Talk:Health at Every Size/Archive 1

reverting several edits
I just removed several edits by an anonymous editor. My objections to these edits were as follows:
 * they messed up the formatting for the references, and it was easier to just revert than to try to go through and fix the particular errors
 * the "95% of diets fail" statistic is not well-established and thus not appropriate for an encyclopedia
 * I, too, prefer the word "fat" to "obese". However, when the word is referring to a specific research article that investigated individuals categorized based on a BMI of 30 or above I think it is appropriate. In addition, this article, I hope, will eventually have a objective overview of HAES. Using the terminology of the fat acceptance movement, rather than more popular terminology, detracts from that goal. The research in this area uses the word "obese"; this article should too, imho. Chartreuse green 20:35, 15 November 2006 (UTC)

adding links
I added an external link to the Association for Size Diversity and Health. ASDAH is a primary proponent and has had a large role in the development of the HAES paradigm.[user:queenbeeprod] 04:36, 18 March 2009 —Preceding unsigned comment added by Queenbeeprod (talk • contribs)

I added the links to Laurie Edison & Debbie Notkin at their request. I would note that the studies discrediting "conventional wisdom" on weight continue to roll in, and someone more qualified than I should add something about how weak and arbitrary the BMI stuff is. Rfdutcher (talk) 05:33, 20 December 2007 (UTC)

redirection
I added the Hydroxyethyl starch on the acronym HAES, which formerly redirected to this article. I first made an HAES_(disambiguation) page but didn't manage to link it correctly. Fix it those who want. Jaere 00:40, 3 January 2008 (UTC)

Health at every size
I was glad to see Health at Every Size here, but it seemed to need something more so I decided to dip in my oar. Yikes, what a hassle. I just added my first edit to Wikipedia. Was it worth the effort? I don't know. We'll see if it gets rejected again. Congratulations to those who succeed here. 31 October 2008 —Preceding unsigned comment added by Healthy weight (talk • contribs) 19:30, 31 October 2008 (UTC)
 * You got reverted for breaking several rules, namely wp:COI, wp:SPAM, and the entry was written like an opinion piece rather than an encyclopedia entry. Do not promote your company or products on Wikipedia.  NJGW (talk) 19:35, 31 October 2008 (UTC)

Category
I removed Category:Pseudoscience on the grounds that the ideas (mainly that weight loss may not be a good idea) of said philosophy are, based on the article, supported by science; also, based on Contentious labels, the epithet “Pseudoscience” should, when in doubt, be avoided. Also, it is a very stigmatizing label that discourages inquiry into any subject labeled as such. (It is admitted by Wikipedia to be a pejorative.) Okay?--Solomonfromfinland (talk) 02:59, 11 February 2014 (UTC)

Revised Guidelines
The ASDAH has revised their guidelines for HAES as detailed in this press release: http://www.prweb.com/releases/2014/01/prweb11523899.htm

Here are the revised guidelines: https://www.sizediversityandhealth.org/content.asp?id=76

I believe that the "Major Components" in the "Overview" section here currently consist of the old guidelines, but I am relatively new to both HAES and editing Wikipedia, so I'm not sure and did not make the change myself. 128.113.243.211 (talk) 23:34, 19 February 2014 (UTC)

No contrary sources
Article repeatedly sites the book as controversial, but no source is given to the contrary. --IronMaidenRocks (talk) 05:47, 3 March 2014 (UTC)

Adopting a "HAES" perspective
Upon further research I believe the line 'An increasing number of health professionals are adopting a HAES perspective.' should be changed to 'A small handful...' — Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.3.16.185 (talk) 22:02, 31 August 2011 (UTC)

Echoing the post below, this article should have a "criticism" section or at least a an objectivity/bias warning. Reading this over, you would think the medical community has given up on diet and exercise and come to the conclusion that being obese is not actually unhealthy. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.3.16.185 (talk) 21:36, 31 August 2011 (UTC)

Shouldn't there be a "criticism" section or something, given how controversial this viewpoint is? Or is wikipedia now in the business of providing self-esteem boosters to overweight moms who want to keep pounding cakes and pies and think that taking a 30 minute walk every day makes them "fit" in some bizarre abstract sense? This page ought to be loaded with as many disclaimers as the "intelligent design" page for the same reasons. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 96.19.179.82 (talk) 03:24, 24 October 2009 (UTC)

I added a handful of sources today, trying to address the concern about lack of secondary sources and general notability. I plan to add more. It is a big topic -- entire books, theses, and dissertations have been written on it, as well as popular articles, blogs, radio shows, and more, and there are multiple professional, activist, and social organizations working from a HAES perspective, so the idea that it would be merged or deleted for lack of notability concerns me greatly. If the issue of notability continues, please let me know, and I will bring even more to this article. I didn't think uploading an entire thesis was quite necessary at this time! ;) VDicken (talk) 19:47, 18 March 2009 (UTC)

Thanks to whoever was anonymously editing this article today! :-) Chartreuse green 18:08, 22 August 2006 (UTC)

No problem, hopefully that's made it not quite so stubby. I think I've got the hang of this Wikipedia username thing now. --PurpleRavel 13:25, 23 August 2006 (UTC)

I've now gone and done some more edits. Some of the wording was more focused on obesity (rather than size in general) than it needed to be, and I've disentangled some of the research info and hopefully made it look more organized. Also in the research section I think there should be some references for the claim about medication/pharmaceuticals. PurpleRavel 14:59, 23 August 2006 (UTC)

This article is still in terrible shape-it either needs a biased opinion warning or a major reworking. The scientific evidence section comes across as suggesting a universal scientific consensus that weight loss is dangerous or useless. The sources cited are not all completely valid either, especially on their own-the primary source about the failure of diets was written by Linda Bacon, a major activist for the HAES movement, and was published in the Nutrition Journal, not the more widely accepted Journal of Nutrition. This article needs sources pointing out the existing vast scientific consensus aligned against the concepts of healthy obesity, the risks of metabolic syndrome, and the fact that this concept remains a very niche idea both inside and outside of the scientific community. 128.230.95.244 (talk) 15:50, 24 January 2014 (UTC)

At this point, there seems to have been a total shift, where the scientific evidence is presented in a biased way to downgrade the evidence for HAES there is - like, it claims the amount of evidence is "small" without quoting or defining what makes it small. Furthermore, the criticism section basically only provides evidence of the correlation between obesity and various illnesses - this correlation of course exists, but I've never heard a HAES deny that nor does HAES as described in the article deny that. Saying "obesity increases risk of cardiovascular diseases" is not in any way criticism of the claim "people should adopt health habits for the sake of health and well-being rather than weight control". It kinda reads as if an article was about the programs to give addicts free clean cannulas because they think that's better than them dying in the streets from HIV or similar, and having a criticism section that says "Heroin is bad, yo". "Many studies show clear links between mortality and obesity." is not criticism of "HAES believes that traditional restrictive dieting does not result in sustained weight loss for some people, HAES suggests that this method is not always healthful." Ilja3 (talk) 05:59, 25 August 2014 (UTC)

rewrite
this whole article needs a rewrite to remove bias. This is undoubted a controversial concept, with a fair amount of criticism, but none of it is mentioned here. I feel like I'm reading an advertisement, not a encyclopedia. Dru1138 (talk) 21:20, 19 June 2014 (UTC)
 * , so WP:SOFIXIT then. You can edit it, and add criticism. Tutelary (talk) 21:35, 19 June 2014 (UTC)

