Fat Chances; Women's Health; Scientific American Presents; by Ezzell; 2 Page(s)

I couldn't believe my eyes. But there it was, printed in an editorial entitled "Losing Weight-An Ill-Fated New Year's Resolution" in the January 1 New England Journal of Medicine: "Unfortunately, the data... showing the beneficial effects of weight loss are limited, fragmentary and often ambiguous."

For someone like me who has struggled with her weight for years, this dry pronouncement from the medical profession's equivalent of the Voice on High was nothing short of a revelation. As a chubby child, a "baby-fat" teenager and a Rubenesque woman, nearly all my visits to doctors have inevitably ended with some version of the statement, "If you could lose 10/20/30 pounds, you would sleep better/have more energy/ have lower blood pressure/(fill in blank here)."