Explenations For The Success And Failure Of Dieting

Question 1

What are the 3 main reasons for the failure of dieting

Answer 1

-The spiral model
-The ironic process theory
-Restraint, disinhibition and boundary model

Question 2

The spiral model

Answer 2

-Dieting and food restriction often starts with dissatisfaction and low self esteem in adolescence.
-Dieters experience initial success but then often regain weight
-This causes a sense of personal deficiency-‘I didn’t try hard enough’-and lowers self esteem
-This creates a downwards spiral
-Dieters make an even bigger effort to restrict food, causing psychological effects like emotional distress and frustration
-This makes them more vulnerable to disinhibited binges and further weight gain and failure of diet

Question 3

Ironic process theory

Answer 3

-People restrict the intake of certain ‘forbidden’ foods
-This is paradoxical as it leads to the individual being more preoccupied with the thought of these forbidden foods
-This makes the dieter more vulnerable to disinhibited eating and loss of control, leading to excessive food intake and failing their diet

Question 4

Restraint/disinhibition

Answer 4

-Dieters make a conscious effort to restrain eating, making them more vulnerable to disinhibitors which are internal and external food cues which tempt them to break their diet
-They then engage in disinhibited eating which is maintained by their all or nothing / absolutist / catastrophic thinking
-The diet is therefore broken

Question 5

Boundary model

Answer 5

-Restrained eaters have a wider zone of biological indifference where they are influenced by biological factors
-They need to eat more to reach satiety
-They lace a diet boundary, and when they go over this boundary they experience the what the hell effect and engage in disinhibited binges eating.
-This fails their diet

Question 6

Support for ironic process theory

Answer 6

-Adriassne
-Female participants who were trying to cut down on their unhealthy snack intake where presented with diet intentions in a negative form
-When I’m sad, I will not eat chocolate
-They found an ironic rebound effect with women reporting more unhealthy snacks in their snack journal compared to the control group
-The cognitive link between being sad and eating chocolate makes it more accessible in the mind
-Supports ironic cognitive processes

Question 7

Real world applications

Answer 7

-Knowing about how diets fail can help people stick to diets and lose weight
-Helping people to break out of the spiral
-Prevent lowered self esteem since people who diet to avoid putting on weight rather to lose weight experience less disinhibited eating due to higher self esteem
-The only way to have dietary success is to promote self esteem

Question 9

Individual differences

Answer 9

-Ogden
-Some people succeed in losing weight when restrictive dieting and preoccupied with food
-These are usually the minority and include many people with AN
-locus of control, internals believe that weight loss is contingent on their own efforts and they have control over their success or failure, perhaps accounting for why they can loose weight so easily