Why Do We Diet?

Tall, skinny, blonde hair and blue eyes—the picturesque American beauty standard for women. The “thin-ideal,” or the idea that thinner people and especially women are more conventionally attractive than those who are not, has become culturally accepted in America as the beauty standard. The issue with this being the beauty standard is that most of the time this level of “thinness” is actually very unhealthy and physically unattainable for most individuals. Being this lean means that body fat is so low that ribs are visible and arms and legs are stick-like. In order to become this thin, strict dieting and exercise is required to the point of malnutrition and overexertion—an incredibly unhealthy combination for almost all individuals in any situation. With this idealized degree of thinness being so out of reach and unhealthy to attain came the birth of “fad diets”. A fad diet, or a diet that is marketed to help an individual lose weight without much time or effort, came as a “quick and easy” solution to help people achieve the unachievable beauty standard—although most of the time they prove to not be effective. With that being said, men and specifically women in America are so quick to go on a fad diet although they are proven to be bad and potentially cause disordered eating because of the beauty standard being unattainable, and the only way to achieve that look is to either be born that way or get to that point unhealthily.

The beauty standard for women is a funny thing because it has never been consistent over time. Like all trends, the trends of what beautiful looks like has changed dramatically. Starting in the 15th century Renaissance era, curvy women with higher levels of body fat were seen as the beauty standard—their weight physically showed their “financial and social abundance”. Men and women alike embraced gluttony because it was another way for them to show off their wealth. In the 17th century, the beauty standard for women was still well-fed and larger due to the ideal of women being fertile, and was celebrated for the “ability to fulfill the desires of men” by giving them children. It wasn’t until around the 19th century when thin figures became more fashionable. The corsets of the Victorian era were extremely restrictive and sinched women in to have extremely thin waists and fuller hips. Thinness became associated with subservience, high social ranking, and moral values. The 20th century brought the modern beauty standard—this was the beginning of “Hollywood Glamour” and beginning of media representing thinness as synonymous to beauty. Movies and advertisements showed women as having perfect hair, flawless skin, and tiny bodies.

Thinness and beauty have been synonymous since the early 19th century. Different ideals from back then have evolved over time, but the emphasis on body shape has still prevailed, encouraging women to stay in shape. This standard for perfection is expressed through modern day media. In their work on sociocultural idealization of thin female bodies, researcher Janet Polivy and Professor C. Peter Herman discuss how media plays a large role in how women view the ideal body. They wrote:

“One source of widespread communication of the message that thinness is desirable (and conversely that fatness is not) is the media-magazines, television, movies, etc. Ubiquitous ultra-slim models, actresses, and other media figures, and the almost complete absence of heavier women in the media, send a clear message to Western women that to be attractive, desirable, and successful, they must be thin. Endless repetition presumably increases the likelihood that the message will become internalized and have an impact on women’s behavior.”

Media glorifies thin women by portraying “beautiful women” as only being thin. In almost all TV shows and movies, the beautiful women are the ones with perfect hair, makeup and bodies while the “awkward” characters or the “unattractive” ones were the women who were overweight. The constant consumption of this information in women inevitably causes body image issues over time. The idea that thin women are more attractive becomes internalized because society adapts to the idea that the media is spewing—this causes women to want to be thin like models and actresses.

One issue with thinness being promoted through media is that not all women possess the same ability to be that thin. In fact, scientifically, it is almost impossible for most women to reach such a low level of body fat. Most people have a weight range already predetermined by their genetics, and one’s body will do what it can to maintain that weight causing cycles like binge eating after a period of starvation—creating extremely unhealthy eating cycles. When a body is starved below a caloric intake of its basal metabolic rate—or the number of calories that an individual’s body needs in order to sustain life and keep all of one’s organs alive—on a consistent basis, the mind will take over and cause cycles of binge eating to maintain life. As dramatic as that sounds, starving one’s self can make the body think it’s in danger and go into survival mode. It is estimated that people can go about 1-3 months without any food at all, with that number in mind, it is very dangerous to eat below basal metabolic rate for extended periods of time. Not only will metabolism slow down making it even harder to lose weight, but the body can eventually shut down and medical attention may be required. The idealized thin body is so unnatural for some women that their bodies think that they are dying—it is unhealthy and symptomatic of malnutrition. Ironically it is observed that people who tend to have disordered eating in an attempt to look thin actually come from societies where there is an abundance of food—another piece of evidence pointing towards the tie between media and dieting

