Woman's Hour Diet Special - A bit of a rant!

Today Woman's Hour dedicated the entire show to a dieting phone-in with the following premise:

"Are you a habitual dieter? What strategy has worked - or gone horribly wrong - for you? Why? How much have we been conditioned to think we have to watch our weight every minute of the day? And can dieting ever be the answer, or should we just learn to love ourselves the way we are?"

We know that quite a few Beyond Chocolaters called in to take part in the show (thank you to all of those of you who did, by the way, we appreciate your support HUGELY!) eager to talk about their experience and spread the word. They wanted to talk about how much better their lives were since they'd stopped dieting, how much more in control they felt about food and how they viewed their bodies in a completely different light. They wanted to talk about the fact there is another way -  the only viable alternative to dieting or 'just learning to love ourselves the way we are'. They know from experience that when we have a happy, healthy, balanced relationship with food and and our bodies - we reach a happy, healthy, balanced weight as a consequence. When we stop focussing on the symptom, which is the weight, we can start to make changes. When the researcher who screened their call to decide if they would be aired on the show or not asked how this had come about they went on to talk about Beyond Chocolate and how it had changed their approach to weight-loss completely. 

Result: none of them were aired because they were considered to be 'promoting a company'. Instead, Woman's Hour interviewed a real estate agent who had lost lots of weight and whose best tip for success was to 'eat less but don't deprive yourself and move more'. Then they talked to cognitive behavioral therapist (another man - Excuse me, this is WOman's Hour is it not?) who said some pretty reasonable things about the problem being our emotional attachment to food and then said that it would be great if 'people had downloads they could listen to when they get the urge to eat'. Of course, no mention was made of where those downloads could actually be found (pssst...we've got a few good ones here - the Stop Overeating and 1 Minute Mantra ones are just the ticket).

I'm sitting in front of my computer listening to this and thinking of the millions of women out there who have tuned in to listen with the hope of finding an alternative, of learning something new and inspiring so that they won't have to go on another diet doomed to failure or just give up and learn to live with being overweight and instead all they get is a real estate agent telling them to give up drinking and eat less so that they shrink their stomach....and I feel furious. 

Not because I want Woman's Hour to promote Beyond Chocolate so that we can get rich (that would be the day!) but just to break this cycle of talking absolute drivel every January and to give desperate dieters - and the growing number of women who have given up altogether - another way forward. There are thousands of women who have turned their lives around thanks to the Beyond Chocolate Principles - it's doable, realistic and we don't take the piss by ripping people off and selling false promises - it's absurd that more women don't know about it.

The media won't give Beyond Chocolate any air time because that would be a gross and unfair promotion of a money making business (What money?! I haven't paid myself a decent salary since I started 10 years ago - I do it because I'm passionate and determined to get the word out!). On the other hand, dieting companies like Weight Watchers and Lighter Life are busy making millions by infiltrating doctor's surgeries with glossy brochures and the National Obesity Taskforce....the mind boggles.

Rant over.