Diet-themed magazine articles, television advertisements for local gyms and billboards displaying the latest in diet trends constantly bombard our society, but it seems as if these instances of weight loss promotions increase significantly in the weeks before and after the turn of the new year.
UW-Madison nutritional science professor Susan Nitzke attributes this upsurge to both the ""feeling of having overindulged during the holidays"" and the New Year's self-reinvention that has taken up status as tradition in the U.S.
But the fact of the matter is, whether attempted in January or July, most dieters are unable to maintain or even attain their weight goals. Although experts vary on the details, many agree that the failure to adopt a long-term healthy lifestyle that transcends the dieting phase is the cause of most diet collapses.
Elizabeth Freitick, a UW Hospital and Clinic nutritionist points out that ""usually people are after a short-term magic fix, so all their focus is on weight"" and that to ""lose 10 to 15 pounds and keep if off, you really need to focus on changing behaviors and lifestyles.""
UW-Madison nutritional science professor Dale Schoeller agrees, explaining that when a body drops a few pounds, the caloric requirements to maintain that weight are lower, and therefore ""by going back to old eating habits, you go back to your old weight.""
This problem intensifies when considering the large group of people who want to lose a lot of weight very quickly, and consequently turn to diets with drastic requirements. The renowned Atkins diet and many extremely low calorie diets fit under this category.
Schoeller blames the limiting nature of the drastic diets for both their short-term success and long-term failure. He say that their tendency to provide specific eating instructions sparks initial weight-loss, but ""because they aren't nutritionally sound and because they don't teach you how to survive long term in this world of excess food, they have a greater likelihood to be followed by weight gain.""
Furthermore, societal factors out of the individual dieter's control often provoke weight gain and stagnate attempts at weight-loss.
One of these factors is easily accessible food in our society.
""In the U.S. there's food everywhere you look, every time you turn around there's more food,"" says Schoeller.
Freitick names this weight hazard a ""toxic food environment."" More than just the mere amount of food, she explains, there are ""way too many conveniences"" that, with the promise of saving us time and energy, prevent us from burning the calories we should be losing during our daily routine and steer us away from healthier choices.
Another way to describe these ""conveniences"" would be to call them technology. We purchase calorie-filled packaged and processed food instead of cooking a healthy meal when we're pressed for time. We take the elevator instead of the stairs and constantly update our closets with tools that make housework less physically demanding.
But it is not just the consumers that are making use of technology's conveniences--food makers have exploited them too, adding large quantities of trans fat to their products in order to seduce their customers' taste buds.
The problem with trans fat, according to Assistant Professor of Psychiatry and Psychology Jack Nitschke, is that it ""isn't even meant for human consumption."" He states that trans fat ""only became permissible by the FDA in the early ‘90s.""
""That becomes a really tough battle if you're ingesting whatever food you're eating, that in part is making you want more but is also just laying on the fat,"" he says.
Both the glut of food in our society and the abundance of trans fat in our meals are pretty much a constant anywhere in the U.S., but what happens when a person's food environment changes both physically and socially?
This is something most of us have to deal with upon our departure for college as we toss around the idea of the notorious ""freshman 15"" in our minds.
""It's a time in which your food environment makes a huge change,"" Schoeller says. ""There's no Mom or Dad around to set limits.""
Schoeller, Freitick, Nitschke and UW-Madison psychology professor Janet Hyde all propose varying reasons as to the freshman year weight gain, suggesting that the issue isn't singular. Their hypotheses include irregular meal times, greater alcohol consumption, extra meals or snacks sparked by late nights and a food environment highly controlled by, as Schoeller states, ""social cues.""
Although pretty much everyone would agree that people become overweight because of what they eat, the issue of why they eat what they do surpasses food alone.
""We're complex creatures, so how we eat is sort of a compilation of things we grew up with [and] what we use food for: coping, stress, happiness,"" Freitick says.
Schoeller has similar ideas stating, ""Some is motivation ... [and] some is biochemistry [because] some people have much stronger hunger mechanisms than others so they feel more deprived than others.""
Nitschke claims that ""there are emotional aspects to it. Some people derive some satisfaction from eating. If they're feeling in a bad mood, a lot of times people's appetites will increase."" He also states that many people ""haven't really developed a lot of discipline in their lives,"" which is the key to success in any diet.
Hyde agrees that emotions are crucial to the direction many diets take.
""If you start feeling bad about yourself, it may be that you're more emotional and therefore little failures tell you that you just can't succeed at this, and therefore you give up,"" she said.
Schoeller, Freitick, Nitschke, Nitzke and Hyde all agree the best way to lose weight varies from person to person, and everyone needs to experiment and find out what works for them.
According to Freitick, the pounds will come off and stay off as soon as ""you find that balance between discipline and permission"" and ""build some confidence in your abilities to do that.""
