What the Diet Ads Don't Tell You

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I'm all fired up!

Over the past few months, I’ve been bombarded with ads for diet programs.

It’s worse than the New Year’s onslaught.

And, it’s infuriating.

The diet companies seem to be preying on people’s vulnerabilities during this unprecedented time of great fear, stress, anguish and uncertainty.

It feels like they’re saying we should be more concerned about losing weight than surviving a devastating global pandemic.

It’s Not a “Diet”
In an attempt to be seen as relevant, acceptable and cool to consumers today, most diet companies are careful to claim their programs aren’t diets but rather “wellness plans” or “lifestyle changes” or “biohacks."

Yet, their programs include telling you what, how much and/or when you’re allowed to eat.

Sounds like a diet to me!

I want to scream when I see the dieters (actors?) in these ads prancing around the screen exclaiming how easy it’s been to lose X pounds in just X weeks.

The truth is, you can lose weight on pretty much any program.

What the diet companies don’t tell you, however, is there is only about a five-percent chance you will maintain your weight loss.

They also don’t tell you it’s likely you’ll regain more weight than you lost as up to two-thirds of dieters typically do.

So much for the “life-long” or “permanent” results they often promise to deliver!

One has to wonder how they even go about tracking their “lifetime” results.

Warning: Potential Side Effects
In addition to rebound weight gain, following are some of the other potential side effects of dieting you aren’t warned about:

If you have a history of dieting, you’re likely quite familiar with many of these outcomes.

It’s also likely you’ve blamed yourself, your lack of willpower and your lack of self-discipline when a diet didn’t work.

Please understand this: You don’t fail a diet—a diet fails you!

Never Be Allowed
Imagine if diet companies, like drug manufacturers, had to include all of the potential side effects of dieting in their advertisements.

Here's what the originators of Intuitive Eating have to say about the futility of dieting and the harm it can cause:

“If dieting programs had to stand up to the same scrutiny as medication, they would never be allowed for public consumption. Imagine, for example, taking an asthma medication, which improves your breathing for a few weeks, but in the long run, causes your lungs and breathing to worsen.”

Become Fully Informed
When you’re unhappy with your eating and your body, the success stories promoted in the diet ads can understandably tempt you to try one more diet.

I get it. I’ve been there myself.

The desire to diet and lose weight is completely understandable given our weight-stigmatizing, thin-idolizing culture, our tendency to conflate weight with health, and the illusion of control dieting provides in a world full of uncertainty.

While I am anti-diet, I completely believe in body autonomy including the right to diet.

I also believe people should be made aware of the physical and psychological harm dieting can cause so they can make a fully informed decision about what’s truly best for their overall wellbeing. It’s unethical to do otherwise.

If you’re considering participating in an intentional weight loss program, I encourage you to do your research.

Look for solid scientific data demonstrating a program leads to long-term, sustainable weight loss (i.e., multiple years versus a few months) for the majority of its participants—without causing any adverse side effects or requiring constant self-monitoring.

Don’t be surprised, however, if you discover it doesn’t exist! 

Dieting Won’t Bring You Peace and Wellbeing
If you want a healthy, peaceful relationship with food and your body, despite what the $72 billion diet industry wants you to believe, it can’t be achieved through dieting.

Rather than put all your energy toward depriving yourself for a short-term result with potentially harmful long-term consequences, what if you put it towards healing your relationship with food and your body, reclaiming your ability to eat intuitively, and engaging in weight-neutral self-care so you can truly experience the peace, ease and wellbeing you’re longing for?

The Pizza's Aroma Hugged Me Like a Warm Blanket

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Last week, one of my favorite bakeries reopened.

It’s a neighborhood co-op I’ve been going to for decades that closed in mid-March due to the pandemic.

I quickly ordered one of their half-baked pizzas. I had been craving their pizza for months and wanted to ensure I got one before they sold out.

As I baked it later that evening, the distinctive aroma of its sourdough crust wafted through my apartment.

