Intuitive Eating delivers its message against the dieting mentality by breaking down the science behind rebound weight gain. Most bodies respond to caloric restriction by slowing metabolism and increasing food cravings. This combination will be familiar to those who've felt lethargic before a meal while becoming preoccupied with food. What is less obvious is how the body is also increasing both its tendency to fat creation and its efficiency of calorie burn, two outcomes that run directly counter to the dieter's goals. Finally, they note that the initial weight loss often follows a certain "low-hanging fruit" logic - muscle and water weight are generally the first to go, being easiest to lose, but the weight that comes back is fat, which is the easiest to gain. This process means the rebound from a diet returns the body in weight terms to a pre-diet level while altering the composition to reduce the likelihood of future dieting success.
These physical mechanisms are accompanied by an eroding relationship with food. The principles described by Intuitive Eating outline a healthy lifestyle built on the premise that keeping in touch with satiety signals is a prerequisite to cultivating this relationship. A dieter loses touch with these cues because the process becomes entirely driven by thought - what, when, and how to eat - instead of being driven by the body's hunger mechanism. I don’t pretend that I've thus far revealed much new information, if at all - I think even the most committed dieters are familiar with the generally accepted truth that dieting usually doesn’t work, at least in the long-term. And yet, dieting remains ubiquitous, perhaps due to the allure of short-term thinking. The fact gets into the obvious question of why dieting is such a powerful idea. The authors don't dig too far into this question, perhaps feeling that the methods they describe mostly address the matter, but in my mind one disappointment of the book is the way it merely offers an alternative to dieting rather than a meditation on its appeal.
I am willing to offer some guesses. One possibility is that the dieter's relationship with food may feel oppressive, perhaps due to the command-obey structure a dieter accepts about food, which frames those unwanted deviations from the diet as miniature rebellions against the holy decrees of Atkins, paleo, or Weight Watchers. The oppression may also manifest from the way certain products are engineered or marketed to the public, introducing an addictive aspect to eating. These oppressive elements make the drastic action of a diet more appealing than the long-term approach advocated by Intuitive Eating. A related possibility is the role of emotional control - exerting authority over food can be a substitute for the lack of control in a separate area, with the authors citing the way food is often tied closely with emotion to support this claim. There may also be a simpler cost-benefit mechanism involved - why not try a diet for a short time, then switch to the Intuitive Eating approach later? After all, if the diet works then the problem is solved, but if it doesn't work there is plenty of time to work on rebuilding the relationship with food; life is long, and there are always second chances.
As I look over those possibilities, it occurs to me that although I've listed a few decent explanations - characteristics which may broadly apply across the aggregate of all dieters - I haven't really approached anything resembling the appeal of dieting for any individual. Perhaps I am approaching the question from the wrong perspective, or seeking an explanation that doesn't exist. It could be that the right question is not so much the appeal of dieting, but rather its opposite - what makes dieting unappealing to certain people? I think at the core of the answer would be acceptance - those who accept themselves as they are, to me, seem highly unlikely to jump into the next fad diet. There is something of a cycle in this logic - society reinforces certain messages that harm our self-image, which in turn normalize activities like dieting, making outcasts of those who are not actively working toward a specified body ideal while recirculating the notion that the body must always work toward a specific ideal. Is self-acceptance possible in such an environment? It seems like a daunting task, but it's critical because it also happens to be the way to break the cycle - the necessary change is one where people demonstrate acceptance to each other, acknowledging the fundamental absurdity of the dieting mentality, but there is no way to accept others without first cultivating an honest acceptance of the self.
