One of my clients the other day told me that she had been on a diet for 30 years on and off, but was stubbornly one stone overweight. Clearly dieting doesn't work for her. Jennifer Savage and Leann Birch from Pennsylvania State University have just published research on this very problem!

A total of 176 women were assessed at baseline and followed over four years to see how their weight changed. There were 3 types of women identified.

1. Those making no effort to control their weights (N)
   
2. Those using healthy strategies (H)
   
3. Those using both healthy and unhealthy strategies (H+U)

Women using a mix of healthy and unhealthy strategies (H+U) gained significantly more weight (4.56 kg) than the N group (1.51 kg) and H group (1.02 kg) over the four year observation period. This was after taking statistical account of things like education, income and initial BMI..

Perhaps not surprisingly, the H+U weight control group demonstrated greater anxiety over weight concerns and restraining their food intake and had poorer eating attitudes than women in the H or N groups.

So what were the strategies these women were using to control their weight?

• Healthy strategies included reducing calories and amount of food, eliminating sweets, junk food and snacks, increasing activity, eating more fruit and vegetables, eating less fat or less high-carb food, and eating less meat.

• Unhealthy strategies included skipping meals, using diet pills, liquid diets, appetite suppressants, laxatives, enemas, diuretics, and fasting. The women who used these strategies gained weight.

As the researchers point out, the probable reason that women who used healthy weight control strategies were more successful was simply because these strategies are more sustainable. Unhealthy strategies can lead to loss of control, overeating and bingeing, which over time results in increased weight. So it is the way you try to control your weight that determines success.

Trying to limit your food intake by dieting produces a tendency to overeat or even binge when restrictions are lifted (e.g. social disinhibition). The end result, paradoxically, is weight gain or re-gain.

This has been well described by Janet Polivy (Professor of Psychology at the University of Toronto) who researches into the area of eating. She shows that food deprivation amongst dieters (achieved with intentional dietary restriction and restraint) produces a tendency to overeat, explaining why long-term dieting does not work. In other words - trying to simply eat less as a treatment for overweight is doomed to failure!

Dr. Polivy's main interests have been and continue to be the influence of restrained eating and long-term dieting on behaviour. The discovery of the 'what the hell!' effect whereby dieting leads to binge eating has continued to foster further questions about the effects of trying to eat less than one would really like to. This includes studies of eating behaviour, cognitive and emotional reactions - contributing to and in reaction to food-related events. She has also been investigating the 'False Hope Syndrome' which characterises many of us who attempt self-change efforts such as dieting, identifying the factors that contribute to and maintain unrealistic expectations that lead to failure, and attributions and cognitions that promote repeated unsuccessful attempts. All very relevant.

My approach in the Weight Loss Clinic similarly focuses on the thought processes that contribute to unhelpful eating behaviours and the ways in which we can manage our environment to minimise the risks of unhelpful eating. Supported with hypnosis, this approach allows you to manage your eating in a sustainable and healthy way, without the constant worry of Diet, Deny and Deprive. Give me a call!