Join Us in Celebrating

Healthy Weight Week

January 18-24, 2009

January 20, Tuesday – Rid the world of Fad Diets
& Gimmicks Day

January 22, Thursday – Women's Healthy Weight Day

The 16th annual Healthy Weight Week is a time to celebrate healthy diet-free living habits that last a lifetime and prevent eating and weight problems.  Our bodies cannot be shaped at will. But we can all be accepting, healthy and happy at our natural weights.

NEWS RELEASE - JAN. 18, 2009

Healthy Weight Week awards announced

Body Image concerns addressed by 2009 winners

This is the year people are getting serious about healthy body image, about preventing eating disorders and normalizing their lives. They can find help by celebrating Healthy Weight Week, Jan. 18 to 24, and by tuning in to the messages of this year’s winners of the Women’s Healthy Weight awards.

 “We really feel good about the winners this year. They are passionate about body acceptance; no mixed messages here,” said Francie M. Berg, a licensed nutritionist and adjunct professor at the University of North Dakota School of Medicine, in announcing the awards today. Her organization Healthy Weight Network started Healthy Weight Week 16 years ago.

The Women’s Healthy Weight awards honor organizations that support size diversity and positive body image. Both 2009 winners have initiated comprehensive programs to prevent eating disorders and combat the destructive effects of thin female ideals.

“The hysteria over weight is beginning to die down,” Berg said. “More people are seeing the value of acceptance and respect. They have experienced the harmful effects of idealizing thin models and harassing large children and adults.”

The 2009 award winners are:

• Best program: Reflections Body Image Program
  Endorsed by the Academy of Eating Disorders, Reflections was co-developed by the Delta Delta Delta Fraternity, Carolyn Becker, PhD, FAED, and the local sororities of Trinity University in San Antonio, It is a research-based program that combats the ultra thin media model of female beauty prevalent in today’s society. As part of its national launching, Tri Delta shared a key message with women across the nation by creating Fat Talk Free Week and a viral video email aimed at raising consciousness about Fat Talk and body dissatisfaction among women. Reflections consists of peer-led small group sessions run on campuses, trains student leaders and professionals, and fosters research. It has significantly improved body image perceptions and decreased eating disorder risk factors on campuses (e.g., 48% of women at one college who said they “felt fat almost every day” reported 8 months later they felt that way never or less than half the time). (www.reflectionsprogram.org and www.bodyimageprogram.org )
  
  

• Best Website: www.loveyourbody.nowfoundation.org. The National Organization for Women Foundation gives girls and women tools and encouragement on the Love your Body website to “just say no” to destructive media images, and helps raise awareness about women's health, body image and self-esteem. The important thing is “to be healthy and love yourself regardless of what the scale says.” The site features suggestions for campus activities on how to treat your body with respect, mentoring, articles, a poster contest, positive and negative ads, and activism options on dealing with advertising, clothing stores and the media. This year NOW will collaborate with the Reflections program to sponsor Fat Talk Free Week in October, during which NOW promotes its own Love your Body day. “Sex, Stereotypes and Beauty,” a PowerPoint showing the destructive effect of offensive ads, is available at (http://loveyourbody.nowfoundation.org/presentations )
  
  

So what is fat talk? “Fat Talk includes both negative (‘I'm too fat to wear this outfit’) and seemingly positive statements (‘You look great – have you lost weight?’),” explains Dr. Becker.

“Fat talk harms women and girls on a daily basis. It insidiously reinforces the unattainable thin-ideal standard of female beauty that contributes to eating disorders and body dissatisfaction,” she said. “A key Reflections message is: Friends don't let friends fat talk.”

The second set of Healthy Weight Week awards – the Slim Chance Awards for the worst weight loss products of the year – is presented on Rid the World of Fad Diets and Gimmicks Day, Jan. 20. They are: Kevin Trudeau infomercials, Most Outrageous; Skineez jeans, Worst Gimmick; AbGONE, Worst Claim; and Kimkins diet, Worst Product. (For more information see below and at www.healthyweight.net/fraud.htm )

Healthy Weight Week promotes healthy diet-free living habits that last a lifetime and help prevent eating and weight problems, said Berg. “Our bodies cannot be shaped at will. But we can all be accepting, healthy and happy at our natural weights.” Handouts on healthy living at any size are available at www.healthyweightnetwork.com (click handouts).

