A new qualitative research examines the negative impacts of “yo-yo dieting,” or weight cycling, on interpersonal relationships and psychological health. The article emphasizes the dangers of yo-yo dieting and how difficult it is for people to buck the pattern.
According to Lynsey Romo, an associate professor of communication at North Carolina State University and corresponding author of a paper on the study, “yo-yo dieting—unintentionally gaining weight and dieting to lose weight only to gain it back and restart the cycle—is a prevalent part of American culture, with fad diets and lose-weight-quick plans or drugs normalized as people pursue beauty ideals.”
“We propose that most individuals refrain from dieting unless it is medically required, based on the knowledge gained from this study and other studies. Our research also sheds light on strategies for breaking the cycle and overcoming its sneaky elements.”
Thirteen men and twenty-three women who have cycled their weight and lost and gained more than eleven pounds were interviewed in-depth for the study. Finding out more about the causes, methods, and methods by which individuals fell into the yo-yo dieting cycle—and, whether they succeeded at all—was the aim of the study.
Every research participant said that they wanted to reduce their weight because they were comparing their weight to that of peers or celebrities, or because they felt stigmatized by society for being overweight. “Overwhelmingly, participants did not start dieting for health reasons, but because they felt social pressure to lose weight,” Romo said.
Participants in the research felt worse about themselves than they had before they started dieting because gaining weight made individuals feel ashamed and further internalize the stigma attached to being overweight. Consequently, this often prompts individuals to use additional drastic methods in an attempt to drop weight once again.
“For instance, many participants engaged in disordered weight management behaviours, such as binge or emotional eating, restricting food and calories, memorizing calorie counts, being stressed about what they were eating and the number on the scale, falling back on quick fixes (such as low-carb diets or diet drugs), overexercising, and avoiding social events with food to drop pounds fast,” Romo explains. “Inevitably, these diet behaviours became unsustainable, and participants regained weight, often more than they had initially lost.”
According to NC State graduate student and research co-author Katelin Mueller, “nearly all of the study participants became obsessed with their weight.” “Weight loss became a focal point for their lives, to the point that it distracted them from spending time with friends, family, and colleagues and reducing weight-gain temptations such as drinking and overeating.”
“Participants referred to the experience as an addiction or a vicious cycle,” Romo relates. “Those who could recognize and confront their harmful eating habits had more success ending the pattern. People used tactics to resist these unhealthy habits, such as exercising for enjoyment rather than tracking calories expended and putting more emphasis on their health than the number on the scale.
In addition to adopting good eating habits including eating a diverse diet and eating when they were hungry, participants who were more effective at breaking the cycle were also able to stop seeing eating as something that had to be strictly supervised, restricted, or penalized. The majority of study participants, the researchers discovered, were caught in the loop.
“The combination of ingrained thought patterns, societal expectations, toxic diet culture, and pervasive weight stigma makes it difficult for people to completely exit the cycle, even when they want to,” Romo said.
“Ultimately, this study tells us that weight cycling is a negative practice that can cause people real harm,” Romo said. According to our research, starting a diet might be harmful unless it is absolutely required by a doctor. Dieting to achieve a perceived social ideal unintentionally sets people up for years of body dissatisfaction, stress, anxiety, social comparisons, and obsession with weight. Many individuals find it very difficult to stop struggling with their weight for the rest of their lives once they start a diet.