Why continue to diet? continue...

Dieting as a Means of Change

Women's lives vary enormously. No two individuals have the same expectations, the same aspirations, the same struggles and the same problems. We all have different backgrounds, different histories and different futures. But we all have things in our lives that we would like to change. This need for change can vary from a niggling wish for a new washing machine to a desire to meet new people to a desperate yearning for a new and more challenging career. And most of us also want to change something about ourselves.

Below is a list of things that people often say about their lives and themselves. They are all to do with change. Some of these changes are more possible than others, some are dreams and others are goals. But they are all important factors in the way we perceive ourselves and our futures.

I wish. .. .

I were rich

I had more friends

I had someone to talk to I had a partner

I were loved

I did not have a partner I had a job

I had a better job

I were successful

I had somewhere nice to live I had more time to myself

I were more attractive I were more intelligent

People would notice me

My boss would appreciate me

I could stand up for myself I could control my anger

I were happier

I were more organised I were thinner

Some of these wishes are to do with changing what happens around us; some of them are to do with changing ourselves; and some of them are an interaction of the two. Most of them involve effort, help, support and a bit of luck to achieve; the rest may feel like impossibilities.

What has this got to do with dieting? Sometimes losing weight may seem to be the only thing in a woman's life which she feels capable of changing.

Imagine waking up on January 1st and deciding on your New Year's resolutions. You decide that this year:

1 I will get promoted.

2 I will find myself a nice new partner.

3 I will broaden my social circle.

4 I will be a nicer person.

5 I will lose weight.

These resolutions, like the wishes above, are all difficult to attain. And to an extent they may feel beyond your control. You might feel 'My boss decides if I get promoted or not' and 'I can't just decide to walk down the road and find a new partner'. But you may feel 'At least I can try and lose weight'.

Women live in a society which is still controlled by men. The average woman earns 63 per cent of the salary of the average man. Most top jobs are occupied by men; occupations such as teachers, nurses and secretaries are still predominantly female whereas lecturers, doctors and company managers are still predominantly male. Women have fewer options open to them. It is difficult to get promoted because it is still assumed that women will leave to have children, that women are not as dedicated to their work and that they are less capable.

As a result of this women feel that their lives are out of their control. They may make decisions about their futures and their lives but the realisation of these decisions is dependent upon society's response. Women may strive to fulfil their potential but are subjected to social norms and expectations which counteract their attempts.

In addition to these social barriers to self-fulfilment, women are not encouraged to understand where their potential lies. Nor are they expected to take control of their lives. Women's role has always been that of the passive receiver of whatever life might throw in their direction. Women are taught to accept and not to challenge whatever happens to them.

Ultimately women feel out of control of their lives.

And dieting offers a means at least to attempt to change something. It presents a way to regain control and to change one disagreeable aspect of life. We all have dreams and goals. If we cannot achieve most of them, at least we can try and change something: our weight.

Dieting Takes on a Life of its own

Dieting becomes a habit and offers change and because of this dieting also takes on a life of its own. Thinness offers success, love, control and stability, and dieting takes on all these qualities.

We believe that if we diet we will regain control over our lives. We feel that we are dieting for ourselves and that it is a way to create change when so many aspects of our lives feel unchangeable. A successful diet compensates for other areas in our lives in which success eludes us. And focusing on losing weight compensates for a life without focus.

Dieting is seen as a way to change not only your weight but also your life. Dieting becomes an end in itself rather than a means to an end. Although the initial aim may be to lose weight, the aim becomes to diet. Women continue to diet in the face of failure because even if there is no weight loss, dieting becomes a way of life and a goal within itself. And there is no final goal dictating how thin we should be. The aim is to be thinner. Everyone wants to be thinner. The process of getting thinner is what dieting is all about.

If I were thinner everything would be all right

Dieters diet to become thinner, and being thinner is seen as the way to make life better.

Thinness has many meanings beyond that of simply weighing less. On the following page is a questionnaire to identify what being thin means to you.

Circle the answer that best applies to you.

How often do you think, If I were thinner...