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CONTACT:
Francie M. Berg
fmberg@healthyweight.net
701-567-2646
Healthy Weight Network
402 South 14th Street
Hettinger, ND 58639
www.healthyweightnetwork.com

MEDIA: To arrange an interview with Francie Berg call 701-567-2646 or email fmberg@healthyweight.net  (please begin subject line with: Berg interview..).

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NEWS RELEASE - Dec. 29, 2008

Worst Diet Promotions of 2008
snag 20th Annual Slim Chance Awards

HETTINGER, ND – Healthy Weight Network released its 20th annual Slim Chance Awards today, highlighting both the hidden dangers of diets and supplements that often contain unknown ingredients and sometimes potent drugs, and the merely ridiculous.

To call 2008 a typical year in the weight loss field would be too easy. This year’s awards go to an infamous huckster of diet infomercials, known for his outrageous disregard of injunctions against him; $139 body-shaping jeans impregnated with substances that supposedly reduce cellulite; a pill that’s “proven” to help your belly fat vanish; and a dangerous starvation diet launched recklessly on the Internet with promises of safe, fast and permanent weight loss.

All in all, a typical year that synthesizes all that is deceptive and exploitive in this field. So, here they are, the 20th annual Slim Chance Awards:

MOST OUTRAGEOUS CLAIM: Kevin Trudeau infomercials. It’s rare that regulatory agencies look at books, given our free speech laws, but the infomercials for Kevin Trudeau’s weight loss book and his repeated violations were just too much for the Federal Trade Commission, and this past August he was fined over $5 million and banned from infomercials for three years. In “willful efforts” to deceive, Trudeau told listeners they could easily follow the diet protocol at home, even though his book calls for human growth hormone injections and colonics that must be done by a licensed practitioner. The tortured case began in 1998 when FTC charged Trudeau with false and misleading diet infomercials. In 2003 he was charged with false claims; in 2004 he was fined $2 million and banned from infomercials. Again in 2007 a contempt action said he misled thousands with false claims for his weight loss book “in flagrant violation” of court orders.

WORST GIMMICK:  Skineez jeans ($139). A new item in the fight against cellulite, Skineez jeans are impregnated with a so-called “medication” of retinol and chitosan, a shellfish product once claimed to cut fat absorption in the stomach (see 1999 Slim Chance Awards). Friction between the jeans and skin supposedly triggers release of the substance, which goes to work on fat when absorbed through the skin. Reportedly a big hit in Europe, the “smart fabric” is also used in lingerie. Ironically, the creators of Skineez, Clothes for a Cause, profess to raise funds for breast cancer and “a wide range of other socially conscious charities.” So while the company hoodwinks women into buying an expensive pair of jeans, it promises they can “do good with every purchase … As our sales grow, so will our ability to help others.” FTC, however, is clear about such gimmicks, emphasizing that products worn or rubbed on the skin do not cause weight loss or fat loss.

WORST CLAIM: AbGONE. Throughout 2008 full page ads assaulted the eye in daily newspapers across the country touting AbGONE as “proven to promote pot belly loss.”  Claims are that AbGONE increases “fat metabolism” and calorie burn, promotes appetite suppression and inhibits future abdominal fat deposits. These are drug claims that, if true, would alter the body’s regulation, but unlike drugs, the pills are sold as food supplements not requiring FDA approval. The bold ads feature the obligatory before and after shots of models, cut-away sketches of the abdomen with and without belly fat, and a white-coated researcher with chart purportedly confirming success of 5 times reduction in fat mass, 4 times lower BMI, 4 times greater weight loss than placebo. No added diet and exercise needed – well, except, you may want to heed the fine print disclaimer at the bottom that reminds us “diet and exercise are essential.”

