Wanna go on a diet?
Do you ever see someone posting on Instagram about keto and get tempted to try it? Or maybe it’s a friend who’s singing the praises of intermittent fasting? Or perhaps it’s another diet... surreptitiously promising you the perfect body, teasing you with eternal happiness, alluring you with false hopes of easy weight loss and success?
Well, my friends, you’re not alone. The diet industry is booming and just about everyone is either on a diet, thinking about going on one, or knows someone who is. One study even found that by the age of 7, 25% of children have engaged in at least one kind of dieting behaviour (1). Another study found that, by adolescence, 41-46% of female teens and 20-31% of male teens have attempted to lose weight at some stage (2). And these sorts of behaviours don’t just go away, they travel through into adulthood.
And do you know how many diets fail? 95%. That’s right! 95% of diets don’t work. When I say that, I mean that 95% of people who go on a diet regain most of the weight they lost within a 2-5 year period...and about one to two thirds of those end up heavier than they were initially (3).
What is a diet anyway?
When I’m talking about diets, I’m not just taking about those obvious ones like keto, intermittent fasting, gluten free, low fat, etc. I’m also talking about all those other sneaky ways diets appear in your life – like using calorie counting apps, making food choices based on how it’ll impact your weight, ignoring your hunger, eating only a certain amount of carbs a day, avoiding certain foods or food groups, not letting yourself eat after a certain time at night and loads more.
So, why don’t diets work?
There are so many reasons that diets don’t work. My main bugbear about diets is that they put the focus on completely the wrong thing! They tell you that your body is the problem and something to be fixed...that being in a certain type of body is wrong, that particular body sizes and shapes are problematic and that other ones are the ‘ideal’ to strive for. But I have some news for you...your body is fabulous exactly as it is! Dieting is often used as a coping strategy – it seems like it’s something that’s easy to control…but this sense of control is short lived and certainly doesn’t solve any issues. Instead of putting all the blame and responsibility on your body (whose sole purpose, by the way, is to keep you happy and healthy)...why not go a layer deeper and get curious about what’s really going on? Perhaps it’s related to your self-esteem, stress at work, social isolation, past trauma or any other number of things. This is where I strongly recommend working with a therapist.
Here are just a few more reasons too. They get you to focus on external cues (e.g. calories, eating according to the clock, and other food rules like what to eat and what not to eat), rather than listening to internal cues (like hunger, fullness, cravings and what you actually want to eat). Diets are also incredibly black and white with an all or nothing mentality – which inevitably sets you up for failure. They focus on restriction rather than abundance. They don’t actually teach you how to understand your body, its wants and its needs. Nor do they equip you with knowledge or skills around what ways of eating actually work best for you. Diets don’t allow for the many nuances and ever changing circumstances that we encounter on a daily basis. They don’t see you as the wonderful unique individual that you are – with your own likes, dislikes, taste preferences, etc.
And what are some of the impacts of dieting?
Diets have numerous psychological and physiological impacts. In particular, there are big links between dieting and the development of eating disorders. The National Eating Disorders Association states that Australian adolescents in particular who engage in dieting are five times more likely to develop an eating disorder than those who don’t (4).
Dieting has been linked to:
Increased cravings and compulsivity around food
Disordered eating behaviours – restrictive eating, binge eating, obsessiveness around food and more
Eating disorders - including anorexia, bulimia, orthorexia and binge eating disorder
Lowered self esteem
Poor body image, body dysmorphic disorder
Weight cycling
Depression and anxiety
Memory impairment
Amenorrhoea (absence of menstruation) and other menstrual irregularities
Infertility
Blood sugar dysregulation
Thyroid issues
Suppressed hormone production
Poor neurotransmitter production and function
Various nutrient deficiencies
Digestive upset
Lower resting energy expenditure
If you’re reading this but still tempted to go on a diet, I get it. You’re the exception right? You’ll be the one who can do it and succeed. We’ve been surrounded by diet culture our whole lives. It’s our norm. It’s familiar and full of promise and it’s understandable that we’re so tempted by it. But let me just ask you a few more questions – what was the last diet you went on? Was it enjoyable? Did your hunger and thoughts about food increase? Did you feel more stressed with choices around food? Did you feel more compulsive around food? Was it something you could sustain? Why did you stop? Oh, and if you ever do still feel tempted…here’s a fabulous tip from Tally Rye.
Okay, so if I shouldn’t diet…what should I do instead?
This is where the non-diet and HAES approaches are incredibly powerful, which you can read more about here. Also please reach out to me, I’m always here to help guide you in the right direction x
(1) Klein, H and Shiffman, KS. (2005). Thin is “in” and stout is “out”: What animated cartoons tell viewers about body weight. Eating and Weight Disorders, 10(2), 107–116.
(2) Daee A, Robinson P, Lawson M, Turpin JA, Gregory B, and Tobias JD. (2002). Psychologic and physiologic effects of dieting in adolescents. South Med J, 95, 1032–41.
(3) NHMRC. (2013). Clinical practice guidelines for the management of overweight and obesity in adults, adolescents and children in Australia.
(4) National Eating Disorders Collaboration. (2021). Disordered Eating and Dieting.