If you want to add criticisms, then I suggest adding a section primarily for that. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.131.32.52 (talk) 21:50, 23 July 2014 (UTC)
 * Done. Ivanvector (talk) 22:08, 23 July 2014 (UTC)

I suggest the criticism section be revamped to actually critique HAES, rather than a number of claims about the dangers of obesity. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.22.196.134 (talk) 01:04, 24 July 2014 (UTC) This article really needs a rewrite. It barely even touches on HAES at this point, and when it does, it treats it as analogous to fat acceptance instead of as an area of research or debate. The section on scientific evidence for HAES makes no references to studies that support its claims and is nearly indistinguishable from the section on Scientific Criticism. The criticism isn't helpful for understanding the arguments on either side, either, consider this opening line under criticism:

″Dr. Arya Sharma, a Canadian obesity specialist, has accused HAES advocates of using bad science tactics – of the kind previously used by the tobacco industry to promote denial of the health risks of smoking – to suggest that there is no such thing as an obesity epidemic, or that being overweight is completely health neutral.[22]"

Well what does Dr. Sharma use to back that up? That's just an assertion, and then an attempt to relate the "tactics" to tobacco in a way that's hard to understand the validity of the relation (is Dr. Sharma suggesting that some industry is funding HAES and putting its thumb on the evidence scale?)

I was glad to see Dr. Linda Bacon's book listed in further reading, but it, and her research, deserves mention in the article itself.

Here's a link to Dr. Bacon's HAES Manifesto: I was hoping when I came here to find information that would help me evaluate her claims and analysis, which appear to have strong scientific backing and explicitly engage the claims about the dangers of obesity (including the numbers of deaths per year caused by obesity - Bacon's claim is that the CDC study that produced those numbers included computational errors and did not adjust for other morbidity factors, such as socioeconomic status, and that when those corrections were made that the findings were that only obesity on the very high end of BMI had a negative affect on morbidity, and that the number of deaths caused by that obesity per year were around 26,000). — Preceding unsigned comment added by 72.84.224.27 (talk) 15:25, 10 April 2015 (UTC)

Speedy deletion nomination of Health at Every Size


A tag has been placed on Health at Every Size, requesting that it be speedily deleted from Wikipedia. This has been done for the following reason:

Unverified claims, probably not notable

Under the criteria for speedy deletion, articles that do not meet basic Wikipedia criteria may be deleted at any time.

If you think this page should not be deleted for this reason, you may contest the nomination by visiting the page and clicking the button labelled "Click here to contest this speedy deletion". This will give you the opportunity to explain why you believe the page should not be deleted. However, be aware that once a page is tagged for speedy deletion, it may be removed without delay. Please do not remove the speedy deletion tag from the page yourself, but do not hesitate to add information in line with Wikipedia's policies and guidelines. If the page is deleted, and you wish to retrieve the deleted material for future reference or improvement, then please contact the deleting administrator, or if you have already done so, you can place a request here. 80.229.5.209 (talk) 09:51, 26 April 2015 (UTC)

Soapbox edits
I've reverted another set of soapbox edits from this article. The edit was removed not because it was critical, but this article is about HAES. There is no need for a couple paragraphs of Obesity facts in the lead, unless you're writing an article about Obesity... Stesmo (talk) 18:31, 9 April 2015 (UTC)


 * The edits that you reverted were extremely relevant to HAES. HAES proposes that one can be healthy at any size.  Any and all facts that relate to health and obesity need to be included in this wikipedia article.  In the future, use the talk page to discuss your proposed edits before deleting a large amount of text from a well written article.  A consensus can be achieved here and then the changes implemented.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2604:2000:14C3:A01D:54C8:358A:298D:12A0 (talk) 01:10, 10 April 2015 (UTC)


 * Thanks for replying, IP user. You are soapboxing, much as if you were editing religious articles with "there is no proof of this deity existing and here are the problems cause by this religion..." in the WP:LEAD. Or, adding a couple paragraphs about shooting sprees into the NRA article's WP:LEAD.
 * This article is about HAES. It already includes criticism and does not need "all facts that relate to health and obesity", especially in the WP:LEAD. We have articles on Obesity, Obesity-associated morbidity, Epidemiology of obesity, etc. This article shouldn't be duplicating those articles and I wouldn't expect to see HAES in the leads of those articles, either. I would expect to see wikilinks in the HAES article to those obesity articles, as appropriate. Please take a break and consider adding your content to the Obesity articles on Wikipedia instead, where it may be more appropriate. I'm sure you're doing this with the best of intentions. Stesmo (talk) 01:34, 10 April 2015 (UTC)
 * In case we're trying to form a consensus here, I agree with Stesmo. ekips39  (talk)  16:38, 10 April 2015 (UTC)
 * Agreed - I also want to note that HAES is not advocating that one can be healthy at any size, but that health behaviours, rather than weight loss itself, is the best course of action for health. There is indeed relevant criticism that should appear here (I am currently collecting expert opinion from around the web/journals), but a list of associations between obesity and health conditions is not helpful, and I agree it should be linked to existing articles on the topic. Wordlarks (talk) 10:39, 29 April 2015 (UTC)

Misinterpreted study
In the article, there's this claim, under the headline 'Scientific evidence':

"In 2005, a study of around 3000 Finns over an 18-year period showed that weight loss from dieting can result in increased mortality, while those who maintained their weight fared the best."

And for that claim, this study http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1160579 is mentioned as a source. However, that study does not concur with the claim.

An actual citation from the said study:

''"In the people studied here who were otherwise healthy and only moderately overweight, losing weight seemed to be associated with higher mortality. What makes these results quite difficult to interpret is that the actual number of people who died was not very high, but nonetheless intentional weight loss did not improve mortality. One reason for this result may be that when people diet to lose weight, they lose fat-free tissue as well as fat.

In people who have medical conditions related to obesity, losing weight is obviously desirable. But overall, preventing people, especially children, from becoming overweight in the first place seems crucial, since this work suggests that once weight is gained losing it again may not be good for health."

If anything, the results show that being obese is worse than losing weight. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 31.7.26.206 (talk) 18:19, 27 July 2014 (UTC)
 * The article seems to have been improved since then, as it better reflects the study now. ekips39  (talk)  15:33, 10 April 2015 (UTC)

After reading through the study, the current representation of it was still highly biased. Cherry picking of data and partial quotes gave a significantly different view then what the study actually had. I rewrote some, however this entire page needs a rewrite from an unbiased opinion. 80.95.223.223 (talk) 01:32, 8 June 2015 (UTC)

Bias and Citations
I changed the sentence associated with the scientific american article to reflect the actual content of the article. I changed the sentences associated with JAMA and ScienceDirect to reflect the content of their articles. I also dumped "HAES advocates generally do not believe that the same narrow weight range (or BMI range) is maximally healthy for every individual. Rather, the HAES approach is that as individuals include physical activity in their lives, and eat in response to physical cues rather than emotional cues, they will settle towards their own, personal ideal weights. These weights, however, can be higher or lower than those described by standard medical guidelines." because it lacks a citation. DrSocc (talk) 03:03, 1 September 2011 (UTC)

