The Psychology of Eating: From Healthy to Disordered Behavior

122 Dieting

desire to lose weight is not driven by health needs but aesthetic ones, and
the dieting industry creates this need.

Creating a need

The dieting industry creates the need for its own existence in three
ways. First, it perpetuates the stereotypes associated with size described
in chapter 5; second, it promotes the belief that body size can be changed
through dieting; and, third, it changes the boundaries of the need for a
dieting industry (Ogden, 1992).

Perpetuating the stereotypes of size
The dieting industry creates the need for itself by being part of the media
which perpetuate the stereotypes associated with body size. First it pro-
motes the belief that thinness is the most desirable state. Mazel, in her Beverly
Hills Diet(1981), suggested that if someone should comment, “You’re
getting too thin,” you should reply, “Thank you.” Dieting magazines use
slim models to model the latest clothes, and dieting aids such as meal
replacements and diet foods are all advertised using very thin women (Ogden,
1992). Magazines publish success stories of women who have lost weight
which illustrate how much happier these women feel, and how their lives
have changed. As Twigg (1997) says of his “Kensington diet,” it can “achieve
a huge amount for you, including making you look and feel healthier,
happier, younger and more zestful” ( p. 20). The industry perpetuates and
creates the belief that thinness is attractive and is associated with a wealth
of positive attributes.
Second, the industry supports the belief that thinness is associated with
being in control. Conley, who developed the “Hip and Thigh Diet” (1989)
and others such as the Complete Flat Stomach Plan(1996) and Metabolism
Booster Diet(1991), wrote in 1989 that overweight people must have eaten
“too many fatty and sugary foods which are positively loaded with calories

• bread spread with lashings of butter, an abundance of fried foods, cream
  cakes, biscuits, chocolates crisps and so on. The types of foods overweight
  people love” (p. 65). Similarly, in The Beverly Hills Diet(1981), Mazel wrote,
  “It is imperative that you exercise control when you eat combinations.
  Don’t let your heart take over. Eat like a human being, not a fat person.”
  Thinness means being in control.
  The industry also perpetuates the belief that thinness is a sign of being
  psychologically stable. For example, Levine (1997), in her book I Wish