A craze has swept the nation – The weight-loss craze! For one low, low price, you can buy self-esteem. You can buy energy! You can buy beauty, love, friendship, admiration, respect, dignity, and influence, all for the bargain bin price of this brand new diet. How long will its effects last? Oh, that depends entirely on you. If this diet doesn’t work in the long-term, it’s all your fault, you know. You weren’t strong enough, not disciplined enough, not hard-working enough, not diligent or patient or gritty enough. But don’t worry! You can try the next one. That one will definitely work. Do you want to hear something very interesting about diets? About programs that you pay for, to help you lose weight? About products that you must continually purchase, adhere to, restrict for, and penalize yourself for deviating from? They don’t work. They never have. They screw up your baseline metabolism, they reduce muscle mass, and they make each successive diet that much more appealing to you because you gain so much weight after you stop that you are convinced that you don’t know how to eat normally, that you are out of control, that you simply cannot control yourself unless you’re on a diet. That’s the magic of the industry. With every failed diet, the weight loss industry gains a new lifelong client.
Some brands will try to avoid this unfriendly truth by promising, SWEARING up and down, that they ARE NOT A DIET. We are a lifestyle!! We support healthy living! We make people feel better!! Scores and scores of researchers have attested to the fact that this simply isn’t true. Most leading diets rely on extreme calorie deficits, prepackaged foods, tracking points, macros, calories, or carbs, and other unsustainable tricks to peel off pounds in the early days of the diet. Longitudinal studies show that “in reality, 97 percent of dieters regain everything they [lose] and then some within three years.” (Slate.com) This isn’t to say that weight loss is impossible, because it isn’t. Moderate lifestyle changes, exercise, consistent sleep, and increased water consumption can aid long-term weight loss.
Don’t be deceived by the promises of diets. Don’t be deceived by the excited babble of friends and family in the early stages of the deception, the part of the magic trick where the illusion remains hidden. Diets don’t work. They are a scheme to make money. And they do.
Take this fact: “The global market for weight loss products and services should grow from $254.9 billion in 2021 to reach $377.3 billion by 2026, at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 8.2% during the forecast period of 2021-2026.”
Billions of dollars are spent to entice you into becoming a dieting addict, and by 2026, that spending will overtake the fast-food market as a whole (Fast Food Revenue in the US is $278 Billion, as of 2021.)
Think about that, and think about the revelations that emerged a decade ago about the rampant corruption and corporate greed in the fast-food industry. The same people that profited off of the industrialization of unhealthy, fast food production are profiting off of eternally dieting consumers.
Don’t fall for the lucrative promise of diets. I promise – they’re literally just trying to sell you something.
Excuse my Musings 