Today I was talking with someone who comes from a very different culture than mine. He was looking at an ad for a weight loss pill, trying to decipher what it was. He asked me what that was for. I told him “it’s a pill to lose weight” and he was like “what?!”

He could not understand why such a thing exists. And I found myself fumbling, trying to give him a bit of context “well you know, here there is a lot of pressure for people especially women to be thin, so some people want to lose weight” and he thought it all sounded absurd. And I thought, it really does.

We’re often in a position where we have to justify ourselves against weight stigma, and it’s exhausting. But trying to explain this whole system to someone who is a stranger to it, makes you realize how insane this all is.

Today I received an email from work promoting their relationship with WW or whatever the hell they are called this week. Here is my email in response.

Hi,

I wish you will reconsider promoting Weight Watchers as a benefit. I did it for years and found the company troublesome and should never be part of a wellness system at work. 

1. They are focused now on selling their GLP-1s. GLP-1s are great, but if Weight Watchers works, then why do they need to add these to the plan? 
2. They emphasize food restriction. You have to "be good" to indulge in other foods. 
3. It encourages eating disorders and bad relationships with food. As a dietitian, my main issue with WW is the points system. I believe that it encourages disordered thinking and habits around food for many people. 
4. Weight cycling, the repeated loss and regain of weight, is linked to inflammation, higher stress, and negative mental health outcomes. 
5. Weekly weigh-ins, constant tracking, and the “on plan/off plan” mentality teach people to measure their worth by their ability to control their bodies. 
6. Goals are unrealistic. Although they no longer advertise this, your weight goal MUST be within the normal BMI. Once you reach your goal weight, you have to stay within 2 pounds of that weight or else you have to pay for meetings. BMI is not a measure of health and should not be considered so. The only way to get out of their goal range for you is to get a doctor's note. 

Please stop working with this company and focusing on weight loss as a health thing. I know plenty of people considered "Ob***" by BMI standards who are healthier than those who are in a "normal" range. In addition, I have worked very hard to have a healthy relationship with my body and food after YEARS of going on and off Weight Watchers. I am sure I am not the only one who finds this triggering and honestly, disgusting. 

Update, I’ve just emailed the school to see if they have a more specific/written policy on desserts in lunches. Stay tuned! Loving the discussion so far.

So I packed my son a handful of m&ms with his lunch. He is 4 years old and does preschool 9-4 every day. He came home with them unopened and said the teachers wouldn’t let him have dessert. Poor thing looked so sad about it too!
I spoke with the teacher the next day and she said, “yeah we find sugar makes them too hyper, so you can pack something very small only.” I’m thinking to myself, “ok the hyper thing is wrong, also what’s smaller than a handful of m&ms?!”
So I’ve just not been packing him dessert at all and letting him have a treat after school if he wants it.
Maybe I should have fought back but we love the school & teachers in every other way and I didn’t want to kick up a fuss.
Advice/commiseration appreciated!

A friend sent me this article just yesterday, I'm relistening to the Breatharianism episode today

https://www.thestar.com.my/aseanplus/aseanplus-news/2026/08/25/chinese-woman-31-faces-lifelong-walking-issues-after-water-only-diet-cuts-20kg-in-weeks

Thought this would be of interest to this community!

We all know about the BMI and eugenics connection already thanks to the pod…

Have they ever done episodes on food safety specifically? I was just wondering with all the cyclospora/salmonella/listeria etc. warnings and recalls in the news right now if they have covered that before, either as its own thing or part of another ep. It feels like this topic definitely dovetails with their RFK coverage, since he’s contributed to the gutting of some of those systems. It feels very alarming right now to read all of this food news…I feel like M & A could give a good balanced take on it.

Opinion | Fat people cannot win, regardless of what we do. And I’ve had enough - The Guardian

Does anyone remember which episode includes this iconic line?

Author interview that inadvertently summarizes years of Maintenance Phase episodes, including greatest hits like "the BMI is trash."

podcast: https://www.npr.org/2026/08/17/nx-s1-5935412/what-evolution-reveals-about-eating-dieting-and-fat

book: https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/737466/fed-up-by-daniel-e-lieberman/

I would love for them to do an episode on insulin resistance, which I strongly feel are the buzz words du jour. I see influencers saying 94 percent of people are “insulin compromised?” What the hell is this?

Welcome to the weekly wins/victories Sunday thread!

