The Royal College of Midwives has sparked controversy after seeking opinions on its partnership with Slimming World, which claims to help women to “manage their weight during and after pregnancy”. Many feel the collaboration puts pressure on new mums to lose weight, along with putting potentially unhealthy restrictions on women’s diets during pregnancy – and we have to agree.
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Putting labels like ‘syns’ on healthy fats like avocados while allowing dieters to eat unlimited amounts of refined carbohydrates such as pasta and rice is not only misguided, but may actually leave women with more health and body image problems than they started with.
So if you’re considering dieting or have been advised by a midwife to sign up to the scheme, here’s why you should say no – and some things you could do instead.
1. Diets don’t work
One of the main reasons not to diet is that, quite simply, they don’t work! While initially, you may see some weight loss when following a restrictive diet plan, studies have found that 95 percent of dieters ultimately put the weight back on, and some may actually end up heavier than when they started. This weight-cycling process can be more damaging to your health long term than staying at a consistently higher weight.
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2. You may need to be eating more, not less
While pregnancy is not an excuse to ‘eat for two’, during the final trimester of pregnancy the NHS says you’ll need an extra 200 calories a day, which equates to two slices of wholegrain toast, or 150g full-fat Greek yoghurt with fruit. Meanwhile, breastfeeding mums can burn as much as an extra 500 calories a day through nursing, with studies showing that producing breast milk can use 30 percent of your energy a day, while your brain needs only 20 percent.
Of course, this should be comprised of nutritious foods rather than processed or fried food, but dieting and calorie counting at this time is not recommended!
3. Focus on making positive changes to your diet and lifestyle
So, what can you do if you’re struggling with body image after birth or need to manage conditions such as gestational diabetes or high blood pressure in pregnancy? Rather than focus on weight loss and restrictive dieting, instead, think about positive changes you can make to both your diet and lifestyle. This is likely to help you feel more motivated and make longer-term, more sustainable changes to your health.
Perhaps you can crowd out sugary snacks by eating healthy fruit balanced with protein-packed nuts or seeds? Maybe a morning walk could help to provide a more effective energy boost and some gentle exercise after a broken night of sleep rather than pastries and coffee? Making small, consistent changes is likely to be more effective than a drastic and unsustainable diet.
4. Celebrate the changes in your body
Of course, pregnancy and birth are going to bring about significant changes to your body and you may not ‘snap back’ to your former figure as quickly as you may have hoped – or at all. Diet and celebrity culture has taught us to celebrate dramatic weight loss after birth and made many of us think that we should be back in our pre-baby jeans when we’re still caring for a newborn. But instead, we should be celebrating our amazing bodies in growing, birthing, and nurturing our babies, and caring for ourselves at a time we need it most, rather than punishing our bodies with restrictive diets and unkind thoughts.
5. Remember, good health is about so much more than your weight
Names like ‘Slimming World’ imply that being healthy is all about losing weight, but there is so much more to it than that. Research has found that the relationship between weight and health is not as clear-cut as we may have once been taught, and being slim doesn’t necessarily indicate that someone is healthier than a person who is classified as overweight or even obese.
The Health At Every Size approach has some fascinating research and insight in this area, so is well worth looking into if you want to learn more about the correlation between weight and health.
Want more like this? Check out our latest health and fitness features for mums.