Diets Don't Work
By Abigail Natenshon, MA LCSW

It's no surprise that diets are passe....they simply do not work.

Despite the reluctance of people to trust their instincts in making food choices, and to make personal decisions about what to eat based on the needs of the moment and of their body, there are no reliable and foolproof formulas to follow to insure thinness, fitness and longevity. Learning to listen and respond to the body and one's own needs becomes key.

Healthy eating is what it takes to keep a person fit and trim without engaging in destructive diets. Healthy eating lies in a person's capacity to trust and respect the body and its needs........ as expressed through hunger and satiety, the need to create and sustain enegry and growth, and the requirements of sociability. Contrary to common belief, it has nothing to do with fat-free or restrictive eating. Healthy eating is the ability to eat everything, as long as it is in moderation... to eat nutritious and varied foods on a regular basis, in the form of meals. There are no bad foods; there are only bad (formulaic, ritualistic, restrictive, compulsive) eating habits.

Three points to remember:

• The body is a machine that requires fuel on a regular basis to operate effectively. It needs protein for cell formation and growth and mental alertness, carbohydrates for energy, and fat for hormone production and neurological development in young people.
  
  
• Dieting and food restriction of any sort (such as skipping meals, eliminiating certain food groups, etc.) is counterproductive in:
  

1) denying the body and brain what it needs in order to function well
2) creating a palpable need to gorge as a natural response to starvation and deprivation
3) diminishing the healthy calorie burning function of the metabolism, slowing the metabolic function to the point where a person gains increasing amounts of weight on increasingly fewer calories

• Statistics show that children who diet have a greater tendency to become overweight adults. In addition, 95% of people who lose weigh through dieting regain their lost weight ,and then some, within 5 years after the diet.

When the body is given what it needs to feel satiated comfortably, it learns to regulate itself without the stricture of external forces. More important, the individual learns to trust himself or herself to make wise choices in feeding the body successfully, and the body to be friend and care-taker in return.