• I would be happier NEVER/SOMETIMES/OFTEN
• I would be more attractive NEVER/SOMETIMES/OFTEN
• I would be more popular NEVER/SOMETIMES/OFTEN
• I would be more confident NEVER/SOMETIMES/OFTEN
• I would be better at my job NEVER/SOMETIMES/OFTEN
• I would be more successful NEVER/SOMETIMES/OFTEN
• I would be more outgoing NEVER/SOMETIMES/OFTEN
• I would feel more in control NEVER/SOMETIMES/OFTEN
• I could show the world that Ihave will-power NEVER/SOMETIMES/OFTEN
• I would feel more assertive NEVER/SOMETIMES/OFTEN

Score the questions by awarding yourself one point for each 'never', two points for each 'sometimes' and three points for each 'often', then add up all your scores. The highest score possible is thirty and the lowest is ten.

The questionnaire illustrates how important being thin is, and how many other changes you expect from thinness other than simply weighing less. A high score suggests that you expect many changes.

If you diet because you feel that being thin offers a solution to many of life's problems, then it is necessary to put being thin into perspective. If you think that being thinner will change your life, then challenge these thoughts.

This is difficult because the association between thinness and a good life is intrinsic to our perception of ourselves. However, with a degree of effort and dedication it is possible to realise how ridiculous this association is.

The following exercise aims to highlight how it is possible to dissociate thinness from all the other supposedly related qualities.

Think of all the things you, would be able to achieve or feel if you could weigh less. To do this, picture yourself as you are at the moment and then as you would be if you were thinner and try and evaluate what the difference would be. Make a list of these differences, and next to each item write down all the possible reasons why this may not be the case.

Overleaf is a list of some of the possible meanings of being thinner and a reason why thinness does not have to have this meaning.

Thinness and attractiveness

We believe that if only we were thinner we would be more attractive. But how thin do we have to be before suddenly becoming attractive? Most women who diet would be considered as thin by everyone else anyway. But they still feel that being thinner would be an advantage. Dieting makes you miserable, preoccupied with food and weight, feel a failure — none of which are attractive qualities. A failed dieter can feel useless and lacking in will-power. Attractiveness is about liking yourself and presenting a likeable person to the outside world. Dieting detracts, not adds, to your attractiveness.

If you do lose weight, will this make you more attractive? What weight will this be, or will you always feel that if only you could be that bit thinner you could be more attractive? Look at the people around you. Are the thinner people more attractive? Do your thinner friends feel more attractive? Attractiveness is about using your body in a positive way and it's about feeling confident with your body. Being thinner does not create this, but your attitude to yourself does.

Thinness and success

Seeing weight loss as the way to success is self-defeating. Trying to diet undermines any feelings of success because weight loss is so difficult. Dieting is associated with feelings of failure which generalise to other areas of your life. Feeling a failure is not the way to succeed. Constant attempts at dieting can contribute to low self-esteem which can actively prevent success. Why spend so much time trying to lose weight, and feeling bad when it does not happen? Success in dieting is very difficult, so why chose weight loss as the area for success?

And if you do lose weight, will you be more successful? Or will you simply be thinner?

Thinness and happiness

We are sold the message that thinness is happiness, so we try to become thin. Whatever size we are to start with we still want to be thinner. But getting thinner is difficult, it is depressing and can be a miserable way of life. If we never achieve the goal of gettingthinner, we are constantly disappointed and annoyed with ourselves. Being disappointed and annoyed is not the way to be happy. And even if we achieve the desired weight loss, thin people are no happier than their larger counterparts because thin people still want to be thinner.

Happiness is about liking ourselves and not being constantly critical. It is about feeling positive and in control and proud of what we have to offer. Dieting is about the opposite. Trying to be thin creates a state of constant self-criticism, it is a difficult task and generates a negative view of who we are at the present while focusing on who we could be in the elusive future.

Thinness and control

We believe that 'If only I could control my weight then I would be able to control my life'. But weight naturally controls itself and is regulated around a fairly stable set point. Dieting imposes an unnatural form of control upon something which is self- regulating. Constantly trying to eat less, sometimes succeeding and sometimes overeating, undermines this control and can leave the dieter less in control than she was before she started to diet. In the short term dieting may provide a structure, but in the long term constantly trying to limit your food intake can create chaos. And feeling out of control of your eating can generalise to other areas of your life. Trying to be thin can undermine, not add to, your sense of control.

So if we realise why we diet, and can find a substitute for dieting, we can stop dieting.

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.