Dear
Yana,
I’ve recently been feeling the
increased pressure to lose weight. I think it has something to do with me
starting to like this guy in one of my psychology classes. I know that I’ve put
on a few pounds since college started and I used to not really care about it
cause I didn’t feel the need to try to impress someone then. But I really like
this guy, and I want him to like me back.
I’d like to believe that I’m a
pretty restrained person when it comes to dieting. I can discipline myself
enough to resist indulging in the things that I really like. I also think I’ve
been consistently eating just the right amount of food to help me get past the
day. But recently I’ve noticed a curious phenomenon – whenever I would see
advertisements of slim people or anything diet-related, I feel this intense
need to binge. I noticed this is especially prevalent whenever I’m in a bad
mood. Why does this happen? I find it unusual cause I think that these ads are
supposed to motivate me to be more faithful with my diet, not do the opposite.
What should I do? How do I stop
this from happening?
Senserely
yours,
Ryzza
Mae
Hello
Ryzza Mae! Before I start explaining the cause of the situation you just
described, let me give you a brief background as to how media affects our views
on body size and weight. Over the years, people have become highly conscious of
their body size and weight. This may be partly attributable to the mass media’s
influence and portrayal of the ‘ideal body type’ – particularly for women, it
is of a slim body type. This has caused a widening of the gap between women’s
actual body sizes and the unrealistic ideals that media has portrayed. As a
consequence, an increasing pressure to lose weight has caused women to feel bad
about their bodies. In order to keep up, women often engage in dieting.
Ironically, several studies have shown that engaging oneself in dietary
restraint has been found to be a significant contributor to overeating and
eating disorders such as bulimia nervosa and binge eating (Harrison & Cantor, 1997; Stice, Schupak-Neuberg, Shaw, & Stein, 1994).
Like
you, I am no stranger to engaging in dietary restraint. I think that most
people have tried it at least once in their lives for different reasons - to
feel healthier, to lose weight, or to just simply give in to the pressures of
looking slim and appealing. Whatever the reason may be, at one point we might
have engaged in self-control over what we eat to achieve a certain goal. We
also all know how difficult it is to maintain our diet routine. It really takes
a lot of self-control, discipline, and motivation to resist indulging in that
heavenly combination of crispy bacon, mint chocolate chip ice cream and
pepperoni pizza. To further illustrate and prove this point, I think it is
worth mentioning a certain theory (yes, a theory!) that shows just how dieting
can affect us. The Dietary Restraint Theory (Herman & Polivy, 1975, 1980) suggests that the self-control
of those who engage in diet restraints is fragile and that any one number of “disinhibitors”
can temporarily disanchor the dieter’s effortful control, including thoughts on
dietary violations, strong emotional states, and tranquilizing substances (Strauss,
Doyle, & Kreipe, 1994). Additionally, Heatherton and colleagues (1988) note
that majority of dieters maintain a combination of periods of restraint punctuated
by episodes of disinhibited overeating. So don’t feel too bad that you are not
able to remain faithful to your diet routine – majority of people have their moments
of disinhibition.
What enables a restrained eater
to go back to his/her diet after giving in to indulgence? Strauss, Doyle, &
Kreipe (1994) supposed that during a binge, restrained eaters “lose sight of
their objectives and relinquish hope about achieving their goals”. Going back
to our opening statement regarding the effects of media on people’s perception
of body size and weight, it is quite common sense to think exposure to
advertisements that show slim models or diet-related products would help remind
individuals with high restraint about their commitment to dieting after a
binge. Seeing advertisement about dieting should help them snap back from their
temporary indulgence and thus, would make them eat less food. On the other
hand, we might also expect that less restrained eaters would eat slightly more
after seeing similar commercials. In fact, there is evidence that supports this
rather common-sense view. Anshutz, Van Strien, & Engels (2011) provides
support for this Reinhibition Theory of Slim Media Images – restrained eaters
confronted with diet products and slim images will be reminded of their
restricted eating behavior and thus, eat less.
But what’s interesting about
this are findings that show that the exact opposite happens – high restrained
individuals who viewed advertisements showing slim images and diet-products ate
nearly twice as much relative to the normative group. Although it is widely
assumed that restrained eaters would restrict their food intake, results from
some experiments show that they ate more after seeing diet-related advertisements
following a certain disinhibitor. It was also shown that more unrestrained eaters
ate less. (e.g. Herman & Mack, 1975; Hibscher & Herman, 1977; Polivy, Heatherton, & Herman, 1988; Polivy & Herman, 1999; Schotte, Cools, & McNally, 1990). In Strauss,
Doyle, & Kreipe’s experiment (1994), a preload followed by viewing a sad
movie serves as the disinhibitor. The film and preload tandem in their study seems
to produce disinhibition in most high restrained subjects.
So what does this all mean?
The findings clearly contradict the more common-sense
view that the sight of successful dieters and slim physiques would remind the
participant of his/her own dieting skills and thus serve as a reinhibitor
(Strauss, Doyle, & Kreipe, 1994). Instead, the study posits that the
diet-oriented ads may have served as painful “feedback” that the restrained
individuals had broken their diets and that the body image displayed by the
commercials was at least temporarily unattainable (Strauss, Doyle, &
Kreipe, 1994). The ads thus have an opposite effect – it can make us feel worse
about ourselves and distance us from our diet routine, thus encouraging us to
eat more.
Heatherton, Herman, and Polivy (1991) supposed that the
advertisements serve as an ego threat and acted as a disinhibitor for
restrained participants. They posit that by “highlighting the restrained
participant's failure to persist with her diet, the diet-oriented ads could
have been ego threatening”. They also noted the role of self-esteem as a
powerful mediator between restraint status and eating behavior – women low in
self-esteem were vulnerable to this ego threat whereas those with high
self-esteem are less vulnerable.
Another factor that might have contributed to binge-like
behavior described above is the timing of the feedback. Feedback in earlier
studies occurred before the participants had access to snack foods; whereas in
Strauss, Dyole, and Kreipe (1994) study, feedback occurred after acceptance of
snack foods. One can suppose that for participants on the brink of overeating
(as shown in earlier studies), reminders about dieting status – even feedback
that one is a bad dieter – may motivate them to their diet routine. For those
who perceive themselves as already being in the process of indulging, such
feedback may make them feel like they are at the “point of no return” (Strauss,
Doyle, & Kreipe, 1994).
The advice that I could give to
you, Ryzza Mae, is that you should be wary of how these diet commercials can
affect you. I hope that the explanation above helped you become more aware and
less dependent on how media affects how you perceive yourself and how you feel
about yourself. I think that you should not be too hard on yourself. Being on a
diet is not necessarily a bad thing, as long as you do it for the right
reasons. If the guy you’ve been having your eye on is really worth your time,
he will notice you diet or no diet, slim or not slim. Pressure is only good to
the point that it motivates us to do the right action. Too much pressure may
cause us to crash in on ourselves and engage in unhealthy behaviours.
I hope that I
have answered your questions. All the best of luck to you!
Senserely
yours,
Yana
References
Anschutz, D.J., Van Strien, T., & Engels, R.E. (2011). Exposure to slim images in mass media: Television commercials as reminders of restriction in restrained eaters. Psychology Of Popular Media Culture, 1(S), 48-59. doi:10.1037/2160-4134.1.S.48
Strauss, J., Doyle, A.E., & Kreipe, R.E. (1994). The paradoxical effect of diet commercials on reinhibition of dietary restraint. Journal of Abnormal Pscyhology, 103(3), 441-444. doi:10.1037/0021-843X.103.3.441
