Am I Too Fat? The Truth About Dieting

We live surrounded by messages about health, and the number of people fixated on their weight keeps climbing. Men now worry about their appearance about as much as women do, and social media feeds the anxiety about body image across our culture, nowhere more so than in the United States. Shedding a few pounds is fine in itself. The problem starts when the reason behind it is off. A choice that looks healthy from the outside can stall your growth as a person and wreck your health when the motive underneath it has nothing to do with self-care or feeling inspired.

Pick your method with the same caution. A lot of the diets floating around online are flat-out scams. For three decades now, people have been building get-skinny-quick schemes designed to pull thousands of dollars out of desperate pockets, and plenty of those products either oversell what they can do or do nothing whatsoever. Marketers figured out how to push unhealthy regimens on anyone frantic to drop weight. Count the diet commercials the next time you sit down in front of the TV.

The people behind Weight Watchers became very rich. My read is that their fortune rests on your insecurities, selling you things you don't need at prices that make no sense. They hand the product to celebrities and let you assume those celebrities got thin on it alone. And notice something about the word diet itself: the first three letters spell die. Don't gamble on untested weight-loss systems. Ignore the side effects of a given plan and you can make yourself genuinely sick, all because you're chasing a size six when your body runs healthiest at an eight.

Were people a hundred years ago free of this worry? Hardly. Look at the corsets women laced themselves into, crushing the waist to push the chest out. Fixating on weight is a kind of control, and it can turn dangerous. When someone feels powerless over a part of their life, they often hunt for something they can rule completely, and the body is an easy target. Clamping down on it that hard damages physical health, and it blocks the real work of becoming who you want to be. Not everyone is built to be a size one or two, whatever the feeds insist counts as beautiful. Diet to be healthy. Don't diet to patch a hole in your life.

Dieting for the wrong reasons:

1. I can get a better job. Appearance can move your career along, though not because you resemble a cover model. Some male-dominated fields do prefer to hire women they find pretty. But looks drain away, and a job you landed on your face is not one you want. You want the one you earned because you were right for it. A few extra pounds will not cap how far you climb. What your bosses pick up on is confidence, so rather than starving yourself for the sake of looking good, build that confidence and get fit for what fitness actually does for your body.

2. My mate will love me more. Believe that and you're kidding yourself. Every relationship has its trouble spots. Think about why Halle Berry keeps losing the men in her life. Looks cannot hold a partnership together over years. Personality carries it, so does the way two people talk to each other, so does plain compassion. Your character sets the terms of the relationship, not what you provide in bed or at the bank. Work on being a better person and on your own confidence. Do that and the honest reason to change your eating will reveal itself.

Use food to improve how you feel. Depending on where you're starting, dropping a few pounds is step one toward better health. Talk to a doctor about which approach suits you.

Best diets to improve your health:

1. The diabetic diet. Don't wave it off because you're not diabetic. It's excellent for portion control and works well for anyone after a lower-carb pattern that keeps blood sugar steady. People assume it bans dessert, which isn't true. You can have sweets, just not often.

2. Vegan diet. This one suits people ready for a full lifestyle overhaul. You eat vegetables plus protein from other sources like beans, nuts, and tofu. No meat, and no animal products at all, so eggs, milk, and cheese are out too.

3. Vegetarian diet. If you're already turning down meat, sticking with this won't be hard. Just make sure enough protein and carbohydrate reach your system. Both are core fuel, more so if you exercise on any regular basis.

Diet scams have made con artists wealthy by feeding on your insecurities. The point of dieting is to improve your health alongside your shape. Don't trade your health for the look. Do most people diet for reasons that aren't good for them? Does unhealthy dieting hold back who you're becoming? Heather Browning, MBA, BA