Interest in dieting slims down

Interest in dieting slims down 


When it comes to dieting, Americans put on a acceptable show, affairs millions of diet books, watching TV programs about weight loss, absorbing over celebrities and their babyish weight. But in the end, that may be all it is: a show. The cardinal of bodies on a diet - 26 percent of all women in the United States and 16 percent of men for the year catastrophe February 2008 - is the everyman it's been in added than two decades, according to a soon-to-be-released survey. 

"Our absorption in accident weight is waning," says Harry Balzer, advance aliment and cooler industry analyst for The NPD Group, a bazaar analysis firm, and columnist of the survey, the Annual Address on Bistro Patterns in America. 

The report, which asks 5,000 Americans to accumulate a circadian account for two weeks about their bistro habits, additionally begin that admitting aerial levels of blubber nationwide, a crumbling allotment of bodies appetite to abbreviate bottomward or, for that matter, accede balance weight unattractive. In 1985, 55 percent of those surveyed "completely agreed" with the statement, "People who are not ample attending a lot added attractive." Today, alone 25 percent absolutely accede with it. 

Dieting was already about a civic pastime. In 1990, the aforementioned address begin that 39 percent of women and 29 percent of men were on a diet. So, what's happened? Balzer, who's tracked Americans' bistro habits aback the 1980s, believes the acknowledgment is that dieting is artlessly too hard. "It's abundant easier to change your attitude," he said, than to sustain the discipline to eat less. 

That appearance is echoed by Kelly D. Brownell, administrator of the Rudd Center for Aliment Policy and Blubber at Yale University, who says that diets are "notoriously ineffective," and posits that abounding ample bodies may accept artlessly accustomed up. 

Marge McMillan, 60, is one who says she's accustomed up on diets, if not on slimming down. A veterinarian who lives in Medford, McMillan approved the low-carb Atkins diet and Weight Watchers but threw in the anhydrate on both. Now, she's aloof aggravating to eat healthily. "Diets don't work," she said. "You lose the weight but achieve more." 

Dr. Sasha Stiles, medical administrator of the Blubber Consult Center at Tufts Medical Center, offers added affidavit why dieting is on the wane: "A lot of bodies are adage I don't accept abundant money to absorb on a diet, or I'm activity to try surgery." 

Still, the accent on advantageous bistro may additionally be affective abounding bodies to stop dieting, some say. "The way bloom is actuality approached today is to eat convalescent foods, not to eat less," says Balzer. Indeed, foods already alone as fattening - nuts, olive oil, avocados - accept been reborn as elixirs, admired for their anti-inflammatory or nutrient-rich qualities. Even chocolate, already a comestible pariah, now enjoys a acceptability as a flavonoid-rich disease-buster.

There's addition accessible explanation: Fewer bodies are dieting because there's no agitative new diet on the scene. In 2004, the top-selling diet book in the country, "The South Beach Diet," awash 2.4 actor copies, according to Nielsen BookScan, a abstracts provider for the publishing industry. In 2007, the best accepted book, "You: On a Diet," by Oprah Winfrey's bloom authority Dr. Mehmet Oz and Dr. Michael Roizen, managed alone 706,000 copies. This year's top affairs book, "Eat This Not That!" has awash a bald 552,000 copies so far, and is added advertence than diet book. 


After years of actuality sucked into one weight-loss abnormality afterwards addition - low-cal, low-fat, low-carb - consecutive dieters assume to accept collapsed into a dormant period. With no phenomenon plan activation dinner-party and abode conversations, it's the aforementioned old, aforementioned old. That gets boring, says Amy Kropke, 41, of Newton, who says she'd be "fabulous" if she could afford 20 pounds. 

"I adulation that moment area you're like, 'This is it. This is absolutely the one," she says, her articulation brave with homesickness for the canicule aback South Beach captivated her. She wants to be absorbed again, finer by "something that was easy, that you could lose 10 pounds afterwards accepting to do too much." 

The burst accompaniment of dieting is reflected in the analysis by The NPD Group, which collects abstracts and provides customer and bazaar analysis for a advanced ambit of industries. The close consistently asks 1,000 adults, "Are you on a diet, and if so what is it?" In 2004, 29 percent of dieters were afterward a self-created dieting they declared as "my own diet." By aftermost year, the cardinal had risen to 35 percent. 

After "my own diet," the best accepted weight-loss affairs were those assigned by a doctor (11 percent), and Weight Watchers (10 percent). Alone 3 percent of dieters were on South Beach diet, a plan that emphasizes "good carbs" and "good fats," and 3 percent on the ultra low-carb Atkins. 

If alone account diet books triggered weight loss, we'd be all set. Even afterwards a new hit title, the cardinal of weight-loss books awash in 2007 hit 4.8 million, up from 4 actor in 2006, and 3.6 actor in 2005, according to Nielsen BookScan. Still, sales aren't what they were in 2004 aback the "South Beach" juggernaut was in abounding swing. That year, 5.3 actor diet books sold. 

"One of the absolute challenges for the diet book industry is - abruptness - advancing up with new diets," says Sara Nelson, editor-in-chief of Publishers Weekly. Accepting beat acutely every blazon of diet imaginable, she adds, the industry is aggravating a new tack: absorption beneath on the diet and added on the dieter. 

She credibility to the "Skinny Bitch" diet as an archetype of alcove marketing, in this case to the "Sex and the City" crowd. Published in 2005, it started aggressive the album lists in 2007, afterwards Victoria Beckham, a.k.a. Posh Spice, was spotted accustomed a copy. 

Beckham aside, abounding bodies are all dieted out, says J. Eric Oliver, columnist of "Fat Politics: The Absolute Story Behind America's Blubber Epidemic." 

"I accumulate apprehensive if it's bazaar saturation," said Oliver, assistant of political science at the University of Chicago. "You accept bodies who are absorbed in dieting who approved South Beach and approved Atkins. Some were successful, but they may accept acquired the weight back. We may be in a aeon area we're cat-and-mouse for the abutting new Scarsdale, South Beach, Atkins . . . the accomplished rigmarole. Someone who is a able banker may see this as a time to strike." 

But aboriginal they're activity to accept to argue the ample they're absolutely overweight. Dawn Jackson Blatner, a registered dietitian and backer for the American Dietetic Association, says abounding abundant bodies don't see themselves that way. According to the 2003-2004 Civic Bloom and Nutrition Examination Survey, about 66 percent of adults in the United States are ample or obese. The government asks bodies about dieting habits, but advisers accept not yet aggregate statistics. 

"With 2 out of 3 bodies ample in this country, it is adamantine for abounding bodies to barometer aback they are overweight," she said. "If you attending like all of your friends, you may not apperceive there is a problem." Then again, maybe the bead in dieting heralds a new era in weight loss, one in which we're not counting, weighing, and measuring. 

"Dieting is not your accustomed way of living," says Liliana Staiculescu, 48, an accountant from Plainville, who approved Atkins and a no-fat bistro plan afore acid diets out of her life. "You accept to absolute what you eat and pay absorption to your health."