Diets as an industry matter The diet industry is a multi-billion dollar industry. Within the structure of that industry there is a great deal at stake to keep women hooked into the obsession about their beauty, their weight and their dieting practices. In fact, there are more health clubs, spas, diet books, diet supplements, diet foods, newspaper and magazine articles, and experts in the field of weight loss than ever before in the history of our country, and there is also more obesity than ever before. It seems that these obsessions have led to big money for the cosmetic and diet industries. The message delivered to women from the advertising industry is that we are not acceptable the way we are naturally. We come to measure our worth not by our character, accomplishments, or intelligence, but by our body size and shape.
Diet industry billboards catch our eye at every corner with slogans such as "weight no more" or "waist away". The industry itself really puts the hit on at certain times of the year, such as before and after holidays and in the spring time just before the summer months of bathing suit bodies making their debut. The diet industry reinforces a belief system that says that diets don't work for permanent weight loss. They take the attitude or assume that you still have or again will have a weight problem and just want to let you know what's new on the market to help you with your current weight problem. They never assume that you are able to remain thin after losing some weight. They know better. The best kept secret of the diet industry seems to be that diets don't work (only as a temporary intervention, not as a permanent solution to the problem).
One of the most serious consequences of dieting is that it causes people to think obsessively about food. Food becomes the enemy. On a diet there are "good" foods and "bad" foods. "Good" and "bad" are moral judgments. "Good" foods are low-calorie, dietetic foods that a person is supposed to eat to lose weight. "Bad" foods are high-calorie foods that are suppose to be fattening - "cheater's foods" - foods to feel guilty about during and after eating them. These moral judgments of "good" and "bad" are then extended to the person eating the food. If you eat "good" foods, you are a "good" person and if you eat "bad" foods, you are a "bad" person. This is taking the statement "you are what you eat" entirely too literally.
Diets keep us just like children. They get us to give up our control over our food choices, time schedules, food likes and dislikes, eating habits and internal cues in exchange for the "ideal" dietary plan. The diet industry takes on the role of our parent - and a critical, demanding parent at that. Diets perpetuate a feeling of helplessness akin to childhood feelings. Diets perpetuate deprivation and set people up to cheat. They don't allow us (if we are to stick to the program) to eat the foods we enjoy. In fact, they teach us to hate the foods we love and to love the foods we hate. When dieting, you are not allowed to eat according to your body's needs or desires. This builds up a back log of deprivation that brings on a binge cycle. At that point you have become like a starving animal - starving for the desired food - and when you finally get it, you seem to go out of control with ecstasy and gorge yourself. In fact, the harder and more often you push down a desire, the stronger it becomes. You keep reinforcing the denial of the dietary need.
Denial of individual needs perpetuates a separation of mind and body, yet the two are interrelated. We were all born with the right internal cues. As babies when we weren't hungry, we would push the food away. If it didn't agree with us, we wouldn't force it down (like we do as adults), we would spit it up. As children, we refused to eat particular foods that didn't appeal to us. We would pick at our food to get exactly what would please us. Perhaps we were even accused of being a "fussy eater". We stopped eating when we were full or not hungry anymore with a simple statement like "I don't want any more." Other things in life were more important than food. If we had an important place to go, food could always wait. Living a full life, every moment, was more important than eating.
An extract from The Psychology of Ideal Body Image as an Oppressive Force in the Lives of Women
by Barbara A. Cohen, Ph.D. |
