Reporting that Diets Fail Isn’t Enough: A Manual for Health Reporters

Finally, the message that diets don’t work seems to be seeping into the mainstream media. The risks of long-term food restriction and of chronic intermittent starving have made an impact on those who write about our food culture.

However, the effect of these articles still seems to be minimal. The pressure for thinness remains as strong as ever, and the incidence of eating disorders and disorders eating is as high as ever.

Reporters may be willing to debunk the well-honed message of the diet industry but have yet to tackle the overall thinness complex of our society. As long as thin privilege dominates our culture undeterred, everyone will seek out thinness as a necessary sign of success, no matter the risk and long-term costs.

Conflating thinness with other forms of bias is risky though. Although there are similarities in discrimination against fat people, many people believe thinness is attainable for everyone even if it means using drastic measures such as medications or Bariatric surgery. Thus, people tend to see being fat as a character flaw rather than an attribute. 

The truth is that we all come in different body shapes and sizes. Using one’s body shape as a way to discriminate is just a way of sorting people out into the haves and the have-nots. Thinness is not a sign of success, persistence or value. It’s largely how your body is built.

The media needs to take the next few steps to make a more significant impact.

Redefine the language of weight, specifically about fat and obesity. These terms are not interchangeable. One simply describes a body type and the other pathologizes weight in the medical vernacular.

Second, take the conversation about diets failing another step to include the significant risks of dieting, namely disordered eating and eating disorders.

And third, name the industries that profit from these myths: the diet, exercise and food industries.

The disempowerment of people, mostly women, through this longstanding fallacy needs to stop. Dissemination of the truth around these risky behaviors is one important way to change the pattern of eating in our culture.

The Dangerous Link Between Self-Awareness and Dieting for Women

A consistent message to young women is that they should figure themselves out first before embarking fully on their personal lives, relationships and professional lives. However, this message never seems to apply to young men.

The end result is that women feel compelled to sort through their own experiences, thoughts and feelings with the nagging doubt that they will never figure out who they are. And there is no clear endpoint at which someone knows they have reached this goal. Instead, the target always remains in the distance, just out of reach. The experience of searching for the elusive moment of self-awareness leaves women stuck in failure.

Although this message is intended to empower women, in the end it has the impact of diminishing confidence and delaying gratification. If one is always striving for an unattainable goal, then one can never be fully empowered to go after the important things in life.

Interestingly, the effect of this counterproductive message is to reinforce the power and lure of dieting and weight loss. For a cohort of women undermined by an inherent sense of failure, dieting appears to present a way out. Obsessively dieting and trying to maintain a low weight leads to an immediate, if brief, sense of accomplishment. The goal of weight loss engenders a wave of accolades and approval from men and women. It highlights the empty achievement of weight loss while distracting from the real life achievements that merit attention. And since diets never work, it fuels the cycle of endless dieting.

If women spend their energy on weight loss, they have much less time to focus on other aspects of life.

The underlying message is a myth. Women, just like men, have a right to go after professional and personal achievements without reaching the holy grail of self-awareness. No man is ever told to avoid relationships because he hasn’t figured himself out yet, and no man would decide not to pursue a promotion or a raise while finding himself.

As must as this soul searching made sense for women collectively trying to understand their place in a new world of opportunity after the feminist movement’s achievements in the 70’s, it’s important not to mix up steps forward with needless psychological obstacles.

If society presents immovable psychological hurdles, they stem from a fear of moving forward. But the idea of reaching psychological peace before moving ahead in life is not beneficial. It only reinforces the need for other salves, like dieting, rather than helping women achieve their life goals now.

Body Image

It is well established that the most difficult and intransigent part of eating disorder recovery is body image.

Eating patterns become automatic and rigid, but our bodies are willing to change to a new pattern with time. The exposure to more intense emotions by eating regularly is also hard, and there are new coping skills that can help manage this process.

But our own self image—the literal and figurative vision of ourself in the mirror—appears to be much more fixed. We expect to see that body and that person we have become accustomed to. If that body happens to be very underweight, that image is still what we expect. If that image is more normal looking but abhorrent to the eating disorder eye, then that’s how we perceive it.

But the concept that one could easily transition from a sick looking body to feeling comfortable seeing a normal body is a very large step in recovery for two reasons. First, it means accepting the image of a healthy body at a normal weight and beginning to let go of the illness. Second, this step also means the emotional acceptance that this body is one that does not need change or attention, that it truly is well.

After years of seeing something very different, this change is a very significant one. It demands a true acceptance of the process and effectiveness of recovery.

Body image will change over time, but the mind needs years to fully process the change and accept it. Often the struggle to accept body image is one that leads people back to relapse. The emotional support from treatment providers and also from friends and family is key for people to make it through this part of recovery. Doing so almost always means full recovery and simmers for a long time before coming to fruition.

As one loses the focus on body image, the importance of other parts of life become central. This final step in recovery isn’t an abrupt one. It’s one people glide into over time until they just realize life has changed.

Don’t Conflate Thinness with Success

The collective pressure to be thin and the idealization of thinness are central reasons for the increase in eating disorders in recent decades.

Children are inculcated in the idea that thinness is an achievement and an essential goal to attain. Unless one adheres to this societal guideline, a person is often seen as a failure. For children still developing their own identity, thinness is a simple way to conceive of success as an achievable and straightforward goal.

When adults collude with this fallacy by praising children who lose weight or are thin, they promote and support the paradigm of weight as a central part of adult success.

There is a movement afoot to praise all body shapes and sizes. Body positivity focuses on helping adults and children appreciate their bodies as they are and not focus on negative feelings about one’s body and weight pressures. Clothing advertising is gradually shifting to using models of all shapes and sizes—a way to enable children and adults to see a reflection of themselves in the media rather than see photoshopped pictures that make them feel self-conscious and self-critical.

The last crucial component to fight the idealization of thinness comes in daily conversation. It’s too easy for adults to join the ranks of industries that make thinness seem like a necessity for a healthy life. The food industry, diet industry and medical establishment all promote thinness as a panacea and fat as a sign of sloth and poor health.

Adults need to emphasize to children that their bodies are healthy, natural and a positive part of who they are. Praising weight loss or thin bodies only encourages children to question themselves and their bodies. The goal is to help them find confidence and not use their bodies as a way to doubt themselves and their lives.