......It is not surprising that so many individuals are trying to lose weight and that health care providers feel compelled to help them. Consider the following:

• Americans have come to place extraordinary value on extreme thinness in response to the complex interaction of cultural beliefs, the media's coverage of weight related issues, and the medical, fashion, fitness, and diet industries' agendas.¹
• Many Americans characterize fat people as out of control, gluttonous, passive, failures.²
• Large women in particular are seen as unattractive and responsible for their appearance.³
• The need to lose weight is so strongly ingrained, that Americans are willing to invest approximately 30 billion dollars annually in the weight loss industry.^4,5
• Assimilation of the thin ideal is the foundation for old paradigm thinking. It starts in childhood, leads to perpetuation of weightism (fear of fat and prejudice against large individuals), and progresses until a majority of individuals are acutely aware of the need to conform to socially defined weight related ideals.
• In one survey, 25% of high school females & 20% of women thought they were the right weight but still reported trying to lose weight to avoid fatness.⁶
• The major reasons frequently cited in a national survey for dieting to lose weight included concerns about current/future health, fitness, and appearance,⁷ but dieting rationales differed by gender, current BMI, and culturally generated beliefs.⁸
• A majority of the men reported dieting to improve overall health/fitness
• Most women reported trying to improve appearance and/or fitness
• Individuals with BMIs <26 were likely to cite fitness/appearance as reasons for dieting.
• Individuals with BMIs >35 were likely to cite health concerns as a primary reason for attempting weight loss.

References

Back to Unit 3 A: The Failures of The Old Paradigm

© Spring 2003