WORST PRODUCT: Kimkins diet. It must have seemed an easy way to get rich quick. Founder Heidi “Kimmer” Diaz set up a website and charged members a fee to access the Kimkins diet, boasting they could lose up to 5 percent of their body weight in 10 days. “Better than gastric bypass,” there was “no faster diet,” and in fact she herself had lost 198# in 11 months. Stunning “after” photos were displayed. In June 2007 Women's World ran it as a cover story, and that month alone PayPal records show the Kimkins site took in over $1.2 million. Then users began complaining of chest pains, hair loss, heart palpitations, irritability and menstrual irregularities. This was not surprising since Kimkins is essentially a starvation diet, down to 500 calories per day and deficient in many nutrients (appallingly, laxatives are advised to replace the missing fiber). In a lawsuit, 11 former members are uncovering a vast record of Diez’s alleged fraud. They found that the stunning “after” photos, including one of Kimmer herself, had been lifted from a Russian mail order bride site. According to a deposition reported by Los Angeles TV station KTLA, Diaz admitted using fake pictures, fake stories and fake IDs, and a judge has allowed the litigants to freeze some of her assets.

“Today’s economic downturn can remind us how foolish it is to waste money on unsafe, ineffective and energy-draining weight loss efforts,” said Francie M. Berg, a licensed nutritionist and adjunct professor at the University of North Dakota School of Medicine, whose organization Healthy Weight Network started the Slim Chance Awards 20 years ago. The National Council Against Health Fraud, for which she is coordinator of the task force for Weight Loss Abuse, co-sponsors the awards.

They’re part of the lead-up to “Rid the World of Fad Diets and Gimmicks Day” during Healthy Weight Week, which falls from January 18 to 24 in 2009.

With the New Year upon us, resolutions freshly on our minds, Berg is advising people to skip dieting and move ahead with healthy habits that last a lifetime.

“Here’s a plan for the new year that’s free, freeing of your spirit and available to all,” she suggested.

- Record your dieting history (weight lost, weight regained, favorable and ill effects, time frame of each). Reflect on what you have written.

- Resolve to follow a healthy diet-free lifestyle through 2009, adapting guidelines that work for you. (Handouts available at www.healthyweight.net/handouts.htm).

It’s a way to get your life on track, improve your health and move on with what’s really important in your life, Berg explained. For more information contact Healthy Weight Network or visit www.healthyweightnetwork.com

###

CONTACT:
Francie M. Berg
fmberg@healthyweight.net
701-567-2646
Healthy Weight Network
402 South 14th Street
Hettinger, ND 58639
www.healthyweightnetwork.com

MEDIA: To arrange an interview with Francie Berg call 701-567-2646 or email fmberg@healthyweight.net  (please begin subject line with: Berg..)

- END –

What is Healthy Weight Week?
Jan 18-24, 2009

The 16th annual H ealthy Weight Week is a time to celebrate healthy living habits that last a lifetime and prevent eating and weight problems, rather than intensifying them, as diets do.

Traditionally many Americans begin a diet the first week in January and "blow" it the second week. Healthy Weight Week, the third week, is a time to stop dieting for good and help people normalize their lives. It’s a welcome antedote to the dieting and bingeing that typically begin the New Year!

Healthy Weight Week promotes healthy nondiet lifestyles for children and adults of every size. It helps them move ahead to healthy habits they can live with long term – sound, reasonable habits that allow them to live well and get on with their lives. Eat well, live actively, and feel good about yourself and others.

Healthy Weight Week features two sets of awards: the 20th annual Slim Chance Awards, for the "worst" weight loss products and promotions of the year; and the 16th annual Healthy Weight Awards for businesses and organizations that honor size diversity and reject gender stereotypes. Send nominations for both awards by Nov. 15 to Healthy Weight Network. The week, including the two special days are listed in Chase's Calendar of Events Annual.

"How to Celebrate Healthy Weight Week," news release, awards, consumer handouts and materials for posters that may be helpful are available for educational use on this website (scroll down, and see links below).

Contact Francie M. Berg, Healthy Weight Week chair, Healthy Weight Network, 402 S 14 th St, Hettinger, ND 58639. Click here to email using the subject line: Berg – interview, or Healthy Weight Week

HANDOUTS AVAILABLE
Healthy Living at Any Size
Healthy Living Guidelines
Celebrate Health at Every Size (large poster)
Normal Eating: Are you a Normal Eater?
Top 10 Reasons not to Diet
5 Health Care Myths

Rid the World of Fad Diets & Gimmicks Day, Jan 20, 2009
Rid the World of Fad Diets & Gimmicks Day is on Tuesday of Healthy Weight Week (the third full week in January). The 20th annual Slim Chance Awards for the “worst” weight loss products of the year highlight the day. Diet quackery defrauds, disables and kills. News release, awards diet quackery information and consumer handouts available on website.

