The Psychology of Dieting
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The Psychology of Dieting

Jane Ogden

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eBook - ePub

The Psychology of Dieting

Jane Ogden

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About This Book

Why do some of us become overweight? Why is it so difficult to lose weight? How can we adopt healthy attitudes towards food?

The Psychology of Dieting takes a broad and balanced view of the causes of weight gain and the challenges involved in dieting. Exploring the cognitive, emotional and social triggers which lead us to make poor decisions around food, the book considers what it means to diet well. By understanding our psychological selves, the book shows how we can change our unhealthy behaviours and potentially lose weight.

In an era of weight problems, obesity, and dangerous dieting, The Psychology of Dieting shows us that there is no such thing as a miracle diet, and that we must understand how our minds shape the food choices we make.

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Publisher
Routledge
Year
2018
ISBN
9781351386333

1

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A brief history of dieting

For as long as there have been artefacts to discover, records kept and images drawn, women and men have wanted to change how they look. Cave paintings show body adornments and painted faces, ancient digs discover combs and jewellery and Egyptian tombs were packed full of elaborate masks and clothing. More recently women have turned to corsets and lacing, bras and rubber roll-ons, and men either grew facial hair or immaculately shaved at least some of it off. But the body remained something to be modified in line with current trends and fashions.
And then in the 20th century dieting emerged, along with the need to transform the body in a more permanent way. This can be seen through the media and fashion industry, the changing shape of the ideal body and the rise of the dieting industry. It can also be seen in the backlash against dieting that emerged in the 1980s and the current state of play with a proliferation of dieting books and classes. This chapter will explore this history of dieting to illustrate the need for an evidence-based approach – the notion of dieting well.

The media and fashion industry

For centuries, whalebones, latex, nylon and cotton have been used to reshape and rearrange any aspect of the body which did not conform. Think Jane Austen’s Elizabeth Bennett in the 1800s with her Empire line dresses to show off her ample bosom, the painfully tight corsets worn by Flaubert’s Madam Bovary in the 1820s, causing her to forever faint, and the hooped skirts in the 1850s emphasising a narrow waist and larger bottom. Even in the ‘flapper’ days of the 1920s, bras and corsets were an acceptable way to bind down breasts and flatten stomachs.
Then in the late 1960s, women traded in wired and laced corsets for the rubber variety, which in turn were traded in for freedom. Boadicea-like bras were exchanged for the softer, lighter versions which were in turn exchanged for the luxury of going braless. Women were allowed and even expected to release their bodies and to resort to the natural support of flesh and muscles. And then there came the bikini, and along with it Twiggy was launched enthusiastically onto the fashion scene. Suddenly at the beginning of an era of natural control and natural support, women were told that they should not have any flesh to control or support. Bikinis gave no protection and represented a freedom that was only available to those without any excess bodily fat. Twiggy did not need to wear a bra or corset; she had no need to squash her body in, only for it to reappear elsewhere. But this absence of need came not from a desire to free the female body but from the very fact that she had nothing to free. Women could go braless as long as their breasts revealed only a restrained life of their own, and corsets were out as long as what was left behind did not need a corset. And this is where dieting raised its head. Long before the onset of the obesity epidemic, the ’60s represented the onset of the dieting boom, and central to this boom was the dieting industry, which has been on the increase ever since.

The dieting industry

Books, magazines, dieting clubs, newspaper articles, TV programmes, dieting aids, apps, online support groups and exercise videos all make up the dieting industry. This industry has provided a resource for those who need to lose weight. But it has also changed the way in which we think about body size in terms of the stereotypes we hold and a sense that body size can be changed.

Providing a resource

Weight Watchers started in America in 1963 and in Britain in 1967, and the first copy of Slimming magazine was issued in Britain in 1969. Slimmer sold 142,000 copies between January and June in 1990; Weight Watchers UK had an average of 140,000 members, and Slimmer clubs had an average of 40,000 members. Wolf (1990) described the $33 billion a year diet industry in the US, Eyton’s The F Plan Diet (1982) sold 810,000 copies in three weeks and Rosemary Conley’s Complete Hip and Thigh Diet (1989) has sold over 2 million copies. GP services now also offer support for weight loss and the NHS has services for weight loss at various centres around the UK. There is a need for these services, as people respond to their availability. The dieting industry therefore provides a resource for its users by offering information in leaflets, books, face to face contact or on websites, by providing opportunities for networking and group support and by delivering expert care through weigh-ins and reinforcement. This is all useful. But the dieting industry also changes the way we think about body size.

