Eating right and exercise is controversial.

I had to suffer though my first (and hopefully only) episode of Dr. Oz. I know very little about his show or him other that is he is a doctor (a heart surgeon), author (of the obnoxious YOU on a... series) and he dispenses advice on a daily daytime talk show. (I will withhold my rant for how inane daytime talk shows are). Also thanks to Weight Watchers for sponsoring the show. Now I know who butters Dr. Oz's bread. (Should I say instead "Who adds low fat soy milk to Dr. Oz's high fiber cereal?")

So Dr. Oz had on Dr. Glenn Gaesser who wrote Big Fat Lies. Dr. Gaesser is one of the earliest pioneers to say that it was not fatness per se (i.e., weight) but poor lifestyle that can cause "Obesity related health problems." (I'm not being biased here because Dr. Gaesser had written two other books encouraging weight loss.) Dr. Oz considers Dr. Gaesser's message of  being able to be fit and fat as controversial and "dangerous".  But Dr. Oz's message is more of the same: fatness, all fatness will kill you (unless you do his super duper diet plan. More of that later).

If you want to make Americans fatter, put them on a diet.

Dr. Gaesser bought up something on the show, that I have mentioned before: Weight Cycling. Weight cycling is personal to me, as I have gained and lost the same 30-40 pounds about five times. Weight cyclingcan cause cardiovascular and metabolic disorders (the same diseases that Dr. Oz would blame on being fat.)

Dr. Oz mentions as a heart surgeon that all his obese patients have heart problems. Ragan Chastain of Dances with Fat in her video rant mentions that being a heart surgeon, his sampling of fat people would not be all fat people but merely ones who have heart issues. Fat and thin people have heart issues. And fat people are more likely to survive heart issuesthan thin people. Ragan also points out how often Dr. Oz used anecdotal evidence on the show as opposed to Dr. Gaeser who cited research 11 times. Dr. Oz did so once . . . and it was his own research.

Dr. Oz's diet is the prehistoric diet i.e. a plant based diet, often pushed by vegetarians and Michael Pollan. It happens to be much the way I eat except soy which gives me a headache. Should I stop? If I was following Dr. Gaesser advice, I wouldn't. In fact I would attempt to increase my exercise. If I followed Dr. Oz, the lack of weight loss would discourage me for continuing.

Which plan is really more controversial?