What You Can Change _. And What You Can't - Martin E. Seligman [91]
The Demographics of Dieting
We are a culture obsessed with thinness. How many times a day do you think about your weight? Each time you catch a glimpse of your naked body or your double chin in the mirror? Each time you touch your midriff bulge? Each meal? Each time you eat something tasty and want more? Every time you’re hungry? My guess is that the average overweight adult (the large majority of us) thinks discontentedly about his or her body more than five times a day. By contrast, how many times a day do you think about your salary? My guess is once a day, or, if you are really strapped, about five times a day. Is being overweight as important as going broke?
You and I, and about 100 million other Americans, share this nagging discontent. In 1990, Americans spent more than $30 billion on the weight-loss industry, almost as much as the federal government spent on education, employment, and social services combined. These billions are poured into hospital diet clinics and commercial weight-loss programs, into health spas and exercise clubs, into 54 million copies of diet books. Ten billion dollars went for diet soft drinks. There were 100,000 jaw-wiring and liposuction operations at $3,500 each. More than $500 was spent on weight loss by each overweight adult in America. We would save this much if we could be convinced that we were not overweight or that there was nothing we could do about being overweight.6
The fashion industry, the entertainment industry, and women’s magazines bombard us with female models of beauty and talent so thin as to represent almost no actual women in the population. We have gotten heavier and heavier, but the models have gotten thinner and thinner. From 1959 to 1978, the average Playboy centerfold became markedly more gaunt, and the average Miss America contestant dropped almost one-third of a pound a year. During the same twenty years, the average young American woman gained about the same amount. Both these trends have continued into the 1990s.7
The purveyors of weight loss are the children of those pioneering advertising campaigners who in the first half of this century created and then preyed upon insecurity (“He said that she said that he had halitosis”). The weight-loss industry’s clout should not be underestimated. It has cornered the bulk of the self-improvement market and a sizable percentage of the American medical dollar. It is self-interested and powerful. It is pleased that the “ideal weight” tables put so many of us in the overweight category. It is delighted that Americans believe minor overweight is a serious health risk. It is ecstatic that men now find thin women sexier than voluptuous women. It thrives on the fact that Americans are so insecure in themselves and so desperately unhappy with their bodies. It has on its payrolls some of the most prominent scientists of appetite, who publish journal articles touting new, improved diets and exaggerating the health risks of overweight.
All this has created a general public that is discontent, even despairing, about their bodies, and willing—even eager—to spend a substantial portion of their earnings in the belief that they can and should become much thinner than they are. It is time for this to end.
The Oprah Effect
There is a professional consensus about two facts:
You can lose weight in a month or two on almost any diet.
You will almost certainly gain it back in a few years.
The American public watched in hopeful fascination as a daytime TV host, Oprah Winfrey, went on Optifast, which is, technically, a VLCD (very-low-calorie diet). She became slimmer and slimmer before our eyes: 180, 160, 150,