I believe that the opening paragraph should be made more neutral. I strongly disagree with the HAES movement, but to set out to contradict and prove them wrong from the first paragraph of the article seems like a bad practice to me. I particularly have issue with the following sentence. ''Proponents hope to improve standard of living for people who are overweight and reduce what they believe is discrimination against the obese. HAES advocates believe, despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary,[2] that traditional restrictive dieting does not result in sustained weight loss for some people.'' I agree with the bold part, but that information is not necessary in order for the reader to understand what HAES and it instantly puts me on alert that this article might be biased. I think that the first paragraph should be restricted to basic information about who they are and what they believe, and information about whether or not they're correct should be in the rest of the article. SamJSchoenberg (talk) 17:58, 6 November 2015 (UTC)

Dr. Sharma (Section: Criticism)
Sorry about the multiple reverts, I hit the save button before I had entered my comments. To expand on what I was saying: Dr. Sharma doesn't mention HAES in the cited article at all (he talks about "obesity deniers"), so the idea that his article was about HAES is an assumption that was made by the wikipedia editor who added it as a criticism. Additionally, Dr. Sharma has posted specifically about HAES on his blog (The Science Behind Health At Every Size), where he talks about the science behind HAES. While he does have some reservations about it, to say that he considers HAES to be "bad science" is a gross misrepresentation. Reactionroad (talk) 09:10, 21 November 2015 (UTC)

Improve neutrality on this article
I also agree that this article needs a great deal of work to improve neutrality. It is obvious that the pro-HAES and anti-HAES factions have been warring over this page, and currently the anti-HAES people have the upper hand utilizing biased language in an attempt to debunk the HAES position, rather than simply factually laying out that position. Wording such as to "despite scientific evidence" when there are entire bodies of research with conflicting conclusions is extremely biased, and a lot of other, very subtle wording violates the Wikipedia commitment to neutrality in this argument.

Reading through the talk page, it seems that originally this article was heavily slanted towards a pro-HAES perspective. Unfortunately at this point it seems to have swung a bit too far the other way. In particular, there are several examples of sentences with the following form: "HAES-advocates believe X {source}, but there is overwhelming evidence towards Y {source}". I feel that the second clause here is, in general, unnecessary, especially given the already-skeptical tone induced by words like 'believe' in the first.

Since many of the claims of HAES are indeed somewhat anti-consensus, I wouldn't recommend removing the "overwhelming evidence" stuff entirely. However, it seems to me that balance would be better served by collecting the various anti-HAES parts of the article into a 'criticisms' section whose length was proportionate to that of the article.

It would also be great if someone more qualified (ideally, someone in the HAES community) were to spend some time writing about the social, etc, ramifications of the movement which did not depend directly on the scientific claims about weight loss.

I'm unfortunately not qualified either to summarize the relevant obesity research or to describe HAES in a more holistic way. I am therefore instead modifying the sentences I find questionable, in order to give the article a more neutral tone.

AlphaGolfMikeLima (talk) 15:29, 17 May 2016 (UTC)

I agree, I think someone who knows more about HAES, and has facts and sources should try to edit this article to make it a little less anti-HAES biased. This article has an anti-HAES slant. Instead of an encyclopedic sounding entry discussing what HAES is and believes, it seems to be mostly discussing how wrong everything HAES believes is. And some of Linda Bacon's work should be referenced. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 170.141.177.137 (talk) 20:26, 7 September 2016 (UTC)

Metabolism
Metabolism is mentioned twice in this article: "Evidence to support the view that some obese people eat little yet gain weight due to a slow metabolism is limited, and often false". These mentions appear seemingly without anything showing this belief is a concept of HAES. It seems to come out of the blue both times, and then the article goes back to discussing HAES concepts. I suggest that the parts about metabolism be removed, as I don't believe that HAES espouses that low metabolism is to 'blame' for fat people gaining weight. 170.141.177.137 (talk) 21:01, 7 September 2016 (UTC)

Neutrality
I agree with these points strongly. Tried editing to remove some of the obvious soapboxing, but these changes were removed. Wikipedia already has a page on obesity. This is not the place for people to try to "prove" or "disprove" anything about HAES - all this page should be doing is summarising the HAES position and summarising debate that has DIRECTLY REFERENCED the HAES position. It is very clear that people who have worked on this page see it as their role to debunk HAES, which is inappropriate. Take that to Reddit, soapboxing does not belong here. An encyclopedia should take a neutral position. The entire section on obesity needs to come out and the criticism section needs to contain only discussion that relates directly to HAES. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 79.76.123.174 (talk) 23:46, 1 April 2017 (UTC)
 * You can't just go deleting sourced and relevant content by labelling it "soapboxing". That's not what that means. I noticed you section-blanked over at for the same thing, saying "Removed unsourced claims", even though it has 9 sources. Stickee (talk) 12:44, 2 April 2017 (UTC)

And you can't just go round putting irrelevant content back in without any kind of consideration as to why it keeps getting removed. People who come to this page are perfectly capable of clicking links to "obesity" if they want to read the article on obesity. The fact you have sources doesn't mean the content is relevant. Literally all this page needs to be is a summary of the HAES position and a summary of people who have criticised HAES specifically (not some Wiki editor's high school essay on how metabolism works).

And yes, the Marsha P Johnson was edited by me, because it erroneously presents speculation as fact. The issue cannot be conclusively settled. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 92.23.183.227 (talk) 23:32, 5 April 2017 (UTC)
 * There are multiple issues to consider. First off, please follow proper WP:BRD procedures. Right now, you are edit warring in which you are continually reverting to your preferred revision. If you continue to edit war, you may be blocked in accordance with Wikipedia's blocking policy. Now that that's out of the way. There are content issues here as well. First, it is widely known that obesity is unhealthy. Therefore, it would make every bit of sense that an organization promoting obesity or depreciating its effects would also have the scientific facts on the page. This means that it needs its appropriate weight in accordance with the sources. The editors are not biased against you, the reliable sources are. Which will mean that we do cite the organization's position, but makes it clear that it's an otherwise fringe belief not in accordance with established science. Although I don't like to cite these arguments, it's best to be clear that other fringe topics follow this as well. Flat earth, moon landing being fake, chemtrails, among other things. We are not going to purposefully omit facts because they're not "relevant" to a page. Just like we won't purposefully mislead readers on the above conspiracy theories that they're correct, when they're not. Tutelary (talk) 13:43, 6 April 2017 (UTC)

I am here to discuss the edit warring over the lead, and the removal of "claims to support" and "Although evidence to the contrary..." removal. The guiding policy is WP:FRINGE. The belief that obesity does not cause adverse health effects is a fringe belief, and we treat it as such in the article. Tutelary (talk) 04:02, 22 June 2017 (UTC)

Additional note- The opening line is not a statement on whether they are correct, it is a statement about whether they support it. The DO support it. They are wrong, of course, but that isn't what the statement says. They do not claim to support it, they support it. The "claim" stuff belongs elsewhere.

