Consider Second Thoughts Before Embarking on a Diet, Advises Recent Study
A recent study delves into the adverse interpersonal and
psychological effects of yo-yo dieting, highlighting its dangers and
challenges.
A new qualitative study focuses on the negative
interpersonal and psychological repercussions of 'yo-yo dieting,' or weight
cycling. The work emphasises the dangers of yo-yo dieting and how difficult it
is for people to escape the pattern. "Yo-yo dieting - unintentionally
gaining weight and dieting to lose weight only to gain it back and restart the
cycle - is a prevalent part of American culture, with fad diets and
lose-weight-quick plans or drugs normalized as people pursue beauty ideals,"
says Lynsey Romo, corresponding author of a paper on the study and an associate
professor of communication at North Carolina State University.
For the study, researchers conducted in-depth interviews
with 36 adults - 13 men and 23 women - who had experienced weight cycling where
they lost and regained more than 11 pounds. The goal was to learn more about
why and how people entered the yo-yo dieting cycle and how, if at all, they
were able to get out of it.
All the study participants reported wanting to lose weight
due to social stigma related to their weight, and/or because they were
comparing their weight to that of celebrities or peers. "Overwhelmingly,
participants did not start dieting for health reasons, but because they felt
social pressure to lose weight," Romo says. The study participants also
reported engaging in a variety of weight-loss strategies, which resulted in
initial weight loss, but eventual regain.
Regaining the weight led people to feel shame and further
internalize stigma associated with weight - leaving study participants feeling
worse about themselves than they did before they began dieting. This, in turn,
often led people to engage in increasingly extreme behaviors to try to lose
weight again.
"For instance, many participants engaged in disordered
weight management behaviors, such as binge or emotional eating, restricting
food and calories, memorizing calorie counts, being stressed about what they
were eating and the number on the scale, falling back on quick fixes (such as
low-carb diets or diet drugs), overexercising, and avoiding social events with
food to drop pounds fast," says Romo. "Inevitably, these diet
behaviors became unsustainable, and participants regained weight, often more
than they had initially lost."
"Almost all of the study participants became obsessed
with their weight," says Katelin Mueller, co-author of the study and
graduate student at NC State. "Weight loss became a focal point for their
lives, to the point that it distracted them from spending time with friends,
family, and colleagues and reducing weight-gain temptations such as drinking
and overeating."
"Participants referred to the experience as an
addiction or a vicious cycle," Romo says. "Individuals who were able
to understand and address their toxic dieting behaviors were more successful at
breaking the cycle. Strategies people used to combat these toxic behaviors
included focusing on their health rather than the number on the scale, as well
as exercising for fun, rather than counting the number of calories they burned.
“Participants who were more successful at challenging the
cycle were also able to embrace healthy eating behaviors - such as eating a
varied diet and eating when they were hungry - rather than treating eating as
something that needs to be closely monitored, controlled or punished.” However,
the researchers found the vast majority of study participants stuck in the
cycle.
"The combination of ingrained thought patterns,
societal expectations, toxic diet culture, and pervasive weight stigma make it
difficult for people to completely exit the cycle, even when they really want
to," Romo says.
"Ultimately, this study tells us that weight cycling is
a negative practice that can cause people real harm," Romo says. “Our
findings suggest that it can be damaging for people to begin dieting unless it
is medically necessary. Dieting to meet some perceived societal standard
inadvertently set participants up for years of shame, body dissatisfaction,
unhappiness, stress, social comparisons, and weight-related preoccupation. Once
a diet has begun, it is very difficult for many people to avoid a lifelong struggle
with their weight.”