20 Years of Slim Chance Awards
How to Identify Fraud

Slim Chance Awards, announced Dec 27, 2008
The 20th Annual Slim Chance Awards spotlight the widespread fraud and quackery in the weight loss field. They are aimed at encouraging consumers to move on from chronic dieting and desire for the quick fix – to a measure of acceptance and healthy living habits that will improve their lives in positive and lasting ways. Awards are presented in the following four categories: Most Outrageous, Worst Claim, Worst Product and Worst Gadget. Announcement of the Slim Chance Awards, previously made on Rid the World of Fad Diets & Gimmicks Day in January, has been moved up to Dec. 27 for the year-end summation. Nominations due Nov. 15.

Please send us your nominations for Slim Chance Awards by Nov. 15 (in 2008 and every year). Awards are presented in the following four categories:

• Most Outrageous Claim
• Worst Claim
• Worst Product
• Worst Gadget

Send nominations to Francie Berg, Coordinator Task Force on Weight Loss Abuse, National Council Against Health Fraud, Healthy Weight Network; 402 South 14th Street; Hettinger, ND 58639, along with supporting material or online link if possible.
Click here to email using the subject line: Berg – Healthy Weight Week

20 Years of Slim Chance Awards
How to Identify Fraud

Women’s Healthy Weight Awards, Jan 22, 2009
The 16th annual Women’s Healthy Weight Day, on Thursday of Healthy Weight Week (the third full week in January), is a day to honor size diversity and women's equality, particularly in advertising and the media. It confirms that beauty, health and strength come in all sizes, and that talent, love and compassion cannot be weighed. News release, awards and consumer handouts available on this website (scroll down).

Women's Healthy Weight Awards honor organizations that support size diversity and positive body image, and. reject the thinness obsession and gender stereotypes that are shattering the lives of so many women, young girls and their families.

Please send nominations for Healthy Weight Awards by Nov 15 to Francie Berg, Healthy Weight Network, 402 South 14th Street - Hettinger, ND 58639, along with supporting material or online link if possible.
Click here to email using the subject line: Berg – nominations

How to Celebrate
Healthy Weight Week

Personal Challenge: Develop Healthy
Living Habits for a Lifetime

Choose two or three of the following activities to carry through the week, at a comfortable level. Continue four months while gradually adding the others. Then decide how to keep them up all year.

• Stop dieting. Stop making weight loss goals and “waiting to be thin.” Stop weight-obsessive thoughts. Instead, be your own best self, starting right now. Decide it’s time to get on with living your life to the fullest.
  
  
• Be active in your own way every day. Focus on the pleasure of movement and its health and energy benefits, not calories burned. Don’t overdo it, or it won’t become a habit. (If you’re not regularly active now, start with 5 minutes a day for the first month, then gradually increase time.) For most adults, an appropriate level is about 20 to 30 minutes a day for at least five days a week. Avoid long periods of inactivity.
  
  
• Identify and build on your own special talents, traits and interests. Use self-talk and affirmations to enhance personal acceptance, respect, self-esteem and positive body image. Feel good about yourself.
  
  
• Feel good about others. Expect and extend respect, tolerance and acceptance.
  
  
• Promote good relationships and communication with family, friends and acquaintances. Spend time enjoying social activities.
  
  
• Rediscover normal eating – eat at regular times, typically three meals and snacks to satisfy hunger. Tune in to your body’s internal signals of hunger and fullness – eat when you’re hungry and stop when full and satisfied. Enjoy your food. Notice how much better you feel!
  
  
• Eat well. Include all five food groups every day: bread and grains, fruits, vegetables, milk and dairy, meat and alternates. Choose balance, variety and moderation. All foods can fit.
  
