Yo-yo dieting is bad for your health; here's why
PTC News Desk: Yo-yo dieting is harmful to your health and it is difficult for people to escape the pattern, according to a news qualitative study that focuses on the dangers of dieting.
Lynsey Romo, corresponding author of a paper on the study and an associate professor of communication at North Carolina State University says, "Yo-yo dieting - unintentionally gaining weight and dieting to lose weight only to gain it back and restart the cycle - is a prevalent part of American culture, with fad diets and lose-weight-quick plans or drugs normalized as people pursue beauty ideals."
"Based on what we learned through this study, as well as the existing research, we recommend that most people avoid dieting unless it is medically necessary. Our study also offers insights into how people can combat insidious aspects of weight cycling and challenge the cycle."
Researchers conducted in-depth interviews with 36 adults (13 men and 23 women) who had tried weight cycling and lost and regained more than 11 pounds. The goal was to learn more about why and how people fell into the yo-yo dieting cycle, and how, if at all, they were able to break free.
All of the study participants expressed a desire to lose weight due to social stigma associated with their weight and/or because they compared their weight to that of celebrities or peers.
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"Overwhelmingly, participants did not start dieting for health reasons, but because they felt social pressure to lose weight," Romo said.
The study participants also reported using a variety of weight-loss strategies, which resulted in initial weight loss but later regained.
Regaining weight caused people to feel shame and internalise the stigma associated with weight, leaving study participants feeling worse about themselves than they did before they began dieting. As a result, many people began to engage in increasingly extreme behaviours in order to lose weight again.
"For instance, many participants engaged in disordered weight management behaviours, such as binge or emotional eating, restricting food and calories, memorising calorie counts, being stressed about what they were eating and the number on the scale, falling back on quick fixes (such as low-carb diets or diet drugs), overexercising, and avoiding social events with food to drop pounds fast," Romo said. "Inevitably, these diet behaviours became unsustainable, and participants regained weight, often more than they had initially lost."
"Almost all of the study participants developed an obsession with their weight," says Katelin Mueller, the study's co-author and graduate student at NC State. "Weight loss became a focal point for their lives, to the point that it distracted them from spending time with friends, family, and colleagues and reducing weight-gain temptations such as drinking and overeating."
"The combination of ingrained thought patterns, societal expectations, toxic diet culture, and pervasive weight stigma makes it difficult for people to completely exit the cycle, even when they really want to," Romo said.
"Ultimately, this study tells us that weight cycling is a negative practice that can cause people real harm," Romo said. "Our findings suggest that starting a diet without a medical reason can be harmful. Dieting to meet a perceived societal standard unintentionally prepares participants for years of shame, body dissatisfaction, unhappiness, stress, social comparisons, and weight-related preoccupation. Once a diet begins, many people find it difficult to avoid a lifelong struggle with their weight."
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