetables, drinking more water, finding moments to breathe, and exercising in ways that don't feel punishing.

"If we cared about fat people's health as a society, there are a million things that we would do before we shamed people, before we prescribed people diet after diet after diet that frankly ends up draining their systems, likely making people weigh more over time," Boero said. "It's worth asking, 'who benefits from us feeling terrible about ourselves?'"

Read more:
Everything you miss when you think weight loss is about willpower - USA TODAY

Getty Images

Superfoods, detox, all-natural foods. These are just some of the health buzzwords you've heard either in everyday conversation, on social media and even when food shopping.

The problem with these terms is that they are misleading to consumers and can inadvertently cause harm. In fact, research has shown how easily people believe they're eating healthier because of buzzwords that appear on food labels (e.g. fat-free, all-natural). It's important to understand that many of these terms are marketing tactics that create a "health halo"surrounding certain foods, to make it seem like they're better or safer for you without any clear evidence.

Our Health & Wellness newsletter puts the best products, updates and advice in your inbox.

The aforementioned buzzwords are just some of the ones you may be familiar with. There are many others that are frequently used and misused, and that might be playing tricks on your mind in the grocery store. To start off 2022 on a clean slate, keep reading for a list of some of the worst offenders.

The term "clean eating" is often used in reference to a diet that has minimally processed foods and instead focuses on foods closest to their natural state. It sounds harmless, because aren't we constantly being told to eat more fruits and vegetables?

The problem with this term is that it places foods in "good" and "bad" categories (after all, the opposite of clean is dirty) and indicates that there is a right and wrong way to eat. It also disregards those who don't have access to fresh fruits and vegetables because of where they live and their income level.

Not to mention the vague term is completely made up since there isn't an actual scientific definition for clean eating. It can also lead to an obsession with healthy eating and put vulnerable populations (such as young adults) atrisk for disordered eating. So let's reserve the term clean eating to refer to foods that have been thoroughly washed and cleaned before consumption.

Growing up in a Latinx household, I was exposed to traditional foods that I didn't think much of until I was older. I later learned that some foods I was eating, such as quinoa and chia seeds, were suddenly being labeled "superfoods." Superfood is another term that has no real scientific basis, but is used to describe foods that are thought to have powerful healing properties, like preventing disease or aging.

You may have seen this term splashed across magazine covers, health segments on TV or in your social media timelines. While these foods may provide some health benefits linked to their nutritional content, there isn't enough research to back the claim that a single food can perform miracles like curing someone's illness.

Calling something the next "superfood" has become a popular marketing gimmick in a wellness industry that knows how to target people to make a quick buck. A better option is to make sure your diet includes a wide array of nutritional foods instead of focusing on the latest fad ingredient.

People usually turn to detoxes and cleanses for a quick weight loss fix under the guise of flushing so-called "toxins" out of the body. These can come in the form of detox teas, meal replacement shakes, green juice fasting and other methods that require you to eliminate large food groups and consume very few calories. They may not use the word "diet," but that's exactly what they are, and not a healthy or effective one either.

There is no scientific evidence to prove that cleanses and detoxes work. Instead they're an unsustainable (and even dangerous) method to lose weight or "reset" your body. Isabel Vasquez, RD, LDN at Nutritiously Yours LLC & Your Latina Nutrition says that most of these cleanses may make you feel good initially, but the feeling is short-lived. "These are not sustainable and when we consume excess amounts of certain vitamins, we just excrete them in our urine," she explains.

Instead of going on an extreme cleanse or diet, Vasquez suggests hydrating adequately and adding fruits and vegetables into your diet for digestion and your overall health.

Your body also doesn't need a detox, because your kidneys, liver and other organs help with cleansing on a regular basis. But if you think your organs aren't doing their cleansing duties correctly, it's best to see a doctor who can run tests and give you a proper diagnosis.

Processed foods are products that have been changed (e.g. washed, cut, milled, frozen) or infused with additives to preserve freshness and improve taste. These foods can include a range of items you'd find in your local supermarket, such as cereal, canned beans, milk, fresh fruits and vegetables, olive oil and your favorite cookies.

The issue with the term "processed foods" is that it's generally used as an umbrella term implying everything you eat that's processed is bad for you. Most people, when they think of processed foods, think about fast foods that are higher in calories, fat, sugar and additives.

