• Dieting: Villain or scapegoat?

    From ScienceDaily@1:317/3 to All on Tue Aug 17 21:30:44 2021
    Dieting: Villain or scapegoat?

    Date:
    August 17, 2021
    Source:
    Drexel University
    Summary:
    For decades, there has been an accepted definition of dieting
    in academia, and in society as a whole. Researchers recently
    reevaluated the decades of dieting research to redefine the way
    researchers and the public define -- and therefore understand -
    dieting and the culture of weight loss.



    FULL STORY ==========================================================================
    For decades, there has been an accepted definition of dieting in academia,
    and in society as a whole. Michael Lowe, PhD, a professor in Drexel University's College of Arts and Sciences, has recently reevaluated
    the decades of dieting research to redefine the way researchers and the
    public define -- and therefore understand -- dieting and the culture of
    weight loss.


    ========================================================================== According to Lowe, the most pressing problem is not dieting itself,
    but the collision of the modern food environment with our immutable evolutionary heritage that drives us to find and consume food when
    it is available. In today's food environment, this combination makes
    lasting control of food intake (and, usually, body mass) exceptionally difficult. These challenges are further magnified if there is a genetic predisposition toward excessive weight gain.

    Lowe, along with doctoral students Joanna Chen and Simar Singh, explain
    the relation of this background to dieting in two recently published
    papers in Appetite and Physiology & Behavior.

    "Research regarding the definition and consequences of dieting has
    generated controversy for years. This controversy has spilled over into
    the public domain, especially as eating disorders and obesity have become
    more prevalent," said Lowe. "One of the earliest and longest-lasting controversies involves the restrained eating framework created by
    University of Toronto professors Peter Herman and Janet Polivy in the mid-1970s." Lowe and colleagues suggest that historical trends impacted
    the development of the Restraint Theory in ways that inappropriately
    impugned of the practice of dieting for weight control. In the 1970s and
    1980s, two worrisome health problems started to increase substantially:
    obesity and eating disorders involving binge eating (bulimia nervosa
    and binge eating disorder). Though obesity and binge eating sometimes
    co-exist, one often occurs without the other, Lowe explained.

    The fundamental problem is that restraint theorists' measure of what they
    call "chronic dieting" (or "restrained eating") actually measures weight fluctuations and emotional over-involvement with food, according to Lowe.

    Herman and Polivy attributed the latter characteristics to chronic dieting
    but at the time (the mid-1970s) they couldn't know that western societies
    were on the brink of dual epidemics of obesity and binge eating. They
    therefore didn't realize that dieting was not usually the cause of
    eating and weight problems but a consequence and symptom ofan emerging,
    toxic food environment.

    "Stated differently, asking whether dieting is 'good or bad' is analogous
    to asking if taking methadone is good or bad," Lowe said. "If someone
    goes on a weight loss diet because of unwanted weight gain or loss of
    control eating, then dieting will at least temporarily improve these conditions. Just as taking methadone is a consequence of a pre-existing susceptibility to drug addiction, dieting is usually a consequence of
    a pre-existing susceptibility to obesity or loss of control eating."
    He added, the single best way to curb dieting is to make widespread
    changes to the food environment, both societally and within the
    home. Helping individuals understand that dieting is more a scapegoat
    than a villain should refocus people's concerns on the true source of
    our obsessions with eating, weight and dieting: a food environment that
    is as unhealthy as the "tobacco environment" was in the 1950s.

    Lowe's final distinction is that there is a small proportion of the
    population for whom weight loss dieting truly is pernicious, which is
    those with anorexia or bulimia nervosa. At least among those eating
    disordered individuals who come to clinical attention, they also tend to
    reach elevated BMIs before engaging in radical dieting and extreme weight
    loss. This results in a state Lowe and colleagues call weight suppression, which paradoxically helps perpetuate their eating disorder. For these individuals, weight loss dieting was indeed dangerous. But again, an
    unhealthy food environment is the likely culprit that caused them to
    gain weight in the first place, thereby prompting them to engage in
    unhealthy dieting to find a solution.

    ========================================================================== Story Source: Materials provided by Drexel_University. Note: Content
    may be edited for style and length.


    ========================================================================== Journal References:
    1. Joanna Y. Chen, Simar Singh, Michael R. Lowe. The food restriction
    wars:
    Proposed resolution of a primary battle. Physiology & Behavior,
    2021; 240: 113530 DOI: 10.1016/j.physbeh.2021.113530
    2. Michael R. Lowe. Commentary on: "What is restrained eating and
    how do we
    identify it?": Unveiling the elephant in the room. Appetite, 2021;
    105221 DOI: 10.1016/j.appet.2021.105221 ==========================================================================

    Link to news story: https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2021/08/210817131452.htm

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