Obesity is a chronic condition. Too often it is viewed as a temporary problem that can be treated for a few months with a restricted food diet. You probably don't need a whole bunch of science or mumbo jumbo to convince you that diets don't work. If you're like me, you probably already know something is not right with a plan you can't maintain long term. While it may work in the short-term, you will find yourself right back where you started when you decide to go back to eating your way.
Only 5% of all dieters will have maintained their weight loss at the end of one year. That's not too encouraging when you consider that the average American "diets" three to four times a year. Here are the reasons diets can be so self-defeating:
1. Diets make you focus on food. Why is this bad? Because if you are focused on food, you are never going to lose weight and keep it off. If you have to count points or stick to a ratio of any kind, all you are going to be thinking about around the clock is FOOD. Ask yourself this: Can you reasonably figure out the points and count the points in every food that you put into your mouth for the rest of your life? And Why would you want to? Forcing yourself to be that focused on food makes you obsessed with every meal and with every bite and can lead to an unhealthy relationship with food.
2. Diets make you miserable. When you cut back on food without maintaining a balanced diet, your blood sugar stays so low that the brain is deprived of glucose, a sugar. The result is irritability, low energy, and headache. (2) If you never feel satisfied, you are going to feel poorly which will lead you to treat the people around you poorly. Diets make your behavior erratic. They make you feel bad about yourself. Even if you are "successful" at the diet, you feel gulty about every bite of food you have that you "shouldn't".
3. Diets make it difficult to eat out or socialize. Nowadays, there are usually a few items on restaurant menus that are "diet friendly". However, why would you want to go to a restaurant to order steamed vegetables? You go out to enjoy yourself, to spend time with friends and family. What is enjoyable about feeling guilty about eating? You are either going to leave the restaurant hungry because you underate or overfull because you ate the "wrong thing" or too much of it. Don't you want to be able to go out, enjoy yourself, laugh, and go home happy?!
4. Diets make you deprive and starve yourself. There are so many diets out there that force you to starve yourself which then leads to you overeating either later in the day or later in the week. This is not good for you! There is a reason it doesn't make you feel good. It's not healthy. Not to mention it doesn't work. Starving yourself causes cravings for foods you are not "allowed" to eat on your diet. Starving yourself also slows down your metabolism which makes it even more difficult to lose weight in the long run. This starvation state can lower your metabolism for up to a year.
5. Diets make you fat. Weight preoccupation includes counting calories, exercising for the purposes of losing weight loss or continually trying to lose weight. A consequence of weight preoccupation is the cycle of yo-yo dieting and bingeing, where dieters become trapped in a repeated cycle of weight loss and weight gain. Studies show that 65% to 95% of people will gain back the weight the lose. It is now believed that dieting can lead to permanent overweight, also known as "diet induced overweight". (4) It is better to never have dieted at all than to keep losing and gaining the same 10-20 pounds.
6. Diets make other people rich. Americans spend $33 billion annually on weight-loss products and services. There is a multi-billion dollar diet industry in this country. And our country has a very high rate of obesity that rises every year. Why? Because diets don't work! But we keep falling for it over and over again. (5)
7. Diets make you poor. Americans spend the equivalent amount of money on dieting each year as the U.S. Federal Government spends on education each year. Any money you have spend on diets is too much if they don't work. (6)
8. Diets are not healthy. Any time you are depriving yourself of nutrients, you are putting your body in an unhealthy imbalance, one that is only going to cause you to crave what your body is missing later. No matter how unhealthy the food is, you will have to have it, because the diet is making you think your body needs it. One study showed that the more frequently an individual's weight fluctuated by as little as 10 pounds, the more likely the person was to be at risk for cardiac disease (8). Chronic dieting has also been related to the development of gall stones (9), and increased total mortality. (10)
9. Diets lead to and perpetuate eating disorders. Heavy dieting in and of itself is not considered an eating disorder. However, a recent study has indicated a link between severe dieting and the development of eating disorders in teenagers. The study showed that adolescent girls who dieted severely were 18 times more likely to develop and eating disorder than girls who did not diet. Girls who dieted at a moderate level were still 5 times more likely than girls who did not diet to develop an eating disorder. Overall, girls were 7 times more likely to develop an eating disorder than were boys of the same age (14-15 years old). (12)
Many studies and many health professionals note that patients with eating disorders were dieting at the time of the development of their eating disorder. Dieting may not cause an eating disorder, but the constant concern about body weight and shape, fat grams, and calories can start a vicious cycle of body dissatisfaction and obsession that can lead all too quickly to an eating disorder. (13)
10. Diets make you feel bad about yourself. A majority of women struggle with body image, food, and weight problems. According to one American study, approximately 80-90% of women dislike their bodies (17). Another Canadian report has shown that close to 70% of women are weight preoccupied and almost 40% are continually losing and gaining weight (18). In addition, it is estimated that up to 20% of women in Canada have serious eating problems (19).