The second edit is unnessary and fits right in with your logic, but "claims to support" implies that they are lying about their agenda, rather than wrong about the science. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2601:282:4000:2D30:71A3:1C7C:E117:F460 (talk) 01:30, 16 August 2017 (UTC)
 * I do admit that based on your point the WP:LEAD is a bit superfluous. In no other "movement" article do they cite directly from the movement's website about their mission statement. I will also say that this mission statement is false in itself. I ctrl + f'd the reference and that sentence does not appear on the linked page. I do believe we should revamp the opening sentence then. It is clear that HAES is a website and a purported social movement. Maybe something along the lines of: Health at Every Size (HAES) is a website and a social movement whose purpose is to encourage bodily acceptance and self confidence with one's body, often by the rejection of Dieting. Would this be acceptable to you? Tutelary (talk) 02:05, 22 August 2017 (UTC)

That does seem like a better opening sentence. It avoids bias on both sides. This article is about their beliefs. Check out the homeopathy for reference. It certainly questions the science, but does so without the decidedly biased tone. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2601:282:4000:2D30:6589:75B3:ABEE:4C27 (talk) 00:01, 28 August 2017 (UTC)
 * At this stage, anything is better than a lead sentence in which two-thirds of it is a quote. Stickee (talk) 04:07, 28 August 2017 (UTC)
 * I have edited the lead per the above discussion then. As far as the other concerns, I did take a look at the homeopathy article and I believe its method could be used here. The first bits are explaining what they believe, and why. Then the last bits are explaining the actual science. So maybe we could use that outline here. I'm not the best content creator so I'm not entirely sure how we should put it. Tutelary (talk) 00:45, 29 August 2017 (UTC)

Science of HAES
The Science section is almost all about claims of the dangers of obesity. Except for the first sentence, little is there to show the research that supports HAES or of HAES-type studies, and what is given is promptly criticized.

Perhaps Science should contain HAES-related science and criticism should go in the Criticism section? Mizmoose (talk) 18:14, 14 March 2018 (UTC)

Pseudoscience and SYNTH
I cannot find anything in that article that supports the label "pseudoscience". Generally this article seems to be a mess of WP:SYNTH.  Eve rgr een Fir  (talk) 19:10, 28 February 2018 (UTC)
 * I agree with the removal of the pseudoscience label for now - No sources I look at directly describe it that way. Stickee (talk) 01:25, 1 March 2018 (UTC)
 * This edit though is clearly synth. SYNTH states "Do not combine material from multiple sources to reach or imply a conclusion not explicitly stated by any of the sources." The edit/material in question taking info regarding fatness and relating it to HAES, but the sources do not make that connection.  Eve rgr een Fir  (talk) 15:44, 1 March 2018 (UTC)
 * Sure, I've replace the lead sentence ref with one that directly links HAES to the scientific consensus claim. Stickee (talk) 04:03, 2 March 2018 (UTC)

What about "fringe theory"?

This article should treat the subject matter as what it is. WP should not be used as a soapbox to give some sort of credence or legitimacy to it. –w2bh talk&bull;contribs 20:55, 8 March 2018 (UTC)
 * You need to demonstrate that sources treat it as fringe.  Eve rgr een Fir  (talk) 18:16, 14 March 2018 (UTC)

Personally I'd call HAES a pseudo-science and a fringe theory. I don't think I"ve seen mainstream organizations critique it from that angle. I think they are intentionally trying a softer approach, where they critique the positions but don't label it as a pseudo-science. But we go with whatever the sources say. So if they just stick to criticism, then that's what we should have in the article. Harizotoh9 (talk) 15:24, 16 February 2019 (UTC)

Major Page Review
Hello Editors,

I will be reviewing this page and expanding it to provide a more accurate and account of the HAES movement including the social justice foundations of HAES, current HAES research and HAES advocates. If there is something you would like included please leave here.

Mandy-Lee Noble (talk) 10:40, 14 April 2019 (UTC)

ASDAH is not a RS:
They are an advocacy and ideology organization. Harizotoh9 (talk) 21:05, 4 May 2019 (UTC)

HAES article lacks Neutral Point of View
Rather than stating what the HAES movement stands for, and then presenting criticism of the movement, this article presents a highly distorted version of the movement. The initial statement is worse than a strawman argument. Instead, it largely states claims that are the opposite of those proposed by HAES.

Furthermore, the two sources in the introduction that state there is a scientific consensus in favor of dieting say nothing of the sort. Instead, one source is a public policy statement advocating dieting (with no science to back up why one should diet). The other source is a news article saying there is no scientific consensus that dieting works.

Then, the section that should state support for HAES actually contains criticisms of HAES. The section that is supposed to criticism HAES does, in fact, also criticize HAES.

This article is such a non-neutral mess that I can't fix it all right away. Instead, I am going to do #1 and #2 now:

1) Flagging the article as lacking Neutral Point of View.

2) Replacing the distorted definition of HAES with a more accurate one.

Here is the definition of HAES are it current stands:(9:55 pm Eastern 4/15/2019) "Its [HAES'] main tenet involves rejection of the scientific consensus regarding the link between excessive calorie intake, a sedentary lifestyle and lack of physical exercise, improper nutrition, and greater body weight - and its effects on a person's health.[4][5]"

Here is how I plan to change this definition: "The main tenet of HAES is that intentionally changing body size usually does not work in the long-term, and that attempts to lose weight may be harmful. Instead of dieting, people are encouraged to focus on behaviors that promote health, regardless of whether these health-promoting behaviors cause a change in weight or not. These behaviors include exercising, eating nutritious food, and eating the proper amount needed to satisfy hunger."

As time permits: I hope to add or redo the following sections:

3) Add a section on Principles of HAES, as stated by ASDAH, the owner of the HAES trademark

4) Redo the "Science" section. Current information that criticizes HAES will be moved to the criticism section. The section will be renamed "Evidence in favor of HAES" and will include the following sections:

A) Evidence that dieting is ineffective at promoting health ad/or reducing weight a1) Theory that insufficient room for fat storage, not excess amount of fat, causes health problems. See https://www.nytimes.com/2016/07/26/health/skinny-fat.html a2) Evidence that diets fail a3) The failure of the LookAhead study on dieting and health, and how it was stopped early due to ethical concerns over ineffectiveness

B) Evidence that dieting causes physical or psychological harm b1) Time-series correlational data on dieting's tendency to cause increased weight b2) Evidence of worsening of Type 2 diabetes following dieting, and theory that dieting is interpreted as starvation b3) A. J. Stunkard's 1957 study on psychological distress in dieters, and subsequent studies on psychological distress in dieters b4) Research showing that dieting causes eating disorders

5) Add a section on the differences between HAES and other anti-dieting movements

A) Whether Bariatric surgery is worthwhile. Bariatric surgery is seen by bariatric surgeons and some other health professionals as a good treatment that is useful in reducing certain illnesses, such as Type 2 diabetes, in heavier people. The HAES at every size approach says that both dieting and bariatric surgery should be avoided. Proponents of HAES emphasize the complications and side effects common with bariatric surgery. HAES proponents often believe large people undergo bariatric surgery because of the intense discrimination and hostility such people encounter, rather than as a result of medical need.

B) Need to reduce discrimination against heavy people, versus need for new medical therapies There is evidence that medical professionals are severely biased against patients who weigh more than average. Patients who weigh more than average report denial of treatment. Many of them report an unwillingness to go to physicians because they believe they will only be criticized, not treated. The HAES movement tends to see this discrimination as the reason why people with high amounts of fat tissue tend to have worse health outcomes than leaner people. However, health professionals who oppose dieting typically believe these poor health outcomes are due to metabolic problems, and that better medical treatments, such as new medications, are needed to treat these health problems. HAES proponents note that many such professionals, especially those who work for pharmaceutical companies, would financially benefit from such medications.

This will be a lot of work, especially finding appropriate sources. I hope other editors can help on this.

