Jonny Bowden, author, nutritionist and weight loss coach cuts through all the misconceptions about diet and fitness to help you transform your body, your health and your life.

Retailers would like to help us remain in a state of denial about our ever-expanding waistlines. They'd like us not to notice how fat we're actually getting.

We don't like facing up to the fact that we're becoming fatter by the minute, and most of us don't particularly like buying "fat clothes." We'd prefer not to notice that those size 8 dresses that used to fit no longer do, or that when we try on those 32-inch waist jeans that used to fit so well, they now feel like they were made for just one of our legs. When that happens, we just don't buy as much. Retailers noticed -- and they have a solution. They changed the sizes.

"In recent years," writes Elizabeth Landau on CNN.com, "brands from the luxury names to the mass retail chains have scaled down the size labels on their clothing," which means "you may actually be a size 14, and, according to whatever particular store you're in, you come out a size 10," says Natalie Nixon, associate professor of fashion industry management at Philadelphia University. Why? Simple. It makes the consumer -- you and me -- feel good.

Participants in the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey for 1988 to 1994 and participants in the survey for 1999 to 2004 were asked to identify themselves as "underweight," "about right" or "overweight," and their answers were compared with the participants' actual BMI, a measure of health risks associated with weight. (You can calculate your BMI here.)

Not surprisingly, the BMI of the general population increased from the early survey period to the later survey period, a good indication that as a population we're getting fatter. (No surprise there.) But the probability of people describing themselves as overweight decreased in the later survey. In other words, folks were significantly less likely to identify themselves as overweight even while they were packing on the pounds.

"Fat" is the new "normal."

Interestingly, women tended to have a slightly more realistic perception of themselves, but this may not necessarily reflect "healthy body image" campaigns. Rather, according to physician nutrition specialist Dr. Melina Jampolis, it's the relative increase in weight of the general population that makes people with normal BMI feel more normal.

But feeling normal while being overweight -- which seems to be the trend -- may decrease a person's motivation to lose weight in the first place. And retailers subtly changing the size so that you don't "notice" that you're now a couple sizes larger than you were a few years ago isn't exactly a good reality check. In fact, it helps keep everyone in denial. It's kind of like grading on a curve in school -- if everyone in the class is getting five out of 10 questions wrong, the person who gets six right earns an A. When it comes to weight, this kind of thinking doesn't do anyone any good. Smoking "only" a pack a day isn't any less of a health risk just because everyone around you is smoking two packs!

Weight loss may be one of the most challenging undertakings most of us can think of, but daunting or not, it's one of the best things we can do for our health, our well-being, our energy and our longevity.