Thread by @MedievalAngie

@NoomCoach I am on day 2 of my 14-day trial, and I am almost ready to cancel right now. 1/ I generally advocate for #bodyacceptance and #healthateverysize #HAES, so I am skeptical of all "diets" particularly the rhetoric around restriction and bad calorie science

@NoomCoach 2/ Your app/program claims to have a different relationship to food and value than other diet programs. And while I appreciate the gesture at not labeling foods "good" and "bad" your color-coding system is basically the equivalent

@NoomCoach 3/ Your calorie logic is *EXACTLY THE SAME* as every other diet program out there--weight loss is a simple equation between calories in/calories out. Which btw is overly simplistic. You basically have a teched-up revamp of @WeightWatchers_

@NoomCoach @WeightWatchers_ 4/ You completely ignore the part where eating is not only about calories. It is also about nutrients. Macronutrients (protein-fat-carb). Micronutrients (Vitamins/Minerals). But also, fiber, antioxidants, variety.

@NoomCoach @WeightWatchers_ 5/ You also ignore the part where eating is social and a good amount of behavioral change around competent eating includes where you eat and with whom. Family meals are the gold standard in healthy eating habits, and I don't see how you could feed a family w/ these restrictions

@NoomCoach @WeightWatchers_ 6/ But let's get into how it is also not #accessible to folks with disabilities (and therefore potentially different dietary needs), it is almost certainly based around #whitewomen 's "average" body composition and it does not appear to be adjustable to take these into account

@NoomCoach @WeightWatchers_ 7/ I can't speak to the experience of women and non-men of color with this program, so I'll just use myself as an example of how your app fails women like myself as a case in point of ...

@NoomCoach @WeightWatchers_ 8/ ...all the ways your app does a disservice to anyone who isn't in the kind of trim-tending white woman's body, or trying to be.

@NoomCoach @WeightWatchers_ 9/ I can't even use the app as a short cut to track food at a rate that is appropriate to my body without the app telling me I'm over (which is pretty much the same as saying I'm bad or failing bc of the cultural fetishization of thinness and moralization of failure to conform)

@NoomCoach @WeightWatchers_ 10/ I'm 6 ft tall and very dense from a former athletic career. Even without taking into account my lean body mass, a person my size has a basal metabolic rate #BMR of 2128--just to continue existing in my body in homeostasis, without moving at all.

@NoomCoach @WeightWatchers_ 11/ Let's say I'm sedentary. That means I need 2554 kcal/day to maintain my body and just move it around. I assure you, if you'd ever had to haul my backside up the side of a mountain in Iceland, you'd know just how much energy it takes to move it.

@NoomCoach @WeightWatchers_ 12/ or maybe I'm lightly active, which means I need 2926 kcal a day, just to do my life and stay the way I am. Heaven forbid I'm more active than that and need 3298-3671 to support my moderate-active lifestyle.

@NoomCoach @WeightWatchers_ 13/ No matter how I re-set my weight loss goal or desired rate of loss (which, btw, thanks for assuming, due to my end goal that I want to lose the max amt possible every week--I don't) I cannot get a calorie budget of more than 1461 kcal/day

@NoomCoach @WeightWatchers_ 13/ that is a 50% calorie deficit for my body. It is outrageous, unsafe, and harmful to suggest that someone eat 50% less calories than they need to sustain their body.

@NoomCoach @WeightWatchers_ 14/ Imagine the harm this does to a person--I've been saying women because let's face it, that's who the diet industry targets but it's not exclusive--who has struggled with an eating disorder and is trying to use your app to have a healthier relationship to food & lose weight

@NoomCoach @WeightWatchers_ 15/ Particularly, what about a person who has struggled with eating disorders and/or body image issues *BECAUSE* their body does not conform to the "ideal"--either because of their race or ethnicity, height, body composition, disability, ehem...athletic background...w/e?

@NoomCoach @WeightWatchers_ 16/ Ok. Let's complicate this a step further. I'm lactating. I exclusively pump breastmilk for my 11 month old daughter. Breastfeeding typically requires an additional ~500 kcal/day.

@NoomCoach @WeightWatchers_ 17/ BUT my daughter was a preemie and my milk has extra high fat content--which she needs. So I wonder what kind of additional calories it actually takes me to produce about a liter of high-fat milk for her every day.

