Viva Lewes Issue #124 January 2017

HEALTH
Why diets don’t work
...but it's not all bad news
If you’re starting the
New Year with a snug
waistband and the
resolve to lose some
weight, you’re not
alone. According to a
2014 Mintel report,
some 29 million Brits
went on a diet during
the previous year,
including 65 per cent
of women and 44 per
cent of men.
But while you may be
in the majority, you’re not on the winning team.
Whether you’re doing the Dukan, five-twoing
or going Paleo, the hard fact is that dieting does
not work.
According to many scientists, when you reduce
food intake, you place your body under stress,
causing it to produce the hormones cortisol and
adrenaline. These signal starvation, slowing the
metabolism, and increasing the production of
‘hunger’ hormones, while decreasing the levels of
those that indicate fullness. The result is that you
feel hungrier, while your body hangs on to every
calorie, enabling you to manage on less food, and
to store a higher proportion as fat. It’s a survival
mechanism that served our prehistoric ancestors
well in times of famine, but that does nothing to
help you lose weight.
Also acting against you is what neuroscientist
Sandra Aamodt calls the body’s ‘set points’ - the
range within which bodyweight fluctuates. Once
you drop out of that comfort zone, the body does
all it can to get you back there. Worse still, the
higher that set point the better, as far as your
brain is concerned. It views extra fat as insurance
against leaner times, so does its best to increase
levels, which explains
why some 95
per cent of dieters
regain the weight,
with many becoming
heavier than
when they started.
And it’s not just the
body that you’re
fighting - your
mind is against you
too. The psychology
of eating is
formed in childhood
and typically equates sweet, fatty foods with
‘treats’, while labelling healthier choices as dull
or virtuous. We talk of ‘being good’ when we
refuse a cream-cake or nibble at a celery stick,
then comfort ourselves with ice cream, or indulge
in a ‘naughty’ chocolate biscuit (or three) with
our coffee.
When you try to cut out foods that you view as
emotionally rewarding, you start to feel deprived
- and it’s a feeling that only gets stronger, the
more willpower you apply. It’s the same struggle
that is at the root of many eating disorders. We
battle our desires for what we perceive as ‘bad’
foods, until we snap and end up bingeing on all
those off-limit goodies - or exert such rigid selfdiscipline
that we become anorexic.
It’s not all bad news, though, because while diets
don’t work, there is another way. The experts are
agreed: once you change your lifestyle to incorporate
healthy eating and exercise, it becomes
possible to lose weight and to keep it off. While it
may not be the quick fix you hoped, it does mean
that if you readdress your approach to food, you
really can have your cake and eat it…
Anita Hall
Photo by Alex Leith
71