Media Malpractice

Media Malpractice: How the Media Keeps You Fat

Fueling Our National Obesity Epidemic
By Laura Dion-Jones Casey

We have an escalating obesity epidemic in this country, and it's due to medical and economic politics. Most people who struggle with their weight are on the wrong diet and health and fitness plan - for them.

Diet, nutrition, fitness and medicine are like religion. There's the Food Group Pyramid faction, the low fat fanatics, the low carb followers, the Weight Watchers, the Jenny Craig-sters, the Nutri-System supporters, and everyone else in between. Each one, a drastically different diet dogma, a different diet "religion." Each one, a different school of nutritional thought, a different philosophy of medicine. And each one will have you believe their way is "The One and Only Way" for you, for everyone, to lose weight.

News Flash: There is no one diet or health and fitness plan that's right for everybody. So stop looking for the magic bullet, that paranormal pill, and start listening to someone who's actually been there for most of her life.

I recently lost 130 pounds in two and a half years, and I did it the old-fashioned way - on my own. Keeping the weight off for the last five years has been an incredible experience that has completely changed my life. Cutting white starch and sugar carbs from my diet, combined with daily walking, saved me. I now walk 45-50 miles per week, and in the past five years I've logged over 15,000 miles - more than halfway around the Equator. So I know what I'm talking about.

The media and big business always put their own agenda first, and when someone's views do not fit in with theirs and/or their "experts," the message doesn't get heard. All over the TV and radio, in newspapers and magazines, there's always some expert at this or that telling us what to do and how to eat. But what do you think Big Sugar, Big Orange Juice/Big Every Juice, Big Cereal (especially Big Oatmeal), and the rest all have in common? Economics, pure and simple. Not your personal health, that's for sure.

It's about time the American public was made aware of these diet dogma discrepancies and realized that it's not necessarily them that's at fault - they're just on the wrong diet and fitness plan, no matter what some of their experts say.

A crucial component to true and everlasting weight loss is finding the diet that's right for you. Once you do that, you can learn to make healthier food choices that you can live with - through every Holiday, birthday and beyond. For me, and others like me whose overproduction of insulin is keeping them fat, the healthier choice is a diet low in white starch and sugar carbs.

If you, or someone close to you, struggles with one diet after another and has a great deal of weight to lose, I venture to say you or they may be highly insulin resistant and carb sensitive, just like me. It's not the fat that makes you fat - it's the white starch and sugar carbs. Insulin is the fat hormone. Too much insulin keeps you fat. Not food fat. Ask Chicago endocrinologist Dr. Mark Stolar, who listened to me, never prejudged, and showed me that those foods were poisonous to my system. If you consistently struggle to have any success with diets, find and ask a good endocrinologist of your own who understands the low carb way of weight loss.

As soon as the Big Food Industries and the media and medical professions admit that there are other diet alternatives and give us viewers, listeners and readers a choice rather than zealously hawking only their own low fat beliefs and fitness plans, we'll become a lot healthier as a nation and lose our excess weight more easily. As soon as we, the consuming public, stop believing every "new and improved," "quick and easy" diet and health and fitness guru that comes along, the better off we'll all be.

Use common sense. If what you're doing isn't working for you, you're on the wrong diet, the wrong health and fitness plan. It's not always your fault. Find something that works for you and stick with it. If you need help, then get it, but keep moving on until you find the right combination of doctor, diet and daily cardio that works for you.

I still consider myself a recovering, chronically obese woman. I struggled and lived a lifetime like that, but now I'm a healthier, happier, leaner, less encumbered, and more beautiful person. And so I feel it's my duty to help all those who wrestle with their weight the same way I did because of big business and media malpractice. A good, healthy, low carb diet can help you stop struggling with your weight once and for all and help you achieve the same results I did.

If I could finally do it, you can, too, no more ifs, ands or butts about it. Your excess weight isn't budging a bit without daily cardio, so try it just for the health of it.

America's Pro-Health Activist: Laura Dion-Jones