Diet Fads: Supermarket Sheep

Eighteen or twenty years ago, I was into high protein, high fat, low carbohydrate diets, courtesy of the original Atkins Diet Revolution and, to an even greater extent, Stillman's Quick Weight Loss Diet (which I must admit I still prefer to Atkins but that's merely personal taste). At the time, every aisle was loaded with labels proclaiming Low Fat or Reduced Fat. I didn't care about fat and sought much different information. Unfortunately, low fat was "in" and I felt alone and abandoned.

With a certain sense of resentment, I tracked down the carbohydrate costs of a wide variety of food, keeping a sharp eye on ingredients, calorie levels, and nutritional values. Certain items were strangely emblazoned with banners announcing low fat: pasta sauce, potato chips, candy bars, and ice cream. I was puzzled: how could certain foods, full of fat to their very core, be low fat? How could all the fat be removed and there be anything left?

I became fascinated with certain labels. Have you ever, for example, read the labels on those flavored coffee creamers? Zero fat. Zero carbohydrates. Zero protein. Zero calories. How can anything we put in our mouths have zero calories? A negligible amount, maybe, but absolute zero? What is in that stuff? Or is it virtual food, existing only in our mind's eye as a kind of edible hologram?

Mercifully, the low fat craze died its natural death. Atkins and similar regimens took over and the low fat labels were reprinted (corporate recycling at its finest) to read Low Carb. Suddenly, everywhere you looked, there were foods recast as low carb - again with the pasta sauce, the potato chips, the candy bars, and the ice cream.

I was curious. Had the manufacturers taken out all those carbs and put the fat back in? Where did those carbs go? Are there vast dumpsites in the desert where unwanted carbs are buried - next to worn tires, plastic bags, and nuclear waste?

Once more, I wonder: what is left in those boxes, cans, and jars? Why am I paying $1.19 per ounce for something that really isn't anything?

Then I started to figure it out (sometimes I'm a little slow). The food hadn't really changed at all, just the packaging. Food labels are like those ubiquitous Internet sales letters. They trumpet headlines that catch our interest because they are in synch with our desires and goals. Is that accidental? Of course not. Highly paid copywriters choose their headlines with great care, buying into the national "obsession o' the day", floating on the coattails of the latest fad.

Many of us are so desperate to control our weight that we buy into the promises like the unaware followers we are: bleating sheep heading for a precipice with no thought of questioning our leaders or striking out in a different direction.

The unspoken secret is that the label doesn't matter. If we want to lose weight, we don't eat pasta sauce, potato chips, candy bars, or ice cream. Period. No matter what the package says. Deep in our psyche, we know what we can eat (very little) and what we can't (a whole bunch). Allowing ourselves to be misled is only a fashionably acceptable way to fool ourselves, and we know it. We buy into the hype because we want, so badly, to believe. We want to think that we are doing the right thing, that we're really trying, that our motivation is pure.

Our weaknesses are being exploited by the packagers and the super store con men. Our ambivalence, and the overwhelming need to avoid the very real discomfort of effective dieting, invests the misguidance of food labels with an illusion of truth.

Like our dimwitted ovine cousins, we, too, are eventually fleeced.

Virginia Bola is a licensed psychologist and an admitted diet fanatic. She specializes in therapeutic reframing and the effects of attitudes and motivation on individual goals. The author of The Wolf at the Door: An Unemployment Survival Manual, and a free ezine, The Worker's Edge, she recently completed a psychologically-based weight control book: Diet with an Attitude:A Weight Loss Workbook. She can be reached at http://www.DietWithAnAttitude.com

---

Just the Cold Hard Facts About Diets, Weight Loss, Exercise and Losing Fat

This is a layman marketer's observations on diets and weight... Read More

Secrets of Gastric Bypass Surgery: Lose Weight Without Surgery

There's more to gastric bypass than surgery and rapid massive... Read More

New Weight Loss Program -- How to Make Your Diet Work

This is a continuation of the article entitled, "Making Diets... Read More

Is Low-Carb Weight Loss Really Just Water Loss?

Any weight loss or diet plan, including low-carb plans like... Read More

Dieters Need More Calcium

Women on diets need more calcium than normal to avoid... Read More

How You Can Chew to Lose Weight

There Is A Right Way to Chew!Chewing your food is... Read More

Lose Weight - Diet Tips For Fast Weight Loss

Looking to lose weight quickly? The good news is that... Read More

Move, Move, Move for Greater Weight Loss

The loss of fat comes from fat cells all over... Read More

Dieting 101 - For Those Who Want to Start But Dont Know Where to Begin

Okay, so you've read some of these articles, done your... Read More

The Psychology of Weight Loss: Part 3 ? Lose the Hang Ups!

We have missed the boat and your boat is sinking... Read More

Easy Weight Loss

A really easy, fast way to weight loss is walking... Read More

Rejuvenation and the Protein Revolution

Rejuvenation and the Protein Revolution in Your Kitchen©2003 Marilyn DiamondIf... Read More

Obesity is Big Business

Obesity and overweight, weight reduction and weight management therapies, miracle... Read More

Lose Fats - Gain Confidence when You Lose Weight

"How do I lose 5 kg or 30 kg?""How do... Read More

Winning at Post-Partum Weight Loss: Six Simple Strategies for New Moms ? Part 1

A healthy pregnancy almost always involves weight gain. But now... Read More

Little Known Facts About Changes In Our Diet

To say that Americans are obsessed with dieting is an... Read More

After WLS: How To Avoid Mourning The Loss of Food

A frequent question brand-new gastric bypass patients ask is "How... Read More

Obesity - How it Affects Your Health

1. Carrying around excess body fat will decrease your energy... Read More

20 Ways to Lose Weight

20 WAYS TO LOSE WEIGHT1. Take it one step at... Read More

On A Diet? Ensure You Get Enough Nutritional Supplements For Your Good Health

There is never any absolute certainty about what the nutritional... Read More

Diets, Diets, Diets?Do They Work?

Almost everyone has attempted to follow diets and weight loss... Read More

After Gastric Bypass: Some Tough Love on Grieving Food

New gastric bypass patients say they miss food, they grieve... Read More

Tips for Effective Weight Loss

Weight Loss tipsAll throughout my childhood and teenage years I... Read More

Weight Loss vs. Body Fat ? Mirrors and Clothes dont Lie!

With the growing epidemic of diabetes and obesity in our... Read More

Bye-Bye Bread

I don't know about you, but I absolutely love bread... Read More

Emotional Eating

Yesterday, out of the blue, without any foreboding gossip or... Read More

Why Breakfast is Good for You

Ok... If you are reading this is because you do... Read More

How to Eat Out and Lose Weight

Diners have become more health-conscious the last few years, and... Read More

Dieting Mistakes - 5 Easy Tips to Avoid Disaster

Looking to avoid the dieting mistakes many of our weight... Read More

Eating Sensibly, Working Out and Still Not Achieving Your Goals?

Are you working hard in the gym 3 times a... Read More

Phentermine Side Effects

When you're taking Phentermine, you should go to the emergency... Read More

Putting it Off Until Im Thinner

I can't do that Until I Lose This Weight! If... Read More

Diet and Weightloss -- Start Your New Year Off Right!

FINDING THE PERFECT DIETArriving at the Perfect Diet is no... Read More