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After coming across this post from Diet Blog, I started thinking about all of the studies and real-life experiences which show that diets* really just do not work in general.
I am puzzled. If diets don't work, then why does everyone diet?
I was speaking to a woman not too long ago who mentioned that she was going on a diet in which all of your meals are delivered to you. She went on to talk about different diets that she's gone on in the past, and was raving about a liquid meals diet that she had done years ago. She said that it was the best diet she had ever gone on.
But the question running through my head was, if that diet was so good, why are you dieting again?
People talk all the time about how they went on such-and-such a diet to lose x amount of weight, and it was fabulous and it worked great. Often these people say this at the same time as they're saying how they are going back on that diet- or starting a new one- because they need to lose weight again.
I am sure I'm not the only one who finds this all to be very perplexing. The idea of dieting is to lose weight (I'd like to say it's to become healthier, but we all know that 95% of these fad diets are about social pressure and appearance, not health), so the ideal diet would be one in which you lose the weight and keep it off and don't have to worry about losing weight in the future.
Nearly everyone gains back what they lost on the diet, and very often they gain an extra couple pounds, too. Thus begins the cycle of yoyo dieting, which generally leads to unhealthy eating habits, poor body image, and one very messed up metabolism.
Diets seem to make people cranky. They deprive you of something you want. Yet so many people go on diets- more than 1 in 5 teen girls are on a diet at any given time- so there must be a reason for it, right? They've got to do something, don't they?
Dieting intrigues me. When I was younger and I heard about diets, I thought they sounded like fun. You get to eat these special bars and certain kinds of foods in pretty packaging and you have to keep track of it all and follow a rulebook. I thought that all of those diet foods looked tasty! And maybe they are- I haven't tried any so I don't know. But I do think its a concern that as a young girl I was interested in them. Granted, the reasoning was simple curiosity and I was attracted to the packaging (and yes, I'm still attracted to packaging. There's so many food products out there I'd love to try because they look cute and pretty, only the ingredients lists horrify me), but how many young people get caught up in a diet in this innocent way and then fall prey to the cycle of poor body image and unhealthy habits?
For myself, the only "fad diet" that I have "tried" was the Special K Challenge, back when I was initially trying to lose some weight and become healthier with the iVillage Healthy Living Program. At that point, I was obsessed with Special K anyways, and when I found out that they were doing a 2-week challenge which incorporated eating a couple bowls of cereal plus a couple cereal bars each day to lose x amount of pounds within the time period, I realized that my diet basically consisted of Special K, fruits and veggies, and whatever was being made for dinner that night already. So I was basically following their program without even intending on it. That ended pretty quick when I learned what it really means for a food to be nutritious.
The way I see it, we diet because it's expected of us to do so. The media is constantly telling us that we are not "good enough" (or substitute "good" for thin, beautiful, starving/emaciated enough- you get the idea), and we believe it. Furthermore, I think that dieting is a way that we can exercise our willpower and be proud of our ability to control. Anyone else recognize this as an eating disorder pattern? Because I know that when I've slid towards disordered eating in the past it's been all about control.
I won't go so far as to suggest that dieting is the socially acceptable version
