April 2010: MetLife LifeAdvice
Why Diets Don't Work
Originally published in Life Advice, a newsletter for MetLife Total Control Account Holders, April 2010.
A staggering 68 percent of Americans are overweight according to a January 2010 study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA). And one-third of all Americans are classified as obese. Those rates mean obesity is epidemic in the United States.
Despite the fact that diet books top the bestseller charts, obesity researchers report that over 95 percent of dieters gain back all the weight they’ve lost, according to the New York Daily News.
So, the question is: With diet success rates so grim, why are Americans infamously obsessed with trying the latest fad diet to hit the bookshelves?
One possible answer: Yo-yo dieters may be unwilling to confront food addiction, which is a serious, often deadly disease, and develop healthy eating plans that will sustain them for the rest of their lives.
Obsessed with food?
Consider that Americans are not merely obsessed with dieting; we’re obsessed with food itself.
Food and restaurant ads and weight loss plans dominate the advertising media. If you watch television during prime time, chances are you’re inundated with commercials touting cheap fast food followed by diet center spots. It doesn’t take genius to realize that the former contributes to the need for the latter. Americans seemingly want their cake and to eat it too and to lose weight and maintain weight loss while doing so. That’s simply not possible.
According to U.S. News & World Report, 46 percent of Americans claim losing weight as a top New Year’s resolution, and we make this resolution year in and year out. If you’re caught in the futility of the dieting cycle, are you willing to try something different?
Time for a change
The failure of most popular diets is that they don’t offer overweight people a long-term solution. And even the diets that do include a lifelong plan can’t incorporate meaningful support for overcoming difficult times, complacency and boredom with a new way of eating.
A more sustainable approach to achieving and maintaining healthy weight is to focus on meal plans that are comprised of simple, nutritious whole foods, eaten in appropriate quantities, in three meals per day.
Eliminate snacking and all foods that you can’t stop eating once you start. No gimmicks, no shakes, no starving.
Sounds simple, but it can be challenging to do in this food-obsessed culture.
That’s why thousands have turned to Food Addicts in Recovery Anonymous (FA) for help.
FA is a 12-Step program, based on the principles and traditions of Alcoholics Anonymous, that helps anyone who wants to stop eating addictively.
FA, which is free, helps members create individualized,healthy,balanced food plans that eliminate sugar and flour. Members also abstain from eating other foods that set off their individual cravings. FA members report obtaining and maintaining their healthy weight consistently for years, achieved one day at a time.
Sources: JAMA (01/10), New York Daily News (10/16/09), U.S. News & World Report (12/24/09)