Success and failure of dieting

Success

•This is due to a combination of strategies.

•Informing friends and family (social support) of goals helps reduce temptations of food and encourages positive reinforcement (incentives).  

•Weight watchers programmes involve group meetings.  Lots of dieters join weight loss groups or diet with a friend to maintain motivation and confidence.

•SLT is used to provide successful role models for dieters to observe.

•Behaviour strategies include; low-fat diet, frequency self-monitoring of weight and food intake, and high levels of physical activity.  There is a sense of ‘ownership’.

Details by Redden (2008) - Paying attention to what we eat. By focussing on the specific details of each meal, people get bored less easily and so are better able to maintain their diet.

Failure

The role of denial. Don’t think about a white rabbit!

•Cognitive processes; as you attempt to suppress thoughts, it often has the opposite effect.

•E.g. to deny thoughts about food, makes it forbidden until eventually all you think about is eating.

Restraint eating & boundary model can also be used

Media influence – imagines of women have become slimmer over the last 50 years (e.g. size 0).  

•Links to SLT, slimmer models = increase in body dissatisfaction and desire to meet idealised size and shape.

The spiral model - Food restricted dieting often begins in adolescence when individuals (mainly girls) experience body dissatisfaction.  Low self-esteem is a contributing risk factor, as individuals are more likely to make negative comparisons.

•First time dieters often lose weight, but long term weight…