Let’s imagine we have a friend named Jane. Jane has short, curly hair that she wishes was long, straight hair. One day she shares that she found a new product, let's call it "Grow," at the store that says it will transform hair like Jane’s into the hair of her dreams. When we look up Grow, we discover that Grow is really expensive! It is also known for smelling terrible and being difficult to use. It’s also super time-consuming to use, so Jane will need to plan to spend hours a day on her hair.
According to the research on Grow, she’ll also need to use the exact right amount every single day for the rest of her life or it won’t work. But the real kicker is that there is research that shows that 90% of the people who use Grow will end up with hair that is damaged and shorter than it was before. In fact, most users of Grow ended up feeling disappointed and ashamed that Grow didn’t work for them, even when they used it correctly. Now, in this scenario, how bonkers would it be for Jane to keep buying Grow? Most of us would probably tell Jane to put the Grow away and to save her money, right? Maybe we’d even encourage her to see how cute her short and curly hair is instead of trying so hard to change it.
But, here’s the thing: Swap out the imaginary Grow and replace it with the very real $33 billion dollar a year diet industry and suddenly a whole lot of us may realize that we are the Jane in this scenario.
In the United States, diets are a way of life.
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, on any given day in the United States, nearly 20% of adults report being on a diet. An estimated 45 million Americans will attempt to lose weight through diet and exercise in a given year. The diet and weight-loss industry is big business and there is no shortage of plans, shakes, supplements, workouts, and food products designed to encourage people to spend money to lose pounds. The diet industry is hugely profitable, partially because, according to researchers, both health care providers and dieters have “wildly unrealistic expectations for weight loss outcomes.”
The diet industry is a business that is also designed for repeat customers who are likely to blame themselves for the diet product "not working," even though there is a wealth of research that shows that diets don't work for almost everyone.
To put it simply: Most people who diet expect that it will result in significant, lasting weight loss.
Unfortunately, a growing body of research is proving that the reality is actually the opposite. The only lasting change most dieters experience is long-term weight gain. Accompanying that weight gain is, for many people, feelings of shame, depression, and disappointment in themselves, which may actually be worse for our health than some “extra” weight might be.
According to researchers, most dieters who lose more than 10% of their weight (or 15 pounds for a 150-pound person) will regain at least half of that weight in the first two years after the diet. In fact, only about 20% of dieters will keep off 10% of their body weight in the first year. By five years after the diet, most dieters will have regained 80% or more of the weight that they lost.
That phenomenon of gaining weight after dieting is so real that researchers now believe that one of the biggest predictors of future weight gain is engaging in dieting behavior. To put it even more simply, the more diets a person does, the more likely it is that they will gain weight in the future.
Dieters are likely to gain weight back for a lot of reasons, and NOT because they aren't trying hard enough.
The reasons for this are biological, social, and practical. Biologically, our bodies are designed for homeostasis. Our bodies crave stability and the reductions of calories or the sudden increase in physical activity that tends to go with pursuing intentional weight loss throw the body out of homeostasis, so the body responds by burning fewer calories and trying to get back to stability (this is why most dieters hit an inevitable plateau where weight loss slows or stops).
Most of us also live in social environments that researchers describe as obesongenic, meaning that they are designed to encourage weight gain. Things like lengthy car commutes instead of walking to work, easy access to highly processed foods like fast food, long working days, and prolonged stress all contribute to a social environment that is perfect for weight gain.
Diets also fail because they aren’t designed to be sustainable. Essentially, in order for a diet to “work” (assuming we are defining “work” as long-term sustained loss of more than 10% of a person’s body weight), the person has to keep doing what they are doing to lose weight for the rest of their life. And the reality is that most people tend to diet in ways that require careful planning (like counting macros), denying themselves food they love (paleo or keto comes to mind), or by consuming things like shakes or pre-packaged meals that are expensive or just not that tasty. For completely understandable reasons, most people on diets don’t want to eat like they are on a diet for the rest of their lives.
Some folks also turn to fitness for weight loss and the science on that may also surprise people.
First, the good news: Research shows that having a regular exercise habit (think 30 minutes of movement, three to four times a week) is positively associated with improving cardiovascular fitness, reducing symptoms of depression, and helping manage blood pressure and insulin sensitivity. We love that! But exercise is not correlated with weight loss, as many studies have shown. In fact, some people who engage in especially strenuous exercise may experience weight gain because the body’s drive for homeostasis may result in them feeling hungrier.
In addition to showing that diets and exercise aren’t the path to lasting weight loss, the research is also really clear that both dieting behavior and weight gain following dieting are associated with increased feelings of shame, depression, binge eating behavior, and self-criticism, especially for women. Frustratingly, all of those feelings are also associated with continued weight gain, which is a perfect little circle that can really lead to crappy mental health outcomes for most people.
People who lose weight and keep it off are the exception, and keeping it off really does require making lifelong changes to the amount of calories they consume.
For all the Janes out there who’ve taken multiple rides on the diet roller coaster and have felt bad about themselves for “failing” to lose weight or keep it off, the science is clear: Failing was the most predictable outcome.
The fact that we, collectively, spend billions of dollars a year on the diet products that result in us feeling worse about ourselves in the long run is wild. So, for the sake of both our wallets and our mental health, can we just … stop?
Can we spend our money instead on clothes that feel good on our bodies? Can we spend our time in joyful movement that reduces our blood pressure and helps our mental health? Can we buy food that is nourishing and tasty that we can eat with people who love us and would never body shame us? And, if all of this feels really hard, can we spend money on therapy to learn how to truly love ourselves at any size instead of on a diet plan?
Hell yes, we can. Let's focus on mental health, meaningful relationships, self-care, and movement that feels good, and stop spending money and energy on diets. The science is clear: diets are the problem and we'll be happy when we start treating our bodies like they belong to someone we love.