My body responded as if it was being hugged by a warm blanket.

The aroma transported me to a time years ago when I frequently picked up one of the bakery’s pizzas to bake for dinner.

It was a time in my life when things felt simpler, less uncertain, less heartbreaking.

I was struck by how much just the smell of the pizza comforted me—even more than its taste, which I also quite savored. 

Of course, it didn’t take away my sadness, anger, pain and uncertainty.

But, for a brief moment, it did provide some much-needed comfort.

Demonized by Diet Culture
Despite its tremendous power to soothe, diet culture has demonized comfort food.

It has taught us to feel bad, guilty, weak or ashamed when we turn to it to navigate tough times.

As a result, we often feel we have to justify our desires, hide our eating, and make up for our “food sins.”

Nothing could be further from the truth.

Rightful Coping Tool
Food’s ability to soothe our mind, body and soul is something to embrace and celebrate.

Providing comfort is just one of the many roles it plays in our lives, one of the many ways it meets our needs, and one of the many gifts it gives us.

For many of us, food is an easily accessible coping mechanism—one that has a rightful place in our emotional coping toolkit.

Once I Open the Bag, I Can't Stop!

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I wonder if you can relate to any of this story?

Ever since she was a kid, Kendra loved barbecue potato chips. They reminded her of summer pool parties, lakeside picnics and backyard cookouts.

When she began dieting in her 20s, she rarely let herself eat them. Her beloved salty snacks had been put on her “bad” foods list.

However, making the chips a forbidden food backfired. Depriving herself of them only intensified her cravings.

Soon they became one of Kendra's "trigger foods."

When she would break down and finally eat the chips, her eating felt out of control.

Once she started crunching away on them, she couldn’t stop. She ate with a sense of urgency, barely even tasting them.

Halfway through the bag, she’d tell herself, “What the hell. I’ve come this far, I might as well keep going since I’m never letting myself have these again. By polishing them off now, I'll be able to get back on track tomorrow.”

As she licked the barbecue seasoning off her fingers, Kendra would be overcome with tremendous guilt and shame.

These feelings, coupled with the overeating, provided her with false evidence that she simply couldn’t be trusted with the chips. She vowed to never let them cross her lips again.

But she couldn’t stop thinking about them!

The Habituation Effect
Feeling obsessed with your forbidden foods is a natural outcome of dieting and deprivation. Telling yourself you can’t have something often makes you want it even more.

When you make foods off limits, whether it’s chocolate, ice cream, bread, chips or fries, it elevates their desirability, reward value and power.

In order to make peace with the chips and stop her restrict-binge-repent-repeat cycle, Kendra needed to experience the habituation effect.

Habituation means the more you eat a particular food, the less appealing and enticing it becomes.

As its novelty and allure wears off, the food becomes neutral. It’s no longer a big deal. You desire it less. (You’ve probably experienced this with leftovers.)

Forbidden-food rules, food restriction and dieting prevent habituation. Lack of habituation, combined with the fear you'll never be able to eat a certain food again, commonly results in intense cravings, overeating and binge eating.

Unconditional Permission to Eat
In the past, Kendra would only allow herself to eat barbecue chips on special occasions since she always ended up losing control and overdoing it.

In order to habituate to the chips, she started to eat them every day, sometimes a few times a day.

At first, Kendra was scared to have the chips around all the time. As she feared, she did continue to overeat them for a while. However, although she didn’t trust herself yet, she did trust the process and stuck with it.

By giving herself unconditional permission to enjoy the chips whenever she wanted and however much she wanted, Kendra was able to neutralize her relationship with them.

Eventually, her desire for the chips diminished. Sometimes she completely forgot they were in her cupboard! When she did want them, she was able to eat an amount that felt just right, completely guilt-free.

Encouraged by the outcome, Kendra slowly started eating her other forbidden foods, gradually rebuilding her self-trust while enjoying a more peaceful, relaxed relationship with food.