This is where fad dieting comes into play. Fad dieting preys on the insecurity that is created by media’s perception that being thin is being beautiful. Just typing in “quick diets” into google yields around 87 million results with titles like “Top 5 Best Diet Plans 2022”, “Rapid Diet Plan – Most Effective Weight Loss App” and “Diets that work fast”. Almost as abundant as media depicting what a body “should” look like is a fad diet to go with it. In her book Media and the Rhetoric of Body Perfection, Author Deborah Harris-Moore examines “…the ways in which Western media capitalize on body anxiety by presenting physical perfection as a moral imperative, while advertising quick and effective transformation methods to erase physical imperfections.” She examines how shows like “The Biggest Loser” and “Extreme Makeover” influence society and popular culture. Even the name “The Biggest Loser” is very indicative of how society views people who are overweight—the name is so harsh and offensive to those who are considered “heavier”. Calling those who are overweight a “big loser” is almost childish and resembles child-like bullying. Wording like this and implications that come with rhetoric towards people who are overweight continues to push the idea that only people who are skinny are beautiful. It is the little things in media and society that influence people to try and find quick fixes for weight. While weight loss is necessary for some people to maintain a healthy lifestyle, there are very unhealthy ways of losing weight.

One of the biggest risks with fad dieting is the lack of research behind most of it. The internet is full of non-science backed weight loss plans that are basically glorified disordered eating. In a study called Misleading Health-Related Information Promoted Through Video-Based Social Media: Anorexia on YouTube researchers found that in proportion to actual health information, the most highly-rated and interacted with videos about health promote anorexia as a healthy lifestyle. While cutting calories and maintaining a strict diet can help one lose weight quickly, it is not a sustainable way to maintain weight loss or continue with as a normal day-to-day diet. This is extremely dangerous especially to young girls who could very well just stumble across one of these videos and not know any better—little girls who may be insecure about their weight and want to potentially try one of the harmful fad diets. There is little to no filtering of this information online—anyone can post anything for the most part and advertise themselves as a professional. Most of the time these people use edited before and after pictures so that they can make a profit off of some product they are selling. Along with that, the number of models who post “What I Eat in A Day” videos where they eat less than 1000 calories is astounding, but what is more astounding is the people who follow that diet because they do not know any better and think it will make them look like the model.

The dieting market has truly capitalized on this goal of losing weight quickly. The vitamin and supplement market has exploded in the past couple years. In his article “Americans Have Forgotten What The Word ‘Health’ Means”, Chief Medical Officer for Valence Health, Roy Smythe discusses how the fixation on health and idea of perfect ‘health’ has actually made people less healthy. Smythe goes on to say how “television advertising for drugs has increased by a billion dollars per annum since 2012, and in efforts to achieve over-the-counter health-in-a-pill Americans will spend $21 billion on vitamins and supplements in 2015, despite the fact we have recently learned that the vast majority of the latter do little or nothing for us.” Vitamins and supplements are a good example of fad-type dieting that has no science-based evidence of working yet is sold in mass quantities every year. While certain vitamins and dietary supplements are good for maintaining health, according to the Federal Drug Administration (FDA), they do “not have the authority to review dietary supplement products for safety and effectiveness before they are marketed.” Also according to the FDA, a supplement is only not allowed if it is “marketed for the purpose of treating, diagnosing, preventing, or curing diseases.” This means that by slightly tweaking product descriptions to wording like “may increase metabolism” or “may help one lose weight” is totally allowed without any science backing that claim or being reviewed by the FDA first. Most of these supplements that are being sold are actually completely ineffective and just marketing schemes that prey on people’s insecurities.

The most unfortunate part of these fad diets is that almost all of them are proven to not work over extended periods of time. Since most of the fad diets out there promote very strict caloric deficits—usually by decreasing carbohydrate intake and upping protein intake, the person who is dieting can experience a quick weight loss during the diet, but an even quicker weight gain after the diet is over. In their study Low-carbohydrate ketogenic diets in body weight control: A recurrent plaguing issue of fad diets, Professors Yves Schuts, Jean-Pierre Montani and Abdul G. Dulloo discuss how restrictive diets effect the body. They use ketogenic diets, or low carbohydrate (CHO) and high fat and protein diets, as an example for a “fad diet”. The science behind how this doesn’t work is outlined as follows:

“The low-CHO diets, by inducing a ketogenic state, can under noncoercive conditions lead to a decreased appetite, which can significantly contribute to acute weight loss. Furthermore, rapid regain in body weight occurs as the person switches back to a more “balanced” diet.”

In short, this kind of diet will work so long as the person dieting is maintaining this lifestyle—as soon as they switch back to a balanced diet, weight is gained at an increasing rate due to a decreased metabolism. In an article on the dangers of dieting written for the Linder Center of HOPE, Dr. Anna Guerdjikova talks about metabolism and dieting in more depth. She explains how “[a]ggressive dieting lowers the base metabolic rate, meaning one burns less energy when resting, resulting in significantly lower daily needs in order to sustain achieved weight after the diet is over. Returning to normalized eating habits at this lower base metabolic rate results in commonly seen post dieting weight gain.” What this quote is saying is that in order to maintain the weight achieved by the dieting, one has to decrease the amount of food they eat continuously over-time in order for it to be effective. Resting metabolic rate will keep lowering and lowering the less and less a person eats as a way for the body to “catch up” with the dieting. People will burn less calories at rest than they did before the diet. The constant lowering of caloric intake to maintain an unhealthily low weigh is what leads to forms anorexia being advertised as diet plan.

