The following Mark's Daily Apple article was written by Mark Sisson,

and is narrated by Tina Lehman.

Is there a problem with weight loss culture?

I recently read a piece from the New York Times in which the author recounts her lifelong

struggle with dieting and body acceptance and her relationship to food.

She tackles the failure of most diets, the fat acceptance movement, the Weight Watchers

support group phenomenon, the Oprah Winfrey bodyweight yo-yoing.

What makes it an effective article is that rather than cast herself as dispassionate journalist

reporting the facts, she's elbows deep. She herself is the subject as much as anything else.

It's a powerful article. The article doesn't come to a neat conclusion. There's no

prescription at the end. It meanders. It explores. It's messy. I think that's exactly how

most people feel when trying to tackle this diet, health, body weight, eating thing. Confused,

lost, conflicted, overwhelmed. Looking at the comments section from the article,

it seems that pretty much everyone got something different from it. Some were outraged that

the writer would argue that being fat is perfectly healthy. She wasn't. Some chimed in with their

preferred diet, the one that worked for them. I saw a few mentions of paleo even.

Some recounted their weight loss journeys and struggles and failures. Some admonished her

for not mentioning exercise. Some gave her diet advice. It ran the gamut. The comment section was

all over the place. Everyone had completely different reactions to the same

material. The article wasn't about what works and what doesn't. It was about the insanity of living

in the diet mindset, where every bite of food is analyzed, every calorie label scrutinized,

as the people around you drink regular soda as if it were nothing, as if it

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