Louise Wallace on gaffer tape

Louise Wallace is a reality TV actor, most recently having appeared on The Real Housewives of Auckland - a show I've not seen, but the title of which puts me off immediately. She's also previously appeared on various current affairs shows, and also worked as host of The Weakest Link, a TV quiz show from the early 2000s..

This week on The AM Show, onTV3, Louise Wallace made a particularly awful comment - that the solution to obesity is gaffer tape to the mouth.

Gaffer tape, or duct tape (or even Duck Tape - as pictured above - yes, it's really a thing!) is that extra strong, extra sticky tape that is used in the entertainment industry, and for taping air conditioning ducts.

The essential point that Wallace was attempting to make is the simplistic idea that we can solve obesity by just stopping eating. Even more concerning was the underlying assumption that being overweight is unattractive and unhealthy.

She attempted to make the point that being overweight has become normalised, and that we need to stop that.

It is hugely damaging to people to promote such ideas. We know that fat shaming doesn't work - and is likely to lead to spiralling psychological effects that cause people to feel worse about themselves, leading to further stress-induced eating and weight gain.

Simplistic messages such as “just eat less and move more” are seldom helpful. Yes, the laws of thermodynamics would seem to indicate that weighing less is a matter of expending more energy than you take in. But it's never that simple. For a start, people struggle to accurately assess their energy intake, and eating in a nutritious manner that results in weight loss is a major struggle for most people. And, relationships with food are complex and highly conditioned. It would also seem (shockingly) that we're all different. Some people would appear to be able to eat massive amounts of food and not gain weight, whereas others seem to gain weight much more easily (I know I'm one of those people).

Unlike addictions, you can't just stop eating, not that most addictions can be solved by going “cold turkey” anyway. (Just say no, like that ever worked!) And for most humans, eating is a hugely pleasurable activity, and intricately connected with socialising.

Oh, and as is often said, you can't out-run your fork - meaning that, for most people, it's impossible to exercise enough to burn off excess calories easily consumed. Humans evolved in an environment where food was scarce, which resulted in selective pressure for characteristics that allowed us to store calories, while food was plentiful, as fat. For most people, they can easily consume enough calories to satisfy their daily requirements.

The statistics around successful weight loss aren't good, with many people who manage to lose weight going on to regain that weight again.

We live in an environment where we are constantly bombarded with food advertising. While the ideal would be to prepare most of your own food, this is often a challenge for many people. And, many fast food outlets provide a lot of calories for less money than you'd spend making it yourself.

There are also assumptions that people make around the concept of an ideal body weight.

And while it's true that obesity is negatively correlated with health outcomes, there are many lifestyle choices that people make that affect their health, and those are much less prominent targets for criticism. It is also incredibly unfortunate that people's physical size is treated as a moral issue.

Obesity is also correlated with socioeconomic status, likely in complex ways. Lower SES scores likely mean people are working longer hours, possibly in multiple jobs, which makes affording (both financially, and time-wise) to eat a nutritious, balanced diet, as well as to find time for exercise particularly challenging. And, being tired often means making less than ideal food choices.

Finally, we know there's a huge industry around weight loss, and health (such as gyms). There's a reason it's so huge - most people usually fail to achieve the unrealistic expectations promoted by the industry.

Anyway, enough of my rant. It's pretty distasteful for the likes of Wallace to be making such pronouncements from the privileged position she holds.

To the AM Show's credit, they followed up with comment and an interview with Dave Letele, which runs an organisation, called BBM, that works to improve health and reduce obesity among Māori and Pasifika people. This is a much more positive message than that delivered by Wallace.