Coupled with the fact that dieting can be horrible for your body, dieting can be horrible for mental health as well and cause disordered eating. Media is constantly idealizing a thin body that is not attainable, and diets that are bound not to work increase the chances for people to develop eating disorders in order to maintain an unhealthy weight. In their article “Longitudinal predictors of dieting and disordered eating among young adults in the U.S”, Dr Janet M. Liechty and PHD Candidate Meng-Jung Lee discuss how early body image issues and weight control effect people’s eating patterns later in life. Their study concluded that the “[p]revalence of any disordered eating indicator among young adults ranged from 2 to 6%, and binge eating was the most prevalent type in the total sample and in both sexes. In addition, 27% of women and 11% of men reported dieting to lose weight in young adulthood.” And from this disordered eating, “[d]epression was the most frequently reported symptom to occur by itself”. This is especially relevant information today because more and more children are gaining access to social media and different media outlets. The children of today are more exposed to media than any other generation before which puts them at a greater risk for disordered eating within their lifetime, as well as the possibility of depression along with that disordered eating. Eating disorders create bad relationships with food and puts labels of “good” or “bad” on food. Labeling food as “bad” creates guilt when that food is ingested, and that guilt can spiral out of control until eventually people become scared to eat certain foods—known as Avoidant/Restrictive Food Intake Disorder (ARFID). ARFID on its own is bad for health, but it can also lead to anorexia and binge eating disorder—binge eating disorder is when one doesn’t eat for long periods of time but then eats excessive amounts of food to cope with the periods of starvation. Any disordered eating can throw off equilibrium in the body and is bad long term and in most cases requires professional help to fix.

While there is a lot of misinformation available online about dieting, there are safe and healthy ways to diet and lose weight. Effective and long-lasting weight loss is not a quick fix that fad diets advertise. Healthy eating is a lifestyle change most of the time. According to the World Health Organization (WHO), a healthy diet is a balanced diet that contains proteins, fats and carbohydrates. It is important to stick to whole foods, and foods that are low in in processed ingredients, sugars and salt. Typically, that consists of fruits and vegetables as well as meat or some other form of plant-based protein if the individual is plant-based. The most important thing that comes with a healthy diet is balance. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), eating unhealthily every once in a while is okay and actually promoted. Having a balanced diet of healthy and unhealthy food helps to prevent eating disorders such as ARFID. Having strong aversions to certain foods is more harm than it’s worth most of the time. Diet is one of the most important factors in order to maintain a healthy life style, but exercise is almost just as important. According to Mana Medical Associates, physical activity is crucial for a myriad of reasons—it can help prevent diseases, extend life expectancy, prevent injury, improve quality of life and improve overall health as well. Like diets, however, it is important to find balance between both healthy activity and rest in order to let the body recover properly.

From gluttonous to stick skinny, the beauty standard in America has truly transformed eating patterns for young women who consume moderate amounts of media. The beginning of modern media in America—Hollywood and the media that came from there—was the beginning of beautiful equals thin being shared with women across the country. The idea that all women had to be skinny in order to be beautiful was actually quite harmful to many women, especially since it is not even biologically possible for some people to have that low of body fat, and can actually cause health problems down the line. Yet, this trend continued on and continues on today. Subconsciously, people are fed information in mass quantities whether that be from advertisements, movies, TV shows, or social media, and lots of that information is telling young women—directly or indirectly—that they have to look a certain way in order to be beautiful. With that being repeatedly reminded to young women, eventually it becomes internalized and they start to take that as a fact—that they cannot be beautiful unless they are thin. While this is disgustingly false, it is what is taught. From that mindset, the capitalist society we live in profited on that idea, companies take advantage of these insecurities that media creates and sells fad diets as a “fix” for weight problems. Unfortunately, most of the time the diets are actually just glorified disordered eating. Most fad diets typically involve cutting out carbohydrates and severely reducing caloric intake to unsafe levels—resulting in a reduced metabolism and dramatic weight gain after the diet is over. Psychologically this leads to problems with food later on in life and only makes the original issue worse and worse. The only real diet that works is a balanced daily diet that is coupled with moderate activity. All in all, Americans and especially American women, are so quick to hop on a fad diet because modern media is telling them that they have to in order to be beautiful. There is so much misinformation about health available online that it drowns out the actual health advice from professionals. Actual health advice will encourage balance, not disordered eating. The most important thing to remember is that weight does not determine beauty—the beauty standard is grossly unattainable and not the definition of what beautiful looks like.