JSaraya (talk) 02:17, 16 April 2019 (UTC)
 * Before going any further, I'd advise you to ensure you have read and understood WP:MEDRS. Any biomedical assertion that you make needs to be supported by refs that satisfy that guideline. You haven't mentioned many refs above, but the two you do refer to (the NYT article and the 1957 study) would not be suitable. Cheers Girth Summit  (blether)  09:59, 16 April 2019 (UTC)
 * MEDRS is very important to follow--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 10:46, 17 April 2019 (UTC)
 * ...The HAES movement tends to see this discrimination as the reason why people with high amounts of fat tissue tend to have worse health outcomes than leaner people. ...I also believe that the negative health outcomes of my smoking is due to discrimination against smokers, and not due to anything inherent in my cigarette.
 * Everything before "B" is probably up for debate, depending on what the sources say. "B" is patent nonsense.  G M G  talk  00:21, 17 April 2019 (UTC)
 * The existence of discrimination against heavy people is well-documented. People avoid getting preventive care because they don't want to be exposed to the insulting treatment – not the doctor gently saying "Your knees would hurt less if you didn't weigh so much.  Would you like to talk about that?", but the staff tittering when they step on the scale to be weighed, or the doctor refusing to consider that obese people who are feeling tired could also have anemia, anxiety, or any number of other problems not related to weight.  (You see the same pattern in people with psychotic illnesses:  the doctors spend so much time talking about their antipsychotics that nobody ever checks them for diabetes.)  A person who refused to go to the doctor's office for years because she felt humiliated by the staff is a person at high risk for heart disease whose blood pressure isn't getting checked because of her experience of weight discrimination at the doctor's office.  If you believe in evidence-based medicine, then you believe that's a problem.  WhatamIdoing (talk) 02:30, 18 April 2019 (UTC)
 * And you can have a similar discussion about people with anorexia or bulimia and people who abuse drugs and alcohol. That's not the same thing as saying that the only reason your liver is failing is because of stigmatization by healthcare providers, and anything to do with the bottle of whiskey in your hand is discrimination, because we believe in Health at Every Sobriety®. There is a reason that we don't talk about healthcare providers and stigma around people who get fake tans or people who watch reality television. Unlike being obese, being anorexic, or being a drug addict, these things don't directly lead to major health problems for which you need medical treatment.
 * You can get in my face if you like and tell me that smoking cigarettes is a disgusting nasty habit that repulses you, and I'll likely to tell you where you can shove your personal opinions as I blow smoke in your general direction. But if you tell me that my status as a cigarette smoker deserves protecting along with ethnic and religious minorities, and I'm just as likely to tell you you're a moron who has let their sense of social justice overwhelm any semblance of common sense, and we shant be adding that fringe leftist nonsense to any article any time soon so long as I have anything to do with it.  G M G  talk  12:05, 18 April 2019 (UTC)
 * Do you see any reliable sources that say that the Fat Acceptance Movement/HAES promoters actually believe that discrimination is the sole and exclusive cause of health problems in the morbidly obese? I haven't.  They do seem to be saying that weight stigma and yo-yo dieting (which is the only form most people ever experience) make their experience of being heavy worse.  I don't see them saying that 450-pound people will all have normal lifespans with no impairment in activities of daily life if discrimination disappeared.  Their story seems to be that, yes, if you carry around 300 extra pounds for enough years, then your knees will hurt, and you might not be able to climb stairs at all – but that, in their opinion, the emotional damage done by stigma and the emotional and physical damage done through years of failing at intentional weight-loss dieting (rather than the kind of dieting that means "eat a healthy, varied diet with lots of vegetables") and the sometimes glossed-over side effects of bariatric surgery might be worse than the physical damage done by those 300 extra pounds.
 * They're basically looking at a DALY calculation, using different human values to weight the equation. That's not scientifically wrong.  It is, in fact, quite a similar calculation to the one that you're intuitively making with your decision to prefer the immediate perceived benefits of smoking vs the scientifically proven damage caused by it.  WhatamIdoing (talk) 15:56, 18 April 2019 (UTC)
 * I would refer you to the original book itself by the (noted ironically named) Linda Bacon, specifically the bit on pages 166-7, stating that, among other things overweight and obesity lead to early death...[and] disease is in fact a myth, fueled by the power of money and cultural bias where public health officials are complicit in supporting and encouraging the lies through "astounding" misconceptions about the most basic research. (Spoiler: Even the stories reprinted on their own website say that obese patients were much more likely to die, and those with fat round their hips and abdomen had a seven fold increased risk of death.) The book, and the movement at large (no pun intended) are entirely more than scientifically wrong. It is a brazen and wholesale rejection of science, in a pseudo-religious belief that obesity is (page 167) not a health concern, but a form of "cultural oppression". Far from being a disability-adjusted life year, it is an active argument (pages 170 onward) that obesity is either health-neutral or advantageous and can actually help you live longer.
 * It is sickening in the extent to which it repeats ad nauseam the mantra that being fat is exactly the same as being gay or being an ethnic minority, with the implication that anyone who says differently is the equivalent of a racist or homophobe. The core of their paradigm is that "injustices" are what lead to poor health, and people should abandon the goal of losing weight and simply "come out" as fat because "We’re here, we’re spheres! Get used to it!" If your doctor wants to talk to you about your weight (Bacon pp. 246-7) then they are prejudiced, and if you diet and exercise to lose weight you are a "statistical anomaly" (p. 428) and you are causing others physical and emotional harm (p. 429). It is a foundational substitution of social justice for sense: everyone is special, anything that makes you uncomfortable is oppression, being fat is just like being black, and anyone who says differently is a racist healthist.
 * I am not at all exaggerating when I say that it is indistinguishable from a parody of the social justice movement.  G M G  talk  14:42, 19 April 2019 (UTC)

The meta is that HAES is not a scientific theory. It's a social movement, and their discussion and debate is occurring in the public sphere. They don't do research ad they don't publish their findings. They publish op-eds in Huffpost and elsewhere. That's very important to keep in mind. Much of their major claims are contradicted by science. It's basically a bunch of people telling themselves what they want to hear, akin to creationism. It's a pseudo-science since it has the trappings of scientific legitimacy, but they fail to engage in proper science, and fail to change their theories in the face of contradicting evidence.

HAES consists of a lot of obfuscation, deflection, spin, cherry picking, etc. That's why we shouldn't use their framing and language. It's not fair to our readers. Harizotoh9 (talk) 17:53, 19 April 2019 (UTC)
 * This is not totally true. Just poke around google scholar and you'll find primary studies (e.g.,  ). There is, admittedly, probably a good deal more published that is primarily concerned with the "social movement", more concerned with philosophy and morality than with the truth of the underlying tenants or the efficacy of the approach (e.g., ). Something like this paper seems fairly typical: seven pages about philosophy/morality, three paragraphs about the evidence.
 * However, even with what "clinical-ish" trials there have been (without getting too far in the weeds about methodological issues), there is a focus on whether or not HAES is effective and not whether or not it's underlying tenants are true. (See also criticism by Sainsbury and Hay.) It's all a bit like running a randomized trial on whether a belief in Santa increases child satisfaction with their Christmas experience, and using any positive outcomes as evidence that we should be adopting "Santa" as a public policy approach. The worst of it is outright distortion and fabrication (see above linked book by Bacon), and the best of it is a nihilistic indifference to truth so long as the philosophy fits neatly within a social justice perspective. You tack on the bells and whistles of an academic publication, and gloss over the fact that you're testing the efficacy of a comforting lie. That's the bit that makes it pseudo-scientific.  G M G  <sup style="color:#000;font-family:Impact">talk  13:15, 20 April 2019 (UTC)
 * To the extent that there is more published around the social movement/philosophy/morality than around efficacy, then this article should focus more on the non-scientific content. (Also:  efficacious towards what end?  Towards "improving health" in some respect?  Or only in terms of extending lifespan?  "Health", as defined by the World Health Organization, is basically unattainable by anyone, but nobody being discriminated against is part of their definition, so eliminating weight stigma in your society would be a requirement for being healthy).  WhatamIdoing (talk) 00:48, 23 April 2019 (UTC)
 * Yes, toward improving health, without quotation marks. That's not an ethereal concept for most of society, and even the studies examining HAES measure weight loss as one of their health outcomes. We shall not equivocate to the point where we eliminate health as a medical reality.  G M G  <sup style="color:#000;font-family:Impact">talk  00:59, 23 April 2019 (UTC)