@NoomCoach @WeightWatchers_ 18/ This is another place where your app leaves no room to take into account *what else* people need from the food they eat. WE need high protein to make food. WE need *lots* of good fats to support my daughter's brain development. WE need lots of calcium for her bone health.

@NoomCoach @WeightWatchers_ 19/ But let's remember that prematurity disproportionately affects black community, who also have lower rates of breastfeeding. So think about the additional barriers your app is creating for women like myself and the women of color who are more likely than ww to experience it

@NoomCoach @WeightWatchers_ 20/ But let's dig deeper still. WHY was my daughter premature? Because I had (*SEVERE*) pre-eclampsia. Like...very close to death pre-eclampsia. Guess which demographic has the highest rates of pre-eclampsia--you guessed it! Black gestators.

@NoomCoach @WeightWatchers_ 21/ so here we are in another space where the calories in/calories out equation is SO WRONG. A. guess who is at the highest risk of pre-eclampsia? Gestators who have experienced trauma (uhhhh....) to the point of PTSD or toxic stress?

@NoomCoach @WeightWatchers_ 22/ Aside--you know what counts as toxic stress? Systemic oppression. Just sayin.

@NoomCoach @WeightWatchers_ 23/ You know what toxic stress and PTSD do to the nervous system? They keep the fight/flight (sympathetic) nervous system in constant overdrive so that the rest/digest (parasympathetic) nervous system can never really do its job.

@NoomCoach @WeightWatchers_ 24/ The constant imbalance and overdrive of #PTSD and #toxicstress then cause the body to interpret that the long-term threat must be *starvation*, making the body more likely to store calories as fat, regardless of how much you eat or what bc it *THINKS IT'S HELPING* you survive

@NoomCoach @WeightWatchers_ 25/ So if I don't see your app address stress-reduction, mindfulness, and harm minimization from systemic oppression in the next 12 days of app-usage, I'm gonna say you fall squarely into the blaming people who don't lose for not being "disciplined" enough--if implicitly

@NoomCoach @WeightWatchers_ 26/ But let's go back to the pre-eclampsia. I grew a human. That causes weight gain. So does the sleep-deprivation and barely-keeping-it-together-ness of a new kid. Lots of postpartum people probably want to lose some weight.

@NoomCoach @WeightWatchers_ 27/ But your app has no place to designate that someone is either gestating or have recently gestated in order to adjust your caloric expectations to a healthy level (maybe some want to simply manage the rate at which they GAIN in pregnancy, but I don't see that in goals)

@NoomCoach @WeightWatchers_ 28/ But more specific to my case, you also don't allow a post-pre-eclamptic person (or any person) to have both a weight loss goal and a nutrition goal. For example, I have probably 20 lbs of interstitial fluid (swelling) that I could maybe lose by eating MORE fruit/veg

@NoomCoach @WeightWatchers_ 29/ Not relatively more. More more. More than I already eat (which is quite a lot). Specifically, lots of yellow foods with high amounts of potassium.

@NoomCoach @WeightWatchers_ 30/ But here we are at the #notallcaloriesarecreatedequal thing again. Because some of what you classify as calorie dense (and => should eat less of) is exactly what I need to decrease bp and minimize my new 7x risk of heart disease after pre-eclampsia.

@NoomCoach @WeightWatchers_ 31/ And after going through #YBP and #ultimategoal questions, I didn't see anywhere I could talk about recovery from pre-eclampsia as a part of my goal or process.

@NoomCoach @WeightWatchers_ 32/ and I heard from my goal specialist today, and the script she sent me was so rote that I have had no opportunity to even ask if my settings can be adjusted to reflect my *actual* needs instead of those projected by the assumptions of your app.

@NoomCoach @WeightWatchers_ 33/ In short, I'm disappointed that you market yourself as "not a diet" and instead being "about behavior" but you have clearly limited your range of users to average, middle class white women, or those striving to meet that ideal

@NoomCoach @WeightWatchers_ 34/ Without addressing the variation in bodies and their needs, the fact that more than calories matter, and that weight loss is not always about looking more like #whiteladiesofinstagram I'd say your program is no different from any other...

@NoomCoach @WeightWatchers_ 35/ ...cis-white-woman-centered, body shaming, food moralizing, calorie-restricting diet program out there. It's just as lacking in inclusivity, just as inacessible, just as harmful as the rest of the industry.

@NoomCoach @WeightWatchers_ 36/36 You have twelve days to change my mind.