Dieting is rife within our culture. 64% of the UK population are ‘on a diet’ most of the time,¹ despite the fact that 95% of diets fail, with the weight regained within 1-5 years.² The scary thing is that it is so normalised within our culture that nobody thinks to question how safe it is to put their body through a ‘diet.’ This article looks deeper into the actual effects of dieting on our health – and why we should be fighting against what is seen as ‘the norm’ in our day to day lives.

What is a diet?

There are many, many different diets out there. Just like trends in fashion, certain diets have had their popularity over different decades, then tend to evolve and come back as a newly made-over amazing* idea to create a new you. There are so many diets that it would take another whole blog section to talk through them all, so just a select few are mentioned here; Keto, Paleo, Atkins, Intermittent Fasting etc. etc. You get the picture. They all have their own special characteristics, but the same thing in common; they are all restrictive in some way. They all involve rules. Rules which are there to make you feel like an absolute failure for breaking them.

If we take a step out of diet culture, these rules start to look absolutely ridiculous. We are mammals. We need food to live. Therefore, we were made with appetite hormones and the ability to enjoy food. We crave satisfaction. As babies, we weren’t born worrying about what we should and shouldn’t eat, we ate when we were hungry, and we stopped when we were full. So why, as we grow older, are we being told to ignore our natural hunger cues and place restrictions on ourselves?

*please note the sarcasm.

Why do people diet?

We have a problem within our culture. As a society, we are judgmental. Somehow, we’ve ended up with a system that means that chances of success depend on being a certain ‘look’ or body type. When the vast majority don’t fit in with this ‘ideal,’ it’s understandable how diet culture has become massively popular, seen as the ‘magic cure’ for fitting in. Fortunately, at the start of a new decade, the tide is slowly turning. There are constant campaigns for inclusivity for all body types and we are beginning to view diet culture for what it really is – created by money-makers who don’t give a sh*t about anybody’s health.

It is important that we maintain this movement against diet culture – the emergence of a global pandemic over the last 18 months has made us more health conscious than ever (and more easily succumbing to diet culture bulls**t). So, we need to shout our message louder than ever: if you really care about your health, you won’t put yourself on a diet.

What is wrong with the research on diets?

There is a trend when it comes to healthcare in the UK. In general, weight loss is seen as this ‘magic fix.’ Anybody classed as ‘overweight’ or obese by the flawed Body Mass Index (BMI) will be told that weight loss is the key to their medical problems. Doctors can even prescribe weight loss programmes such as Slimming World,³ through the NHS. This approach comes from a long line of research, concluding that weight loss improves health markers such as hypertension and cholesterol levels in the blood. The problem with this research, is that most are based on a particular dietary intervention, over a relatively short period of time. For example, participants are put on a ‘diet’ for a couple of months, they lose weight, researchers associate this with better health outcomes for the participants, thus concluding, that Hurrah! – weight loss is key. This happens without questioning if weight loss is the actual cause of better health outcomes, or whether any beneficial outcomes are actually due to implementation of behaviours such as exercise, regardless of weight loss. Rarely are participants followed up further down the line. Of those that were, it was found that on average, participants regained 77% of their initial weight loss, after 5 years.⁴ Dietary intervention studies also have a tendency to omit data from participants who dropped out (who are likely to have regained their weight), which skews the results when claiming the success of a particular diet.⁵

Harmful effects on your health: Weight cycling

Weight cycling is a likely outcome for a prone-dieter. It is defined as the constant losing and gaining of weight (yo-yo-ing), usually because of a diet. Weight cycling has been associated with many dangerous health conditions such as hypertension,⁶ chronic inflammation⁷ and even a higher risk of death.⁸ Do these conditions sound familiar? Many studies associate and blame these conditions on the presence of weight gain alone, without considering that the stress of forcing a body through unnatural eating habits is in fact the real problem. This is all without even mentioning the negative psychological effects of dieting.

Psychological Harm

One of the biggest dangers that dieting threatens, is progression to an eating disorder,⁹ particular binge-eating disorders, and bulimia nervosa.⁵ This is not surprising, considering the nature of these diseases. The reasons behind the likelihood of dieting leading to binge-eating have previously been discussed in ‘What Is Intuitive Eating All About?’ which you can read here. Even without reaching the point of a clinically diagnosed eating disorder, diets at least lead to disordered eating symptoms, such as skipping meals and counting calories, which can cause a lot of anxiety when it comes to food. Alarmingly, these behaviours have become so normalised within our culture, that we don’t recognise them as disordered. Recent research showed that 45% of girls aged 16 had at least one disordered eating symptom, and 38.5% had between 1-2 disordered eating symptoms.¹⁰

Still fancying that diet?

Has it ever occurred to you that if diets actually worked, then you would never have to do one more than once? The failure of diets is what makes them such a successful business model and why, unfortunately, they won’t be going anywhere anytime soon. These diets are sold in the name of health – but what is healthy about anything that has been discussed here? We deserve at the very least, to enjoy all foods without feeling constant guilt. So where do we go from here? Let’s stop wasting our money and ditch the diets once and for all! Our worth is not based on appearance, it comes from within.

If you’re still battling with thoughts of weight loss and food restriction, please don’t hesitate to reach out for help. Request your free discovery call Here.

References

1. Mintel Press Office (2021). Brits lose count of their calories: Over a third of Brits don’t know how many calories they consume on a typical day. Available at: Brits lose count of their calories: Over a third of Brits don’t know how many calories they consume on a typical day | Mintel.com (Accessed 4^th May 2021)
2. Monte Nido. Statistics on Dieting and Eating Disorders. Available from:Microsoft Word – Statistics_072111v01.doc (montenido.com) (Accessed 4^th May 2021).
3. Slimming World (2021). What is Slimming World on Referral? Available from: What is Slimming World on Referral? (Accessed 4^th May 2021).
4. J. W. Anderson, E. C. Konz, R. C. Frederich, and C. L. Wood (2001). Long-term weight-loss maintenance: a meta-analysis of US studies. The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, vol. 74, no. 5, pp. 579–584.
5. Tylka, T.L., Annunziato, R.A., Burgard, D., Daníelsdóttir, S., Shuman, E., Davis, C. and Calogero, R.M. (2014). The weight-inclusive versus weight-normative approach to health: Evaluating the evidence for prioritizing well-being over weight loss. Journal of obesity, 2014.
6. M. T. Guagnano, E. Ballone, V. Pace-Palitti et al. (2000) “Risk factors for hypertension in obese women. The role of weight cycling,” European Journal of Clinical Nutrition, vol. 54, no. 4, pp. 356–360.
7. K. Strohacker and B. K. McFarlin. (2010) “Influence of obesity, physical inactivity, and weight cycling on chronic inflammation,” Frontiers in Bioscience, vol. 2, no. 2, pp. 98–104.
8. Schwartz, M.W., Seeley, R.J., Zeltser, L.M., Drewnowski, A., Ravussin, E., Redman, L.M. and Leibel, R.L. (2017). Obesity pathogenesis: an endocrine society scientific statement. Endocrine reviews, 38(4), pp.267-296.
9. Hilbert, A., Pike, K.M., Goldschmidt, A.B., Wilfley, D.E., Fairburn, C.G., Dohm, F.A., Walsh, B.T. and Weissman, R.S. (2014). Risk factors across the eating disorders. Psychiatry research, 220(1-2), pp.500-506.
10. Bornioli, A., Lewis-Smith, H., Smith, A., Slater, A. and Bray, I. (2019). Adolescent body dissatisfaction and disordered eating: Predictors of later risky health behaviours. Social Science & Medicine, 238, p.112458.