Weight loss success and the “false hope syndrome”

Gina Kolata’s book Rethinking Thin: The New Science of Weight Loss – and the Myths and Realities of Dieting (2007) is a great read. It provides a historical perspective of our society’s preoccupation with obesity, weight loss, and dieting as a socio-economic phenomenon. It’s also an interesting critique of the weight loss industry, a multi-billion dollar system that primarily feeds on what some researchers have termed the false hope syndrome.

Why is dieting the (seeming) exception to the principle of psychology that “if a behavior is not reinforced, it should extinguish?” Given that most attempts will ultimately result in failure (i.e., significant weight loss is difficult to maintain), why does cyclic “dieting” endure? Surely there are reinforcements to the behavior?

In fact there are, according to P. Herman of the University of Toronto, one of the researchers Kolata interviewed for the book:

1) The simple act of declaring that you’re going on a diet makes you feel better. You feel empowered and in control of your life.

2) There are rewards, as when the weight peels off in the beginning. When failure inevitably arrives, the dieter has two choices: (a) to conclude that one didn’t try hard enough (or long enough); and/or (b) to state that all one’s previous diets (and strategies) were based on erroneous information: “This time it’s going to be different.”

In addition, and this is not mentioned in the book, there is the social reinforcement around the “dieting” behavior itself. The informal reinforcement (via attention) of one’s dieting buddies or even one’s officemates. The exhilaration of losing the initial pounds, etc. fueled and compounded by what is essentially an extremely functional community of oscillating commiseration and celebration.

Most diet books, if not the whole weight loss industry, are configured to take advantage of this psychological dynamic — exploiting the weakness and vulnerability of the individual’s desire to change for the better and remove the social stigma of being overweight or obese.