Stereotypes about size

There are many stereotypes associated with body size, and whilst thinness is mostly associated with attractiveness, a sense of control and emotional stability, overweight is associated with being unattractive, being out of control, lacking willpower and laziness. These ideas come from the media and fashion industry. They are also perpetuated by the diet industry that uses slim models to sell the latest low-calorie ready meals, meal replacements, chocolate bars and over-the-counter drugs and model the latest clothes. Often the emphasis is simply on becoming more attractive through losing weight. For example, Mazel in her Beverly Hills Diet (1981) suggested that if someone should comment, ‘You’re getting too thin’, you should reply, ‘Thank you’1. Likewise, magazines publish success stories of women who have lost weight which illustrate how much happier these women feel and how their lives have changed. As Twigg (1997) says of his ‘Kensington diet’, it can “achieve a huge amount for you, including making you look and feel healthier, happier, younger and more zestful”2 (p. 20).
Sometimes the emphasis is control. For example, Conley, who developed the Complete Hip and Thigh Diet (1989) and others such as the Complete Flat Stomach Plan (1996) and Metabolism Booster Diet (1991), wrote that overweight people must have eaten ‘too many fatty and sugary foods which are positively loaded with calories – bread spread with lashings of butter, an abundance of fried foods, cream cakes, biscuits, chocolates, crisps and so on. The types of foods overweight people love’3 (p. 65). Similarly, in The Beverly Hills Diet (1981), Mazel wrote, ‘It is imperative that you exercise control when you eat combinations. Don’t let your heart take over. Eat like a human being, not a fat person’.
And sometimes the diet industry simply associates being overweight with some deep-rooted psychological problems. For example, Levine (1997), in her book I Wish I Were Thin, I Wish I Were Fat, argued that women unconsciously want to be fat and that this is why they overeat; if they can come to terms with these unconscious desires, they can ‘finally fulfill our conscious wish to be thin’4 (p. 13). In fact, Conley (1996) described one woman who lost weight using her diet but regained it and stated that ‘Vivien has had a few personal problems and has regained some of her weight. However, she has resolved to try and lose it again as she was so delighted with her previous success’5 (p. 30). The dieting industry changed the way we think about body size and encouraged us to think that thinness was attractive whilst being overweight was a sign of poor control and psychological problems. Further, this powerful industry also convinced us that body size could be changed and this change was easy as long as we followed their instructions.

Body size can be changed (easily)

Losing weight (and keeping it off) is notoriously hard to do, which is why I am writing this book in order to try to make dieting as effective as it can be! Yet much of the dieting industry presents their product as an inevitable pathway to success. For example, Coleman (1990) opened his book Eat Green – Lose Weight with the statement ‘You should buy this book if you would like to get slim – and stay slim – and you are fed up with short term diets which either fail or become boring’, and later on claimed ‘within months you will feel healthier, fitter, stronger and happier’6 (p. 7). Likewise, De Vries (1989) indicated that his reader should ‘make up your mind that this time you will succeed. No more yo-yoing up and down. You’re going to lose weight and you are going to lose it permanently’7 (p. 20), and Twigg (1997), after describing the success of his clients said, ‘And if it works for them then I promise you – we’re going to make it work for you, too!’2 (p. 17). Even those diets designed not to reduce fat are described as leading to successful weight loss. For example, Lazarides (1999) described fluid as the root of many people’s problems, and said that ‘to be able to sit on the loo and urinate away up to 20 lbs of excess body weight in a few days probably sounds like something out of our wildest dreams’ but if you stick to her diet ‘you will literally be able to urinate much of your excess body weight, sometimes within just a few days’8 (p. 6). The dieting industry offers its vast range of products as being able to change body weight. It emphasises the success of its products and by doing so reinforces the belief that body size and shape can be easily modified and changed by the individual.
The diet industry has therefore proliferated since the 1960s. But, towards the end of the 20th century the tide started to turn and a backlash to dieting appeared.

