Our dilemma with weight is that at the same time as we are being told by health policy makers-repeatedly and with a great deal of judgment and urgency-that any degree of overweight is medically dangerous, there is no successful method for reducing and maintaining a lowered body weight. In fact, weight loss attempts have a boomerang effect: Most people regain lost weight and many gain to a higher level with each loss-regain cycle. While high body weight is a serious health risk only at the extremes, the far-more-common pattern of weight instability as a result of dieting is associated with negative health outcomes.

For people who are relatively fat, the weight dilemma is even worse. Although body composition is, for the most part, genetically determined, people of size generally feel guilty about their weight and therefore ashamed of their eating. They have accepted society's judgment that they overeat and that they are digging their graves with their knives and forks. In reality, most relatively fat people eat no more or no differently from thin people. They just pay the price. People of size at times eat chaotically, but that chaotic eating, rather than being a cause of high body weight, is far more likely to be a consequence of the weight-reduction dieting that they have pursued in the name of becoming thin.

Whatever your size, to keep from being caught in the weight dilemma, work with your body rather than against it:

• Eat well and joyfully, and trust your internal regulators to guide you in what and how much to eat.
• Move your body in a way that you enjoy and can sustain.
• Let your body weigh what it will in response to your positive and consistent eating and activity.
• Develop loyalty and respect for your body.
• Stop postponing living until you get thin.

For more about becoming a competent eater (and for research backing up this advice), see Ellyn Satter's Secrets of Feeding a Healthy Family: How to Eat, How to Raise Good Eaters, How to Cook, Kelcy Press, 2008. Also see www.EllynSatter.com to purchase books and to review other resources.