While it's true that these foods are processed and should be consumed mindfully, some foods need to be processed to preserve their freshness, boost their nutritional value and make them easily accessible. Some processed foods, like frozen fruit or oatmeal, are perfectly safe and healthy to eat in abundance. Being processed isn't inherently bad or good. Therefore you can ease your fears about processed foods and instead enjoy them all in a well-balanced diet.

The terms "cheat day" or "cheat meal" basically mean you're planning on breaking your diet by eating a highly caloric meal or meals that you normally wouldn't have. They sound like harmless terms, but they can ultimately affect your relationship with food. Gabriela Barreto, MS, RD, CDN, CFSC Sports Dietitian and Strength Coach says, "This can set people up for a binge-restricted cycle where they restrict certain foods to only be eaten at a certain time and in a large amount."

Even more concerning is if an individual already has a history of food addiction since it can exacerbate those issues for them. Barreto adds, "This kind of restriction we know doesn't work and by setting unhealthy relationships with foods we are more likely to weight cycle when we can no longer uphold those restrictions."

Instead she recommends eating a balanced diet that includes foods that you enjoy as well as foods that promote health without restriction, learning to listen to your body's needs intuitively, and working on your relationship with food.

Putting foods into categories such as "good" or "bad" further contributes to diet culture and causes people to tie the way they eat to their self worth. These terms are also interchangeably used to describe an individual's eating behavior as being bad or good based on what they ate. "Assigning moral value to food only creates more guilt and shame around certain food choices," says Miriam Fried, a NYC-based personal trainer and founder of MF Strong. She elaborates, "Guilt leads to restriction and restriction often leads to unhealthy behaviors around eating and a negative relationship with food."

Although foods are made up of different caloric content, nutritional and flavor profiles, the body uses it all for energy. Some foods do have more nutritional value than others, but it doesn't mean you have to restrict yourself to just those foods. "Can we acknowledge that a piece of broccoli might have more nutrients than a cookie without making the cookie "bad"? Food isn't good or bad, it simply is," Fried points out. The more you understand that all of these foods can fit into your diet, the easier it will be to stop labeling them as good or bad.

When the term "all-natural" is used, it suggests that the food you're eating has been minimally processed and is therefore safer. The truth is this word doesn't determine if a food is safer for us to eat (as we saw above, processing can be a good thing). In fact, the US Food and Drug Administration doesn't even regulate this term.

To date, the organization hasn't established a formal definition for all-natural or natural, though the basic understanding is that it means that nothing artificial or synthetic has been added to a food that normally would not be expected to be in that food, such as dye. The other issue with this term is that it doesn't account for the complex food production and manufacturing process. Importantly, "natural" doesn't equal "organic," which is a term regulated by the United States Department of Agriculture. Foods with the USDA organic label must meet strict requirements surrounding the use of antibiotics, hormones, fertilizers and pesticides during the production process; natural foods do not.

According to the National Center for Complementary and Integrative Health, natural products aren't automatically better or safer for you. In some cases, such as in medicine, it might cause greater risk or side effects to take a natural, unregulated product than a federally regulated medication. Therefore, take this buzzword with a grain of salt or get rid of it altogether.

"Chemical-free" is a buzzword that's commonly tied to the saying, "If you can't pronounce it, don't eat it." When the average person uses it regarding food (or other items), they're saying that all chemicals are synonymous with being toxic and unsafe. This is easily debunked because a basic science lesson will teach you that everything that exists around you, including the foods you eatare made up of chemicals.

That doesn't negate the fact that there are toxic chemicals that should be avoided, or that you might want to steer clear from out of caution, a food sensitivity or just personal preference. If you are concerned about ingesting pesticides, for example, you can stick to certified organic produce., But it's impossible to completely avoid chemicals in any food. Blueberries, for example, are made up of chemicals known as anthocyanins, chlorogenic acid, pterostilbene and flavonids.

Without context, these chemicals look like something the average person should fear. The truth is marketing plays a big role in fear-mongering when it comes to our food and it's helpful to have reputable resources at our fingertips to debunk these myths.

The information contained in this article is for educational and informational purposes only and is not intended as health or medical advice. Always consult a physician or other qualified health provider regarding any questions you may have about a medical condition or health objectives.

See more here:
8 health buzzwords to leave behind in 2022: Superfood, detox and more - CNET