By god, this is one of the most absurd claims of bias I've seen on Wikipedia. I'm sorry, but if you really think doctors have a personal prejudice against fat people rather than 10+ years of medical expertise that taught them obesity is unhealthy, you are a blatant denialist attempting to promote pseudo-science. In fact, it's an insult to the people who save our lives every day. But I digress and this is a talk page. Please don't let this page get hijacked by activists, it still falls under WP:MEDRS. Prinsgezinde (talk) 00:01, 26 April 2019 (UTC)
 * I would hate for this page to be hijacked by bias. Medical weight stigma is a well-known, well-documented problem. The Rudd Center for Food Policy and Obesity is just one organization to tackle the issue and medical orgs like The American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists also address it. There are numerous studies, a sampling of which can be found here, here, here, here, and here, as well as numerous studies showing efforts to reduce medical weight stigma to improve patient health outcomes. This is just a small sampling of the available data. 19:45, 12 May 2019 (UTC)
 * That is such a small sub-set of what HAES is about. They take something that may have some basis, then turn that into a victimization ideology. It's dodging the main problem (their obesity) and they imply or outright claim that obesity does not result in any negative health outcomes and instead the problem obese people have is oppression from society which needs to accept them. It's literally ideology trumping facts. Harizotoh9 (talk) 11:49, 13 May 2019 (UTC)

Merge?
Should this article be merged with Metabolically healthy obesity? They're discussing the same thing. HAES is just a popular slogan, and the other is the proper medical term. Harizotoh9 (talk) 00:41, 17 April 2019 (UTC)
 * No, I'm not sure they are the same subject. HAES isn't just defending the morbidly obese, but is also apparently defending healthy anorexics. MHO may or may not be a real physiological phenomenon. HAES is just the social justice war writ stupid.  G M G  <sup style="color:#000;font-family:Impact">talk  01:16, 17 April 2019 (UTC)
 * Another option would be to merge it with Fat acceptance movement. HAES is just a Fat Acceptance slogan, and it's difficult to find sources that specifically discuss HAES. Also, most of the material is the same. Harizotoh9 (talk) 01:27, 17 April 2019 (UTC)
 * I'm not convinced it's not notable. I took the time to read through this paper, and while it may give it more leniency than it may be due, if it's any indication, I'd likely !vote keep at an AfD. 02:01, 17 April 2019 (UTC)
 * The HAES paradigm and the Fat Acceptance movement are the same thing though. HAES is just a popular slogan of the movement. Much in the same way that Every man a king is a slogan of the Share Our Wealth campaign. Harizotoh9 (talk) 02:08, 17 April 2019 (UTC)
 * Hope I'm not being too pedantic or missing the joke but isn't "healthy anorexic" an oxymoron? Even if they're physically healthy anorexia is a mental illness. 199.247.45.138 (talk) 06:34, 17 April 2019 (UTC)


 * Agree with merging the slogan "Health at Every Size" to "Metabolically healthy obesity". Should the later also be merged to "Fat acceptance movement"? I guess the question is how much is left after trimming poorly sourced material? Doc James  (talk · contribs · email) 16:19, 17 April 2019 (UTC)
 * I think that it's much closer to Fat acceptance movement. They're not saying that excess adipose tissue isn't a health problem (which is the "metabolically healthy obesity" idea).  They're saying that people of all sizes deserve compassion and respect, and that it's good for everyone to get some exercise, because humans need exercise to be healthy.  The idea is more like "get some exercise (or eat your veggies, or whatever), because you're human" rather than "get some exercise (etc.), because you're fat".  WhatamIdoing (talk) 02:35, 18 April 2019 (UTC)
 * That's not the image I've gotten from looking for sources. In fact, the article says "Its main tenet involves rejection of the scientific consensus regarding the link between excessive calorie intake, a sedentary lifestyle and lack of physical exercise, improper nutrition, and greater body weight - and its effects on a person's health." It seems it's part of the "Fat acceptance movement", but through it's rejection of science. Natureium (talk) 14:14, 18 April 2019 (UTC)

@WhatamIdoing, "The idea is more like "get some exercise (or eat your veggies, or whatever), because you're human" rather than "get some exercise (etc.), because you're fat"."

If you are overweight, obese, or morbidly obese, you should lose weight because you're fat. Full stop. If someone is obese, they need to run caloric deficits, What HAES does is have nice feel good language, and they will pay lip service to doing cardio, but their advice is incredibly vague. I've seen them say things like, do only exercize you love, because you love yourself, such as gardening. I've never seen anything in HAES literature advocating 150 minutes of cardio a week. Instead, I see vagueness and a lot of potential loopholes. If you do only exercize you love, and they include things like gardening, but with nothing about frequency, then you can in fact follow HAES guidelines, and be very sedentary.

Everything about HAES seesm to be about downplaying or denying the negative health aspects of obesity. Here's a news report from a HAES forum: Along with Robison, she brushed aside public concern about an ‘obesity epidemic.’ “There’s no reliable research to support it,” said Gates...

Robison dispelled common myths like obesity leads to adult-onset diabetes, also known as Type 2. “Eighty per cent of fat people don’t have Type 2 diabetes.”

"He also warned against making a link between overweight conditions and illnesses, saying that’s proven elusive to assess."

"Further, someone may tip the scale above a perceived ideal weight and still be healthy."

"“Don’t judge a book by its cover,” Robison advised."

This certainly sounds a lot like denial of obesity related issues. Of course, there's no coherent HAES leadership, rather an assortment of many organizations and people, but whenever I see HAES advocates in the news, they say really out there things that seem flat out scientifically wrong.Harizotoh9 (talk) 22:12, 18 April 2019 (UTC)


