Add to that moron academic interference
Tony Lavis,
Well, it's not your average Joe who tells us milk is good & a moment later states the opposite.
It's not average Joe who chops & changes re what's good/bad for our kids. 999 times out of a 1000 an academic has his finger in the pie of policy development, now look at where we are.

Thanks Lydia for calling attention to such an important issue. I'm a Sydney based clinical psychologist with a practice specializing in treating people with disordered eating as well as people struggling with weight issues. I participated in the National Eating Disorders Collaboration where we discussed the importance of making sure that the government's obesity campaigns didn't end up causing eating disorders. All of the experts were in agreement that (1) dieting greatly increases the risk of people developing eating disorders and (2) doesn't work in the long term. People can be healthy and treat themselves well regardless of their body size. Sadly this message appears to have been ignored by the obesity camp. I hope that this attention will lead to a withdrawal of such an unhelpful message.

This is partially a comment I have posted an another page regarding this article: I'd just like to add to the discussion by informing about people whose psychiatric medicications have the side effect of putting on weight. Many of these medications have a common side effect of increased appetite and weight gain. Hard to believe this advertisement was prepared by informed health professionals. Actually, forget 'hard to believe' and insert 'shameful'. Nothing like contributing to double stigmatisation. This ignorance needs to be addressed publicly and someone held responsible. Thank you Lydia Turner for your article and for initiating discussion and awareness regarding this. It takes courage to speak out and it's not always easy. I'm grateful to you.

Thank you for the very interesting article. Can you give some tips about how to discuss this issue with young girls who believe that anyone overweight is to blame for that and should "just eat less and exercise more". My daughter and her best friend are very dismissive of anyone who has a weight problem. Since the best friend's father (a widower) is considering remarrying a lady who carries a lot of weight, this is particularly cogent.
Previously, I have had to ban the girls from playing Biggest Loser where they weighed themselves before and after exercise and temptation games.

>>Can you give some tips about how to discuss this issue with young girls who believe that anyone overweight is to blame for that and should "just eat less and exercise more".<<

Obviously you should tell them that the soundly established scientific theory that more calories consumed than calories burnt is wrong: just a story invented to demonise fat people. You should tell them that diet and exercise have no relation to weight gain and that fat people are just as likely to have achieved their body shape through jogging and veganism as they to have achieved it through sitting and pies - and that slim people are just as likely to have achieved their body shape with visits to Maccas as with visits to the gym.

You will be telling them a big fat lie of course. And a dangerous one at that. But if you tell them the truth - that people gain fat when they eat more joules than they burn off and lose fat when they burn off more joules than they eat - then they might put two and two together and realise that fat people are fat because they choose to be fat. And we couldn't have that could we?

Cheers,

Tony