‘Yo-yo dieting,’ or weight cycling, has detrimental effects on interpersonal relationships and psychological health, according to a recent qualitative study. The article emphasizes the risks associated with yo-yo dieting and how challenging it is for individuals to interrupt the pattern.
“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,” says Lynsey Romo, corresponding author of a paper on the study and an associate professor of communication at North Carolina State University.
“Based on what we learned through this study, as well as the existing research, we recommend that most people avoid dieting, unless it is medically necessary. Our study also offers insights into how people can combat insidious aspects of weight cycling and challenge the cycle.”
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. To find out more about the causes, methods, and methods of entry into the yo-yo dieting cycle, as well as the methods, if any, of escape, was the aim of the study.
Every study 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 says.
The research subjects also mentioned using a range of weight-reduction techniques that led to temporary weight loss, but eventual regain.
People who gained the weight back felt ashamed of themselves and internalized the stigma around being overweight, which made the study participants feel even worse about themselves than they had before they started dieting. People would then frequently resort to more drastic measures in an attempt to try to reduce weight in the future.
“For instance, many participants engaged in disordered weight management behaviors, 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,” says Romo. “Inevitably, these diet behaviors became unsustainable, and participants regained weight, often more than they had initially lost.”
“Almost all of the study participants became obsessed with their weight,” says Katelin Mueller, co-author of the study and graduate student at NC State. “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 says.
“Individuals who were able to understand and address their toxic dieting behaviors were more successful at breaking the cycle. Strategies people used to combat these toxic behaviors included focusing on their health rather than the number on the scale, as well as exercising for fun, rather than counting the number of calories they burned.
“Participants who were more successful at challenging the cycle were also able to embrace healthy eating behaviors – such as eating a varied diet and eating when they were hungry – rather than treating eating as something that needs to be closely monitored, controlled or punished.”
However, the researchers found the vast majority of study participants stuck in the cycle.
“The combination of ingrained thought patterns, societal expectations, toxic diet culture, and pervasive weight stigma make it difficult for people to completely exit the cycle, even when they really want to,” Romo says.
“Ultimately, this study tells us that weight cycling is a negative practice that can cause people real harm,” Romo says. “Our findings suggest that it can be damaging for people to begin dieting unless it is medically necessary. Dieting to meet some perceived societal standard inadvertently set participants up for years of shame, body dissatisfaction, unhappiness, stress, social comparisons, and weight-related preoccupation. Once a diet has begun, it is very difficult for many people to avoid a lifelong struggle with their weight.”