Pages

23 January 2014

Keeping Up With The Kardashians

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




No comments:

Post a Comment