Why continue to diet?

The majority of dieters are not fat, they see themselves as being fat. The majority of dieters do not lose weight, they spend their lives thinking about losing weight. Sometimes they may eat less, but will then compensate by eating more. Sometimes they may lose weight, but will quickly regain it.

All very upsetting.

As a result....

It could be assumed that the average dieter who never lost weight would stop dieting.

It could be assumed that all the negative side effects of dieting would deter women from launching into their next attempt to lose weight.

It could be assumed that the time and energy required constantly to think about what/when/where you eat would make dieting an unacceptable occupation.

It could be assumed that most dieters would soon become disillusioned and that the dieting industry would go bankrupt.

These are all plausible assumptions but are not the reality. Year in year out women pursue their desire to be thinner. As one diet fails the next is started. Leaving a slimming club means rejoining a few months later. Feeling a failure_; being fed-up, becoming preoccupied with food and weight are no deterrent to the perpetual dieter. The drive to be thin outweighs any of the undesirable effects of dieting.

But is it just the power of thinness?

Women start to diet because they want to be thinner and because thinness is associated with a multitude of other desirable qualities. Being thin means success, it means control and it means attractiveness. However thin they may be to start with, being thinner is still the goal.

Yet, whether or not they achieve this goal, dieters continue to diet. Dieting takes on a life of its own.

Dieting as a Way of Life

For a large number of women dieting becomes a habit. It becomes a pastime and a way of life. Women discuss what food they have eaten today, what they ate yesterday and what they will eat tomorrow. Dieting provides a focus. 'Have you seen the latest copy of . . . . "did you read that slimmer of the year's story in.. . '. Women diet together, friends can compare notes and exchange ideas. They can go to slimming clubs together, and they can even vomit together.

Slimming clubs often take on the role of social clubs or sports clubs. They provide a place for people to get together, to chat and to make friends. All the members of a slimming club have a common interest and a common goal. The clubs also provide a place to get away from the pressures of family life.

In the western world, families are shrinking and the extended family is no longer so extended. It is easy to become isolated, especially for women at home with children. A slimming club provides the place to get away from the strains of home-life, make new friends and find support. Most members of clubs are women and maybe this reflects not only women's desire for weight loss but also their need for support and friendship from other women.

Women diet because they want to lose weight but they continue to diet because it becomes a way of life, a social activity and a habit.

What is life like without dieting?

Imagine not dieting. Picture how you would look and feel. Do you look fat and ugly, and feel unhappy?

Giving up dieting is like giving up an addiction; it is difficult to visualise life without it. Suggesting that people should stop dieting often causes quite strong reactions. In the course of my work I have had numerous people criticise my belief that dieting is self-destructive. I thought I would include several of these comments and illustrate how many of these criticisms are based on the myths surrounding dieting and are not founded in fact.

'It is all right for you to say don't diet, but I would feel happier if I were thinner.' This woman associates dieting with getting thinner, and being thinner with being happier. Firstly, dieting does not make most people thinner most of the time and, secondly, being thinner does not make most people happier.

'You are all right, you're not fat, but I need to keep on dieting.' Firstly, this women assumes that only fat people diet. Women of all shapes and sizes diet, up to 90 per cent of women see themselves as being larger than they want to be; dieting is motivated by perceived size not actual size. Secondly, she believes that if she continues to diet she will lose weight. Dieting involves thinking about losing weight but not necessarily achieving it. It is only necessary to realise how few dieters are successful to understand that dieting is not about weight loss.

'If I didn't diet I'd be enormous.' This women assumes that dieting is preventing a massive weight gain. Some people do manage to limit their food intake continuously and for extended periods of time so that they can keep their weight below their natural set points. If such people returned to eating the volume of food they ate before they started to diet, they probably would gain weight owing to a lowered metabolic rate. However, most dieters are not eating less overall, but fluctuate between episodes of undereating and episodes of overeating. What they are doing is thinking about eating less. In which case, if they stopped dieting they would not gain weight, but would stop being preoccupied with food and feeling miserable.

Giving up dieting is a positive step. Dieting does not make you thinner, happier, in control or successful, so why do it?

What are the benefits of not dieting?

Acceptance

Stopping dieting means you can accept yourself for who you are now, instead of looking to the future for a better person to emerge. It means you can be proud of yourself, and no longer make endless comparisons with better, thinner and more beautiful role models. As Anne Dickson says in her book The Mirror Within, that comparison is:

such an automatic process that we sometimes forget to ask ourselves too big/flat/short, for whom? Having learned the need for attractive parts, we compare these fragments to external media models, usually without any specific person in mind, and we rate ourselves in fragments and against some internal ideal.

Stop dieting and you can stop making these critical comparisons. The present you becomes important and the discrepancy between that and the future ideal can be forgotten.

Freedom

Stopping dieting means freedom from thinking about, dreaming about and denying food. It means you can go out for dinner when you want and join in wholeheartedly at social occasions. Stopping dieting means eating what the rest of the family eats and no longer cooking two separate meals. It means freedom to fill your time with other things. Time need no longer be taken up with planning diets and reading diet books but can be spent doing all the other things there are to do.

Confidence

Stopping dieting means that you will no longer be faced with disappointment, feelings of failure and depression. You will no longer need to set yourself unattainable goals resulting in guilt and feelings of weakness. Your confidence and self-esteem will grow as you no longer constantly undermine yourself with self-criticism.

Eating behaviour

Your eating behaviour will change. Dieting causes changes in all the factors which contribute to eating. Attempting to eat less creates:

• depression which results in eating to feel better; preoccupation with food resulting in thinking about food and so eating more;
• preoccupation with weight causing eating to compensate for no weight loss;
• feeling out of control and therefore undereating followed by overeating;
• deprivation and increase in the urge to eat;
• certain foods becoming treats, becoming more desirable and so being eaten more.

Dieting aims to result in eating less, but paradoxically can cause overeating. Giving up dieting takes away this problem. Initially you may eat as a response to the new-found non-dieting freedom but gradually food will no longer play a central role in your life. Stop dieting and you will think about food less. You will eat when you are hungry, not when your craving for food becomes too strong to ignore. You will no longer wish for platefuls of cakes and high calorie foods because knowing that you can eat them whenever you want stops them from being so attractive. Cream-cakes every day may seem wonderful on a diet but as a reality will become boring. Stop dieting and eating will become less important to you.

Stop dieting and you can get on with life and appreciate all the other things that there are on offer.