 * Sure, bodybuilders complain a lot about people claiming that they're unhealthy because they don't have an "ideal weight", and the whole concept of Normal weight obesity is based on the idea that a normal weight isn't the same thing as a desirable body composition. A single number isn't enough to figure out your health status.
 * This USDA magazine article describes a head-to-head clinical trial between HAES and weight-loss diets. Two years later, the women enrolled HAES were getting more exercise than the ones assigned to a traditional weight-loss diet plan, and neither group saw significant or persistent weight changes.
 * This page outlines principles advocated by people who seem to have trademarked the term. "Deny obesity-related issues" doesn't seem to be one of them.  This FAQ seems to be of particular relevance:
 * "Q: Principle #1 states that "no weight should be pathologized," but aren't there pathological weights, such as an adult at 68 lbs with an eating disorder or a 600-lb bedridden individual?
 * A: "When a weight-specific lens is applied to health, the myriad contributing factors affecting an individual's well-being are usually lost. The Health At Every Size® approach shifts the focus to acknowledging and respecting an individual's circumstances, and works to investigate and support options that are available to him or her to help make choices that benefit his/her health and well-being. For either the 68-lb. or 600-lb. person, using a HAES approach puts the focus on his/her behaviors, unique set of abilities, and available resources, and places them in the context of their life as the primary areas of concern and consideration. Each individual will have his/her own strengths and vulnerabilities, and will likely respond to stimuli in their unique way. Improving a person's health is a process that begins by contemplating what it would take to make certain determinants of health available and accessible to different individuals, and not by pathologizing any specific weight."
 * That doesn't sound like "denial of obesity-related issues" to me. That sounds more like "Get your eyes off the scale and try some of that 'patient-centered care' that the medical school instructors kept nattering on about".  After all, a weight of 100 kg could signal healthy or unhealthy status, depending upon whether you're a tall Olympic weightlifter or short person who drinks a six-pack of beer and spends the day in front of the television.  WhatamIdoing (talk) 00:13, 23 April 2019 (UTC)
 * overweight and obesity lead to early death...[and] disease is in fact a myth, fueled by the power of money and cultural bias  G M G  <sup style="color:#000;font-family:Impact">talk  00:40, 23 April 2019 (UTC)
 * The common story that "obesity causes early death" (rather than "the stuff that causes obesity also causes early death") may be something of an oversimplification. It would not be wrong of them to point that out (nor would it be surprising to find that a news article overstated their message).   WhatamIdoing (talk) 00:55, 23 April 2019 (UTC)
 * I'm not citing a news article; I'm citing a book written by one of their own. This is not a movement geared to empowering body builders. This is a movement geared toward teaching the 600-lb bedridden individual that the problem is oppression.  G M G  <sup style="color:#000;font-family:Impact">talk  01:04, 23 April 2019 (UTC)

A quick note about bodybuilders: they're also very unhealthy. A lot of them die early, like Rich Piana (age 46). Bodybuilder Kali Muscle recently lost a lot of muscle mass, and reveals that he was having huge health problems, and he was having huge problem such as sleep apnea. Harizotoh9 (talk) 19:10, 23 April 2019 (UTC)
 * Right, the top bodybuilders are probably somewhat unhealthy. They tend to use performance enhancing drugs and don't eat much fat, if any. But what does this have to do with obesity and health? I feel like it is a bit of a false dilemma to have obese people on the one hand and the most avid bodybuilders on the other. The page also shouldn't keep using euphemisms like "more than the norm" or "above the perceived ideal size". Wikipedia is not censored and doesn't mince words. Prinsgezinde (talk) 00:46, 28 April 2019 (UTC)

Strongly oppose Sorry to chime in later but I think that merging HAES and Metabolically healthy obesity would be a mistake, as there is some limited but serious evidence that there are indeed obese individuals without a metabolic syndrome and they have better outcomes for NAFLD than others with a comorbidity. The cause and the interpretation is not clear at the moment and there's much debate, but the evidence is there, and is seriously considered by health organizations such as AHA to differenciate the patients who needs the most an intervention, particularly surgical interventions that carries more risks. That's not to say that some types of obesity are healthy forever, but the concept that unhealthy obesity has worse outcomes than obese individuals with no other illness (at the moment of diagnosis) is supported. So maybe Metabolically healthy obesity could be rewritten according to the latest scientific evidence, but this is fundamentally different from HAES which is pertaining to weight loss or gain as a causal factor of outcomes, whereas MHO is about whether obese individuals with comorbidity, and foremost metabolic syndromes, have worse outcomes than those without. For some starting refs, please check the NAFLD refs, in particular the guidelines. --Signimu (talk) 20:41, 18 October 2019 (UTC)

"Pseudoscientific"
There's been some edit warring in the past few days over including "pseudoscientific" in the lede. I've removed it as none of the sources used in the lede describe HAES as such. There was also a discussion here in 2018 where no appropriate sources calling HAES were found. --Wickedterrier (talk) 03:19, 4 July 2019 (UTC)
 * Not sure either if it's pseudoscience or not, it might have been a real scientific hypothesis (and at least was treated as such by several authors) in the past, maybe traceable back to the Set Point Theory, but IMO it's enough to write the latest scientific evidence that shows that weight loss and gain are indeed associated with improved/worse outcomes respectively. --Signimu (talk) 20:48, 18 October 2019 (UTC)
 * Update: given there are publications in serious journals such as the Journal of Obesity, it would indeed be hazardous to qualify this hypothesis as pseudoscience (although arguably the scientific notion is slightly different than the advocacy one). I updated in the entry. Still does not change that the scientific consensus is that weight loss is a good target for health improvement --Signimu (talk) 21:04, 18 October 2019 (UTC)

Bias Sources
David L. Katz, a prominent public health professor at Yale, wrote an article in the Huffington Post entitled "Why I Can't Quite Be Okay With 'Okay at Any Size'". He does not explicitly name HAES as its topic, but discusses similar concepts. While he applauds the confrontation and combating of anti-obesity bias, his opinion is that a continued focus on being 'okay at any size' may normalize ill-health and prevent people from taking steps to reduce obesity. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Shavedsquirrel97 (talk • contribs) 21:09, 27 February 2020 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 14 June 2020
Please change "Its main tenet involves rejection of the scientific consensus regarding the health effects of excessive caloric intake, a sedentary lifestyle, improper nutrition, and greater body weight." to "Its main tenets involve weight inclusivity, health enhancement, respectful care, eating for well-being, and life-enhancing movement."

The reference for this request can be found here: https://sizediversityandhealth.org/content.asp?id=152

This change needs to be made in order to more accurately reflect the true intentions of the HAES movement. HAES is not anti-health, which is what the current sentence is suggesting. This is a common myth about the HAES movement that is simply not true. Studentnurse567 (talk) 01:58, 14 June 2020 (UTC)
 * Red information icon with gradient background.svg Not done: please provide reliable sources that support the change you want to be made. Independent sources are needed for this, not a source which is clearly affiliated with this... RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 03:30, 14 June 2020 (UTC)
 * While I can't comment on this proposed change, there does seem to be an issue. In the article as it stands, the line in question reads:
 * Its main tenet is rejection of the scientific consensus regarding the health effects of excessive caloric intake, a sedentary lifestyle, improper nutrition, and greater body weight.
 * There are two sources for the: WHO and Medical Daily]. The WHO article makes no mention about HAES. It is a good source for the claim that increased weight is related to health impacts, but not that this is a main tenet of HAES. The second article is specifically about HAES, and states:
 * "In reaching out to researchers and clinicians on obesity and nutrition unaffiliated with HAES like Katz, I found wide agreement for most of the HAES talking points. But there are aspects of the movement that they have concerns about."
 * It does go on to raise concerns, but it doesn't say that HAES' main tenet is the rejection of scientific consensus. The claim might be valid, but it doesn't seem to be supported as things stand. I'll go through the other sources and see if there is something better in the article. - Bilby (talk) 05:56, 14 June 2020 (UTC)
 * It also says "HAES has directly attacked commonly held ideas about obesity and weight ..." which I suppose the original editor who added this was trying to summarize? Alexbrn (talk) 06:27, 14 June 2020 (UTC)
 * It does, but it only mentions one of the list - "Being fat is a significant health risk, and cuts life expectancy." It doesn't mention as a basic tenat that they reject the consensus around sedentary lifestyles, improper nutrition or excessive caloric intake. I've been trying to read some of the literature, and what I think I'm seeing is that they reject that a focus on weight loss leads to better health outcomes, but instead recommend pursuing healthy behaviours (excercise, etc) which may have the affect of bring about weight loss, but are not focused on that as such. - Bilby (talk) 06:47, 14 June 2020 (UTC)
 * Well, if you can update to article to show this, feel free. The edit request was rejected for a rather clear reason, but of course if there are independent sources which say otherwise... Cheers, RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 13:36, 14 June 2020 (UTC)
 * No hassles with your decision regards the edit request - it just seems to me that there is some confusion in the lede that I'll try and tackle. - Bilby (talk) 13:39, 14 June 2020 (UTC)