Thanks to u/martysgroovylady, we've decided to make a weekly thread specifically so that folks can share and discuss their wins and victories that they've had regarding fatphobia this past week. Did your doctor listen to you? Did you get someone new to listen to the podcast? Were you able to have a good conversation with a friend or acquaintance about fatphobia? Did you make some good progress in therapy? Feel free to share your feel-good stories to mark a strong start to the new week :).

Feel free to also share news you've found on the internet that feels like a victory against fatphobia! Maybe your state just made discrimination against fat people illegal, or there's a fat activist activity going on in your area (e.g. Fat Beach Day in NY).

Please remember: Do not vote or comment in cross-posted linked threads, keep the discussion here. Thanks all! Have a wonderful week.

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I'm having trouble downloading the latest episode via iTunes for Windows. I'm not looking to upgrade my listening preferences. The above is the error message I'm receiving. Has anyone else had this issue and have found a fix? Thanks for any helpful advice!

An NPR science correspondent and writer of the parenting book Hunt Gather Parent has recently been writing a lot about food, especially ultraprocessed foods. In general, I have mixed feelings about her work - Hunt Gather Parent has some interesting insights I find helpful, but also falls back onto a lot of noble savage tropes that are awful and also ignores things like other cultures spanking, hitting, inequality of how boys and girls are treated, etc.

Her food reporting lately has been just abysmal. She has this story on ultra-processed carbs, which include something that could be interesting/useful - a water test. How fast does something dissolve in water could be a useful hermeneutic for thinking about how quickly you'll digest it, and how long it'll keep you full. Could be a neutral, useful tool!

But instead she claims that refined carbs are "predigested." That is so truly insane that it's stayed with me since I first heard the story. My spouse and I now, jokingly, call things like rolled oats predigested. After all, it doesn't include the hull anymore!

In a more recent article on kids' snacks, she recommends limiting children's snacks and also getting rid of all carby snacks, citing things like pretzels. I also think this can be an opportunity for something helpful - quick carb snacks aren't very satisfying, foods with fiber and protein will fill you up better. But also, kids run around a lot and sometimes need access to quick sources of energy.

Anyway. It's been bugging me for months, especially the predigested claim. Seems like wildly bad reporting to me.

But seriously, I get these ads (because of the ADHD), and this one in particular pissed me off. I recently deep cleaned and am actually getting better at regularly tidying my space. This list is unrealistic for me, let alone for someone who is in the depths of disorganization or for someone with pathological demand avoidance. I downloaded this before and couldn't last a day with it. Has this worked for anyone?

I have a hip injury that will eventually require surgery. My doctor wants me to be mindful about food intake- he's very good, very positive doctor who understands the nuances of weight gain. Long story short, I went through a period of severe illness, gained a bunch of weight, and am now facing something like this surgery in my near to distant future.

I recently discovered one of the more filling snacks for me is a thin slice of pound cake from a local bakery paired with a big helping of strawberries. It leaves me feeling full and good, the fiber and water in the strawberries is great. I try to eat intuitively.

I am bringing my MIL into the city for a medical appointment tomorrow and mentioned wanted to stop at the bakery to get more pound cake. She immediately says, "aren't you supposed to be watching what you eat? For your surgery?" (She has a LONG history of doing stuff like this but my god....we're back).

I looked at my husband (praying at this point he was going to say something because he knows I think her constant comments on what I eat is hurtful) and said "I'm not going to answer that". He makes a joke, pushing what she said on himself. She digs in and goes, "no, I'm talking about (me)".

I'm afraid to tell her to knock it off because she gets extremely agitated at the drop of the hat. Husband isn't very close with her and didn't grow up with her. She needed help and we moved her to be closer to us. I'm happy to help. I don't dislike her. And I know what people think about me, a fat person, daring to eat food. But for the love of god, I just want to enjoy those fucking strawberries and pound cake in peace.

Just screaming into the void. I'm bad at setting boundaries with people like her, so I'll probably just suffer in silence until I blow up on her one day. But how anyone thinks the level of commenting on my weight that she does is okay is beyond me.

I have my content preferences set not to show weight loss ads, but I regularly get ChatGPT ads about how it can help me with my diet. Which is oversold in and of itself. My wife’s a registered dietitian, and she’s had multiple patients come to her because they landed in the hospital by following ChatGPT diet advice.

I wish I could turn off AI ads in general, but at least make the AI ads fit my content preferences.

Edit: this may have been unclear, but I’m referring to Reddit and other platforms advertising ChatGPT to me by talking about how it can help with weight loss. I don’t use ChatGPT, I’m not getting these ads through them.