Women and Dieting

The impetus for dieting among women appears to have several key sources. First is the concern regarding the increasing prevalence of overweight and obesity and associated health risks observed in many countries. This source has led to public health campaigns to remedial or prevention efforts by recommending limiting caloric intake. The second, more pernicious, motive is the mounting pressure on women to be thin to meet cultural ideals for physical attractiveness.

The mass media's emphasis on ultra-thinness as a standard for beauty in Western culture has been linked to the high prevalence of body dissatisfaction and restrictive dieting among adolescent girls and women. It is well documented that individuals who are dissatisfied with their body weight are at a significantly higher risk of developing eating disorders. Along with the pervasiveness and risks of dieting, there is also evidence that weight-loss efforts may backfire by leading to mental and physical and health problems as well as higher weights over time. Ironically, rather than being a solution to obesity, dieting may actually be one of the causes. Because restrictive dieting is the standard treatment recommendation for overweight and obese individuals, consideration of the potential risks of dieting is of utmost importance in a comprehensive volume on the topic of obesity.

Definitions

The term dieting can have different meanings. It can refer to attempts to limit certain types of foods for medical or health reasons (e.g., dairy products in lactose intolerance) with no intent of weight loss, or it can denote restricting amount eaten for the purpose of weight loss. Dieting can refer to behaviors designed to lose weight, or cognitive restraint, where the individual has a clear intent to lose weight, which may not be evident in specific behaviors. Finally, dieting in an attempt to lose weight can be defined as healthy, such as moderate limitation of food intake, or unhealthy, such as fasting, vomiting and so forth.

The term dieting will be used in this chapter to denote the intent to restrict food intake to reduce body weight without designating whether the behavior is healthy or whether it actually results in weight loss unless these factors are specifically relevant to the topic of discussion.

Dieting and Culture

One of the strongest predictors of dieting in preadolescents, adolescents, and adult women is body dissatisfaction. Body dissatisfaction and dieting behaviors have been fostered by a clash between unrealistic cultural imperatives to be thin and biological realities that preclude most women from ever achieving the shape standards portrayed in popular women's magazines. In the past 50 years, the perceived cultural ideals of feminine beauty have become even thinner with the burgeoning dieting and weight-loss industry successfully marketing the vision that ultra-thin shape ideals are attainable. This is evidenced by the industry's annual revenues in North America, which are estimated between $35 and $50 billion.

There is compelling evidence that women in Western culture increasingly have been socialized to view their body weight or shape as a marker for attractiveness, self-esteem, social desirability, and competence. The impact of Westernization and globalization has propagated the gaunt standard of beauty to non-Western countries and has, coincidentally, led to the proliferation of dieting and dieting disorders. Studies have shown that as young women from other more weight-tolerant cultures (e.g., Egyptian, Japanese, and Chinese) are assimilated into thinness-conscious Western culture, weight concerns and dieting behaviors in the previously weight-tolerant cultures proliferate.

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