The Diet Industry - The Only Thing You'll Lose is Your Money
We live in a country where we are bombarded with messages that our bodies are not thin enough. We see this on TV and in magazines daily. We are constantly being given subtle messages that if we were thinner, life would be better. The diet industry is ready and willing to take advantage of this belief. The purpose of this article is to make you an educated consumer. When you finish reading you might decide you are just fine the way you are. If you decide you still want to lose weight hopefully you'll have the knowledge to do so in a way that is healthy, safe, and without spending unnecessary money.
In 1990 Americans spent $33 billion dollars on the diet industry. But what are they really getting for their money? The more widely known diet centers first hook customers in with their advertising. They show you before and after pictures of successful dieters. (They never show you the "after the after" pictures of dieters who have regained the weight). They play into your emotions and erroneous beliefs about weight loss. They imply that you will be more desirable if you weigh less. They offer a "quick fix" for a very complicated problem. More significant is what the advertising fails to tell you. They do not tell you what staying on their program entails. They never tell what the total cost of the program will be. They never tell you what percentage of those who start the program are successful and for how long.
I anonymously called several local branches of nationally known diet centers to gather more information. None questioned my desire to lose weight. None entertained for a minute the possibility that not every customer needs to lose weight. Remember, they are selling a product and want to profit regardless of whether you need their product or not. For most plans it was imperative that you buy their food. Buying food from the supermarket (other than fresh fruits and vegetables) was not an option. Most of their profit comes from dieters buying the food from the diet center. Try this experiment yourself. Compare the cost of a week's worth of diet center food with comparable foods from the supermarket. ( In some diet centers they won't even tell you what's in the food, hoping you will assume there is something "magical" about their food). I asked one salesperson "What if the diet doesn't work?" The reply was " If you follow the program it definitely will work." This is not an innocuous statement. It implies that if weight is not lost or regained the customer is to blame.
This fails to take many factors into account. Many of those who try the diet centers have a long history of dieting. Over the years they have tried numerous diets and with each one have reduced their intake and subsequently their metabolic rate. In particular, those who have gone on liquid diets run the risk of a lowered metabolic rate. Each time the diet "fails" and they return to normal eating they do so with a lower metabolism and a greater tendency to store fat. This is because when you go on a diet your body doesn't know you are trying to lose weight. It believes your body can't get enough food so it slows down your metabolic rate in order to conserve energy. This is the starvation reflex.
Another phenomenon starvation can cause is binge eating. Most people who consistently restrict their intake will end up feeling out of control around food at some point. Is this lack of will power? Absolutely not! This is a purely physical response. I compare it to a math equation. If your body needs 2,000 calories a day to function and you feed it 1,000 calories a day after a while your body will begin to crave the deficit. Most often you will make up the deficit calories in the form of binge eating or "grazing" (eating on and off all day long when you’re not hungry). Again, if the diet "prescribed" by a diet center is too low in calories and you end up feeling out of control, the center personnel will tell you it was lack of will power on your part rather than explaining this phenomenon to you.
In one diet center I called the customer chooses their own goal weight. I hope most people can see the problem here. Most people (especially women) would like to weigh far less than what is reasonable. The diet centers once again are setting customers up for failure. It is an almost impossible struggle to try to diet down to less than your set point.
Another point of concern is the lack of professional expertise. Usually the clientele are not medically supervised and their counselors are not trained in nutrition or psychology. It is important to be evaluated by someone qualified to differentiate emotional eating from rebound overeating and medically necessary weight loss from unrealistic goals.
At this point you're probably asking, "How can an industry survive when its product doesn't work and most people fail at their goal?" The answer is quite simple. Repeat business. People are so desperate to lose weight that they refuse to believe that there is no quick fix. They believe the message that they are to blame and they repeatedly try one diet after another, assuming with each failure that it is their own fault. As in so many other aspects of life "knowledge is power". An educated consumer (no pun intended) is a smart consumer.
In 1990 Americans spent $33 billion dollars on the diet industry. But what are they really getting for their money? The more widely known diet centers first hook customers in with their advertising. They show you before and after pictures of successful dieters. (They never show you the "after the after" pictures of dieters who have regained the weight). They play into your emotions and erroneous beliefs about weight loss. They imply that you will be more desirable if you weigh less. They offer a "quick fix" for a very complicated problem. More significant is what the advertising fails to tell you. They do not tell you what staying on their program entails. They never tell what the total cost of the program will be. They never tell you what percentage of those who start the program are successful and for how long.
I anonymously called several local branches of nationally known diet centers to gather more information. None questioned my desire to lose weight. None entertained for a minute the possibility that not every customer needs to lose weight. Remember, they are selling a product and want to profit regardless of whether you need their product or not. For most plans it was imperative that you buy their food. Buying food from the supermarket (other than fresh fruits and vegetables) was not an option. Most of their profit comes from dieters buying the food from the diet center. Try this experiment yourself. Compare the cost of a week's worth of diet center food with comparable foods from the supermarket. ( In some diet centers they won't even tell you what's in the food, hoping you will assume there is something "magical" about their food). I asked one salesperson "What if the diet doesn't work?" The reply was " If you follow the program it definitely will work." This is not an innocuous statement. It implies that if weight is not lost or regained the customer is to blame.
This fails to take many factors into account. Many of those who try the diet centers have a long history of dieting. Over the years they have tried numerous diets and with each one have reduced their intake and subsequently their metabolic rate. In particular, those who have gone on liquid diets run the risk of a lowered metabolic rate. Each time the diet "fails" and they return to normal eating they do so with a lower metabolism and a greater tendency to store fat. This is because when you go on a diet your body doesn't know you are trying to lose weight. It believes your body can't get enough food so it slows down your metabolic rate in order to conserve energy. This is the starvation reflex.
Another phenomenon starvation can cause is binge eating. Most people who consistently restrict their intake will end up feeling out of control around food at some point. Is this lack of will power? Absolutely not! This is a purely physical response. I compare it to a math equation. If your body needs 2,000 calories a day to function and you feed it 1,000 calories a day after a while your body will begin to crave the deficit. Most often you will make up the deficit calories in the form of binge eating or "grazing" (eating on and off all day long when you’re not hungry). Again, if the diet "prescribed" by a diet center is too low in calories and you end up feeling out of control, the center personnel will tell you it was lack of will power on your part rather than explaining this phenomenon to you.
In one diet center I called the customer chooses their own goal weight. I hope most people can see the problem here. Most people (especially women) would like to weigh far less than what is reasonable. The diet centers once again are setting customers up for failure. It is an almost impossible struggle to try to diet down to less than your set point.
Another point of concern is the lack of professional expertise. Usually the clientele are not medically supervised and their counselors are not trained in nutrition or psychology. It is important to be evaluated by someone qualified to differentiate emotional eating from rebound overeating and medically necessary weight loss from unrealistic goals.
At this point you're probably asking, "How can an industry survive when its product doesn't work and most people fail at their goal?" The answer is quite simple. Repeat business. People are so desperate to lose weight that they refuse to believe that there is no quick fix. They believe the message that they are to blame and they repeatedly try one diet after another, assuming with each failure that it is their own fault. As in so many other aspects of life "knowledge is power". An educated consumer (no pun intended) is a smart consumer.
