The Diet Problem

The Diet Problem

By Sandy Szwarc
Published 07/18/2003
TCS

Looking back 40 or more years, the movie stars and bathing beauties we admired were healthy full-figured gals with plenty of jiggle and cellulite. The nation didn't have a "weight problem." The difference between then and now is that "diet" wasn't in our vocabulary and being thin wasn't a cultural obsession.

But as dieting has become increasingly more widespread in America, body weights have increased, the January/February 1999 issue of Healthy Weight Journal, after an extensive examination of the evidence surrounding dieting, reported.

In fact, dieting is a predictor of fatness. Among girls who diet their risk for obesity is 3.24 times greater than for nondieters. Dieting among adults is similarly associated with an increased risk of long-term weight gain, according to studies by Allison Daee, R.D., and colleagues at the University of Missouri.

An overwhelming body of research has demonstrated the link between dieting and obesity. The problem is that evidence flies in the face of the reigning orthodoxy in the current battle of the bulge, which cannot afford to acknowledge that the decisive consequence of dieting is ... obesity.

-snip-