  
• Relax and relieve stress in your life. Take time for a daily 10-15 minute relaxation session. Or just empty your mind and let your body go limp for 30-second relaxation breaks occasionally throughout the day. Stress can lead to high blood pressure, chest pain, back pain, indigestion, headaches, insomnia, anxiety, depression, confusion, mood swings, irritability and anger. Listen to your body. Be flexible, relax and go with the flow.
  
  
• Respect and appreciate size diversity. Reassure yourself and others that beauty, health, and strength come in all sizes. Promote healthy living at every size. Recognize that size prejudice hurts us all.

You may choose to make a personal contract and give yourself a reward at the end of each week. If you’ve set your challenges too high, you’ll know it: cut back before they become burdensome. Make healthy living changes gradually, one baby step at a time, small changes you can live with for the long term.

For more tips see the book Women Afraid to Eat: Breaking Free in Today’s Weight-Obsessed World.

Educational Activities
for Health Centers, Schools, Communities
and Individuals

Join us in promoting Healthy Weight Week! Health and education groups around the world observe Healthy Weight Week with displays, health fairs, radio and television shows and Internet discussions. Appropriate emphasis is on a healthy living, Health at Any Size philosophy, focusing on total health and well-being. It promotes active living, eating well without dieting, and a nurturing environment that includes respect and acceptance for people of all sizes.

• Events: Sponsor special programs, health fairs, school events that promote health at any size and active living, eating well without diets and healthy body image. Sponsor physical activity events and programs.
  
  
• **Handouts: Provide handouts [LINK] and educational materials [LINK - how to celebrate] available on this website. Also available are federal educational materials on healthy nutrition, physical activity and positive body image. Take care to review materials first and avoid those that promote thinness, losing weight, calorie counts or dieting and restricted eating.
  
  
• **Exhibits: Develop exhibits for health fairs, for hospitals, health centers, libraries, malls, kiosks, fitness centers and campus housing. Exhibits on healthy lifestyle and being healthy at any size. Quackery exhibits are popular. on fad weight loss products Include information on the Slim Chance Awards and explain the harm done by weight loss fraud. How to identify fraud. [LINK]
  
  
• Internet: Promote Healthy Weight Week on health websites and with emails to your Internet contacts on list servs, chat groups, and address lists
  .
• Bulletin boards: Posters on bulletin boards; handouts in health centers and public places.
  
  
• **Print media: Write articles for newspapers, magazines, professional newsletters and health publications about Healthy Weight Week and how to make healthy choices in today’s world. (News Release on this page may be localized and used for media.[LINK]) Write letters to the editor.
  
  
• Radio and television: Ask talk show hosts to focus on healthy lifestyle during the week, weight loss quackery on Tuesday, women’s weight issues on Thursday. Volunteer for a talk show. Plan special programs if time available through public service.

For more information, contact Healthy Weight Network, 402 South 14th Street, Hettinger, ND 58639 (701-567-2646), or visit our website www.healthyweight.net

See below for a second news article last year,
from News Journal, Wilmington, Delaware, Jan 27, 2008

News Release: Jan. 18, 2008

Healthy Weight Week Jan. 20 – 26 repudiates cult of thinness

In a culture inundated with gaunt female idols, dieting fads and exercise plans, it’s hard to remember that the medical focus of all this began by promoting health. Somehow it became twisted into a cult of thinness that is far from healthy.

Healthy Weight Week reminds people of the value of a healthy nondiet lifestyle and helps them move ahead to improving their health in positive ways. It celebrates normal habits that prevent eating and weight problems, rather than intensifying them. This year, Healthy Weight Week takes place between January 20 and January 26.

“The hysteria over weight is causing tragic problems. Health experts are only beginning to realize the risks that people of all ages and sizes are taking in efforts to pare down their bodies to thin ideals. Risks range from depression to eating disorders, heart arrhythmias and sudden death,” said Francie M. Berg, whose organization Healthy Weight Network started Healthy Weight Week 15 years ago and the Slim Chance Awards 19 years ago.  

The Slim Chance Awards, to be presented on Tuesday, Rid the World of Fad Diets & Gimmicks Day, highlight the year’s "worst" weight loss schemes. The 2008 awards expose the false advertising by Evercleanse and three other diet aids: WorstProduct is HoodiaHerbal; Worst Claim, Bio SpeedSLIM; Worst Gimmick, Hollywood Detox Body Wrap; and Most Outrageous Claim, Evercleanse.