Difficulties of long-term weight loss and unhealthiness of yo-yo dieting
This article seems to spend almost all its time on criticisms of the movement and listing scientific evidence of associations between weight and health problems, but fails to mention the well-established scientific fact that many people find it almost impossible to lose weight and keep it off, and that repeated cycles of weight loss and regain are unhealthy in themselves. Twin studies and adoption studies show that weight is as genetically determined as height is, and weight loss researchers and diet research considers losing and keeping off five percent of body weight to be a resounding success, and anything more to be unrealistic, even though such small losses are generally not even visible in obese people. These ate only a few of the issues that need to be addressed in this article to provide some balance! Critterkeeper (talk) 01:58, 8 December 2020 (UTC)
 * Yeah it's full of original research and blatant misrepresentation. You can have a go at fixing it yourself (see WP:BOLD), although there may be little enough relevant and quality content that it'd be better to just merge into it a more high-level topic like Dieting. ─ ReconditeRodent « talk · contribs » 13:05, 9 December 2020 (UTC)

Science
Subject header "Science" suggests to me that this section should be about the science behind HAES, not the science behind why obesity leads to health risks, which is stated earlier that HAES criticizes as being biased. As such, this section could itself be considered biased since it is written in such a way as to lead the reader to believe that the HAES perspective is science-denying propaganda ("Proponents 'claim'" introductory paragraph which cites two sources, three paragraphs and 33 sources for why obesity kills you written in the exact kind of clinically cold language that fat acceptance proponents claim leads to diet failure in obese people ). Would recommend completely re-writing to something which actually reflects the science behind HAES such as Christy Harrison's Research, Fiona Willer's book and the peer-reviewed HAES curriculum. These three sources are from HAES. For unaffiliated sources one could use Michael Hobbs original research and the number of medical studies Hobbs links to in this essay.

It is not necessary to reiterate the body of science connecting health issues with obesity since the appropriate place for that information is the article the Science section links to: "Obesity-associated morbidity." If it does need to be included, one could use similar language such as in the "medical criticism" section of the "Fat Acceptance movement" page.

Ace Lynth (talk) 01:44, 26 January 2021 (UTC)

Need of attention from experts regarding recent academic research on Health at Every Size approach
Just search "Health at Every Size" on Google Scholar and you'll see how outdated this article is. Recently there are more and more researches on the effectiveness of Health at Every Size approach and they have very good results. I'm not an expert on this topic so I'm cautious about posting them here and there are too many for me to analyze. We need an expert to guide this. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Kaileeslight (talk • contribs) 20:55, 3 February 2021 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 12 April 2021
HAES is NOT stating that being overweight or obese has no health implications. It is stating that you can't simply diagnose a human with health implications because of their size. You can be underweight and have health implications. you can be overweight and in great health. The goal of this movement is to remove weight bias, and stop the assumptions that a person is unhealthy because of their size. This page needs many revisions.

169.228.164.131 (talk) 17:00, 12 April 2021 (UTC)
 * Red question icon with gradient background.svg Not done: it's not clear what changes you want to be made. Please mention the specific changes in a "change X to Y" format and provide a reliable source if appropriate.Stonkaments (talk) 18:38, 12 April 2021 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 28 June 2021
Remove "a prominent public health professor at Yale" from the criticism section after "David L Katz". David Katz was never a professor at Yale (clinical instructor is an adjunct teaching position at Yale), does not seem to have ever been associated with the Yale School of Public Health, and has not been affiliated with Yale at all since 2016 according to Yale. If a descriptor is necessary, perhaps replace "a prominent public health professor at Yale" with "founder and President of the True Health Initiative." Ace Lynth (talk) 22:05, 28 June 2021 (UTC)
 * Go ahead! Be Bold! The Wikipedia community encourages users to be bold when updating the encyclopedia. "If you don't find one of your edits being reverted now and then, perhaps you're not being bold enough." Laurier (talk) 08:37, 29 June 2021 (UTC)
 * , the page is currently semi-protected, so that editor can't be bold and make the edit. ScottishFinnishRadish (talk) 13:48, 30 June 2021 (UTC)
 * Yes check.svg Done ScottishFinnishRadish (talk) 14:42, 30 June 2021 (UTC)
 * Ah, okay, sorry... I simply assumed this user was autoconfirmed. I shouldn't have assumed! :-) Laurier (talk) 18:39, 30 June 2021 (UTC)

Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment
This article was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment, between 27 January 2020 and 12 May 2020. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): Shavedsquirrel97. Peer reviewers: Lucymobe, Visook.

Above undated message substituted from Template:Dashboard.wikiedu.org assignment by PrimeBOT (talk) 23:11, 16 January 2022 (UTC)

“Critics”
How about the vast majority of doctors and studies into the harmful effects of obesity? The current lead is a total FALSE BALANCE.2A00:23C4:3E08:4000:2968:2F0F:4A0D:5839 (talk) 09:51, 27 April 2022 (UTC)
 * I've now edited the lead to indicate that there are many critics. And the lead already indicates that obesity can have harmful effects. However, one should note that (1) there are plenty of studies indicating that the weight-centric health care approach is problematic, (2) most studies into the harmful effects of obesity don't contradict the principles of HAES, and (3) most of the critics (doctors or otherwise) are opposed to the "fat but healthy" concept... but HAES does not propose that people are automatically healthy at any size! HAES proposes that people should seek to adopt healthy behaviors regardless of their body weight, and pretty much everybody agrees that everybody can and should seek to adopt healthy behaviors. I haven't heard too many doctors say "we should stigmatize obese people." Some, yes. Many? Sure. There's plenty of evidence that doctors are discriminating against the obese. But the vast majority? No. I'd need to see a source for that. ParticipantObserver (talk) 17:33, 27 April 2022 (UTC)


 * The parts of HAES that can be flat-out rejected is the assertion that there is no scientifically-backed medical link between obesity and health, which is broadly rejected even in reports that are more or less sympathetic to the HAES approach such as these from the NCBI (Link) and Scientific American (Link). In addition, I'd also like to add that the "anti-obesity is white supremacy!" argument is also...frankly farcical, as it is the Western-pattern diet that has led to sky rocketing obesity rates, in addition to mechanised farming and laissez-faire economics.--SinoDevonian (talk) 22:51, 2 September 2022 (UTC)
 * I haven't seen those assertions. I suspect those are not core principles of HAES but might be something believed by some more extreme proponents. At any rate, these points are not discussed in this article as it currently exists. ParticipantObserver (talk) 11:05, 3 September 2022 (UTC)