The backlash against dieting

Susie Orbach’s book Fat Is a Feminist Issue was first published in 1978 and highlighted the social pressures to be thin and the complex reasons why women overeat. It was subtitled ‘the anti-diet guide’. In 1982, Katahn subtitled his book How to Stop Dieting Forever, and his opening statement read, ‘I am writing this book because, frankly I am sick and tired of the nonsense being written that offers dieting as a means for permanent weight control’9 (p. 9). Likewise, the books Dieting Makes You Fat by Cannon and Einzig and Breaking the Diet Habit by Polivy and Herman were published in 1983. But it was not until the 1990s that the backlash gained momentum, and organisations such as Diet Breakers and the Fat Acceptance movement were set up, books praising the joys of being overweight were written and magazines published articles about ‘alternatives to dieting’. For example, Smith (1993) offered her book Fibrenetics as a way to ‘finally kick the whole concept of dieting out of the window’10 (p. 12), I published my own book in 1992 called Fat Chance: The Myth of Dieting Explained and programmes to encourage ‘undieting’ were established by researchers such as Janet Polivy and Peter Herman. Particularly in the US, Canada and UK, people became sceptical about the value of dieting, and ‘to be on a diet’ became tainted with a sense of conformity. This did not, however, stop women dieting. And the shelves were still full of guides to weight loss.

A more balanced approach

Whilst many fad diets emerge each year and dieters still crave the simple magic pill that will offer them the effortless and successful diet, the past few decades have seen a more balanced approach to dieting. The obesity epidemic took off in the 1980s and in response to this, together with a recognition that dieting is hard, nutritionists, dieticians, psychologists, weight management groups and behaviour change experts now mostly speak of ‘healthy eating’ or a ‘healthy lifestyle’ that is sustainable over the longer term. And although this may require the initial impetus of large amounts of weight loss provided by medication, very-low-calorie diets or even surgery, it is increasingly recognised that habits need to change in a way that people can maintain for the rest of their lives. But although the will is now there to do the right thing, it remains unclear what this right thing is. I teach dieticians and nutritionists who are experts in biochemistry and know exactly what people should eat but are crying out for skills on how to get them to change their behaviour. And I meet overweight people who want to lose weight the right way, for the rest of their lives, but are confused by the multitude of messages they receive.
But this isn’t to pretend that there is one simple right way to diet, lose weight and keep it off forever. There isn’t. There are many different approaches that work for some of the people some of the time. And the aim of this book is to present these approaches to weight loss in an accessible way so that they can be used either by those who need to lose weight or those who want to help others to do the same. I am calling this ‘a tool kit for dieting well’ and it is the result of 30 years of research and 30 years of refusing to answer the question ‘How do I lose weight?’ Well, at last I feel as if I might have some sort of answer.

A tool kit for dieting well

Being overweight is essentially a product of two factors: what goes on in our heads and the triggers in the environment we live in. These in turn lead to doing less than we should and eating more than we need. The rest of this book will first explore the ways in which these factors promote weight gain, then describe a number of strategies to help people to change what happens in their head as well as manage their environment.

2

_______

Being overweight or obese

The main reason for dieting is being overweight or obese, and it would have been impossible to miss the epidemic of weight gain that has occurred since about the 1980s. This chapter will describe how to determine if you are overweight and the prevalence, consequences and causes of weight gain in terms of genetics and the environment. The role of behaviour in terms of eating too much and doing too little is key to both weight gain and dieting, and these are covered in the next two chapters (Chapters 3 and 4).

What is overweight?

Whether or not a person is overweight or obese can be determined using a number of techniques such as waist circumference, percentage of body fat or population norms. But the easiest way is to calculate body mass index (BMI), a ratio between height and weight which can be calculated using any online BMI calculator. This produces a number as follows: normal weight: 18–24.9; overweight: 25–29.9; obese: 30+. Many people who are normal weight diet to change the way they look. This can create a number of problems including body dissatisfaction, eating disorders and even weight gain (see Chapter 5). But many who are overweight or obese also diet to improve their health. This can also create all the same problems as with normal weight people (see Chapter 5). But at times it can also lead to weight loss and improvements in health and well-being. These are the people who should be dieting as long as they diet well.

Who is overweight?

Since the 1980s adults have become heavier in most countries of the world. The rates of adult obesity in the UK increased dramatically from 1993 to about 2007 but have been...

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