“ It’s outrageous and offensive that the Evercleanse hucksters are telling people they are excessively heavy due to waste stuck within their colons ,” said William M. London, EdD, MPH , Professor, Health Science Program, College of Health and Human Services, California State University, Los Angeles , and a member of the panel evaluating the diet promotions.

If toxins and waste were really retained in the body, the human race would not have survived, said Vincent F. Cordaro, MD, an FDA medical officer. “The whole concept is irrational and unscientific.”

Healthy Weight Week also honors businesses that portray an appreciation of size diversity, with the Healthy Weight Awards given on Thursday, Women’s Healthy Weight day. The 2008 honorees are the Dove Campaign for Real Beauty (business), Plus Size Yellow Pages (catalogs), and How to Look Good Naked (television).

More size tolerance is needed, said Berg, a licensed nutritionist and adjunct professor at the University of North Dakota School of Medicine. Today, you can hardly open a newspaper or turn on the TV without hearing about the costs of overweight and obesity in America. However, she points out, some of these concerns may be misplaced and, in fact, a moderate amount of body fat may be beneficial.

Research at the National Center for Health Statistics, CDC, published in the Journal of the American Medical Association (Nov. 7, 2007, and Apr. 20, 2005), shows the fewest deaths in the U.S. are associated with overweight, and higher health risks actually are linked to underweight and even so-called normal weight.

Berg’s recent books Underage and Overweight: Our Child Obesity Crisis and Women Afraid to Eat, articulate the damage to children and women by the obsession with thinness in our society, and encourage them to improve their lives in lasting ways by living actively, eating normally, relaxing and feeling good about themselves and others.

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News Article from The News Journal, Wilmington, Delaware
Delaware Online, Jan 27, 2008

Abandon your diet, a health group urges

by Marianne Carter, Special to the News Journal

Imagine a world without diets. Where no foods are “good” or “bad.” Where there are no fads or gimmick. Where body loathing doesn’t exist. Where the obsession with weight is replaced by attention on achieving overall health through physical activity and good nutrition.

That’s the premise of the Healthy Weight Network, which for 20 years has pioneered the “health at any size” approach.

The group of like-minded professionals is led by Francie Berg, a licensed nutritionist and adjunct professor at the University of North Dakota School of Medicine.

Why dump the diet? Over the past several decades, Americans have dieted without success. Weight loss is generally temporary, and unhealthy diet approaches have been linked with health damage and even death.

Dieting has also contributed to an increase in eating disorders.

So what’s the alternative? A total shift in our thinking. A move away from diets. A change toward making choices for better health. Eating for pleasure, in response to internal cues of hunger. Embracing the need to be active daily, and finding enjoyment in movement.

To that end, the Healthy Weight Network started the Slim Chance Awards 19 years ago to help educate consumers. They were part of the lead-up to Healthy Weight Week, which was last week.

The awards, co-sponsored by the National Council Against Health Fraud, help bring attention to the need to move away from diets.

The Slim Chance Awards for 2008 were presented in several categories. For Most Outrageous Claim, the winner was Evercleanse, promoted as a way to lose weight and detoxify the body by ridding it of undigested food and waste stuck inside the colon. We’re not overweight because food is stuck in our colons.

The winner of the Worst Product Award was Hoodia Herbal. The Federal Trade Commission this past summer charged the manufacturers with falsely claiming that using the product can result in permanent weight loss of as much as 40 pounds a month.

In the Worst Claim category, the winner was BioSpeedSLIM. This product is advertised as a breakthrough in weight loss that requires absolutely no change in eating or activity. If only this were possible.

Finally, the Slim Chance Award for Worst Gimmick went to the Hollywood Detox Body Wrap, which claims to draw toxins out through the skin, promoting immediate weight loss.

Healthy Weight Network encourages us to develop a healthy lifestyle involving active living, eating well and feeling good. Weight loss will follow. For more information, and the hand-out “Top 10 Reasons Not to Diet,” visit the network’s Website at www.healthyweight.net.

Marianne Carter, a registered dietitian and director of the Delaware Center for Health Promotion, has a nutrition practice in Newark. Her column appears biweekly in the News Journal.