What are we doing wrong? Simply eating too much and not being active enough is the cause of most obesity. But, the approach some people take may be part of the problem. Most Americans tend to concentrate on losing pounds to improve appearance, when the primary focus of weight management should be to achieve and maintain health.
The growing number of overweight Americans is particularly ironic because the American culture seems obsessed with dieting and thinness. Negative body image can lead to the desire for rapid weight loss. More extreme and less sustainable methods are required when short-term weight loss is the goal. Failure to control weight in the long-term is the outcome of this simplistic and weight focused approach. Many women and men experience a loss of self-confidence and motivation as they either fail to lose weight or repeatedly regain the weight they lost (14,30).
2. Paul Wolf
4. Bennett and Gurinm 1982; Polivy and Herman, 1983; Cliska, 1990.
5. Colditz GA. Economic costs of obesity. Am j Clin Nutr. 1992; 55;503-507s
6. EDAP (Eating Disorders Awareness and Prevention, Inc.)
8. Lissner, et al, 1991.
9. Mok, et al, 1979.
10. Lissner & Brownell, 1992; Wadden, Van Itallie & Blackburn, 1990
12. GenneX Healthcare Technologies
13. EDAP
14. Perri, M.G., Negu, A.M., & Viegener, B.J. (1992). Improving the Long-Term Management of Obesity: Theory, Research, and Clinical Guidelines. New York: John Wiley and Sons.
17. Hutchison, 1985.
18. Canadian Gallup Poll, 1984.
19. National Eating Disorder Information Centre, 1989.
30. NIH Technology Assessment Panel. (1993). Methods of Voluntary Weight Loss and Control, Annals of Internal Medicine, 1, No. 3, 50-53.
Only 5% of all dieters will have maintained their weight loss at the end of one year. That's not too encouraging when you consider that the average American "diets" three to four times a year. Here are the reasons diets can be so self-defeating:
1. Diets make you focus on food. Why is this bad? Because if you are focused on food, you are never going to lose weight and keep it off. If you have to count points or stick to a ratio of any kind, all you are going to be thinking about around the clock is FOOD. Ask yourself this: Can you reasonably figure out the points and count the points in every food that you put into your mouth for the rest of your life? And Why would you want to? Forcing yourself to be that focused on food makes you obsessed with every meal and with every bite and can lead to an unhealthy relationship with food.
2. Diets make you miserable. When you cut back on food without maintaining a balanced diet, your blood sugar stays so low that the brain is deprived of glucose, a sugar. The result is irritability, low energy, and headache. (2) If you never feel satisfied, you are going to feel poorly which will lead you to treat the people around you poorly. Diets make your behavior erratic. They make you feel bad about yourself. Even if you are "successful" at the diet, you feel gulty about every bite of food you have that you "shouldn't".
3. Diets make it difficult to eat out or socialize. Nowadays, there are usually a few items on restaurant menus that are "diet friendly". However, why would you want to go to a restaurant to order steamed vegetables? You go out to enjoy yourself, to spend time with friends and family. What is enjoyable about feeling guilty about eating? You are either going to leave the restaurant hungry because you underate or overfull because you ate the "wrong thing" or too much of it. Don't you want to be able to go out, enjoy yourself, laugh, and go home happy?!
4. Diets make you deprive and starve yourself. There are so many diets out there that force you to starve yourself which then leads to you overeating either later in the day or later in the week. This is not good for you! There is a reason it doesn't make you feel good. It's not healthy. Not to mention it doesn't work. Starving yourself causes cravings for foods you are not "allowed" to eat on your diet. Starving yourself also slows down your metabolism which makes it even more difficult to lose weight in the long run. This starvation state can lower your metabolism for up to a year.
5. Diets make you fat. Weight preoccupation includes counting calories, exercising for the purposes of losing weight loss or continually trying to lose weight. A consequence of weight preoccupation is the cycle of yo-yo dieting and bingeing, where dieters become trapped in a repeated cycle of weight loss and weight gain. Studies show that 65% to 95% of people will gain back the weight the lose. It is now believed that dieting can lead to permanent overweight, also known as "diet induced overweight". (4) It is better to never have dieted at all than to keep losing and gaining the same 10-20 pounds.
6. Diets make other people rich. Americans spend $33 billion annually on weight-loss products and services. There is a multi-billion dollar diet industry in this country. And our country has a very high rate of obesity that rises every year. Why? Because diets don't work! But we keep falling for it over and over again. (5)
7. Diets make you poor. Americans spend the equivalent amount of money on dieting each year as the U.S. Federal Government spends on education each year. Any money you have spend on diets is too much if they don't work. (6)
8. Diets are not healthy. Any time you are depriving yourself of nutrients, you are putting your body in an unhealthy imbalance, one that is only going to cause you to crave what your body is missing later. No matter how unhealthy the food is, you will have to have it, because the diet is making you think your body needs it. One study showed that the more frequently an individual's weight fluctuated by as little as 10 pounds, the more likely the person was to be at risk for cardiac disease (8). Chronic dieting has also been related to the development of gall stones (9), and increased total mortality. (10)
9. Diets lead to and perpetuate eating disorders. Heavy dieting in and of itself is not considered an eating disorder. However, a recent study has indicated a link between severe dieting and the development of eating disorders in teenagers. The study showed that adolescent girls who dieted severely were 18 times more likely to develop and eating disorder than girls who did not diet. Girls who dieted at a moderate level were still 5 times more likely than girls who did not diet to develop an eating disorder. Overall, girls were 7 times more likely to develop an eating disorder than were boys of the same age (14-15 years old). (12)
Many studies and many health professionals note that patients with eating disorders were dieting at the time of the development of their eating disorder. Dieting may not cause an eating disorder, but the constant concern about body weight and shape, fat grams, and calories can start a vicious cycle of body dissatisfaction and obsession that can lead all too quickly to an eating disorder. (13)
10. Diets make you feel bad about yourself. A majority of women struggle with body image, food, and weight problems. According to one American study, approximately 80-90% of women dislike their bodies (17). Another Canadian report has shown that close to 70% of women are weight preoccupied and almost 40% are continually losing and gaining weight (18). In addition, it is estimated that up to 20% of women in Canada have serious eating problems (19).
What are we doing wrong? Simply eating too much and not being active enough is the cause of most obesity. But, the approach some people take may be part of the problem. Most Americans tend to concentrate on losing pounds to improve appearance, when the primary focus of weight management should be to achieve and maintain health.
The growing number of overweight Americans is particularly ironic because the American culture seems obsessed with dieting and thinness. Negative body image can lead to the desire for rapid weight loss. More extreme and less sustainable methods are required when short-term weight loss is the goal. Failure to control weight in the long-term is the outcome of this simplistic and weight focused approach. Many women and men experience a loss of self-confidence and motivation as they either fail to lose weight or repeatedly regain the weight they lost (14,30).
2. Paul Wolf
4. Bennett and Gurinm 1982; Polivy and Herman, 1983; Cliska, 1990.
5. Colditz GA. Economic costs of obesity. Am j Clin Nutr. 1992; 55;503-507s
6. EDAP (Eating Disorders Awareness and Prevention, Inc.)
8. Lissner, et al, 1991.
9. Mok, et al, 1979.
10. Lissner & Brownell, 1992; Wadden, Van Itallie & Blackburn, 1990
12. GenneX Healthcare Technologies
13. EDAP
14. Perri, M.G., Negu, A.M., & Viegener, B.J. (1992). Improving the Long-Term Management of Obesity: Theory, Research, and Clinical Guidelines. New York: John Wiley and Sons.
17. Hutchison, 1985.
18. Canadian Gallup Poll, 1984.
19. National Eating Disorder Information Centre, 1989.
30. NIH Technology Assessment Panel. (1993). Methods of Voluntary Weight Loss and Control, Annals of Internal Medicine, 1, No. 3, 50-53.
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