As Jenny Craig folds in New Zealand, Andrea Braakhuis asks how we can best navigate the desire to lose weight alongside the reality that dieting often leads to failure
Supporters of the ‘health at every size’ movement celebrated the closing of Jenny Craig Inc in the United States claiming that the quick fix, get ‘thin for summer’ mentality of the company’s weight-loss programmes didn’t work and like much of the diet industry, only create more issues with weight, body acceptance, and problems with weight loss in the long term.
What made Jenny Craig Inc so successful and such a household name for so long? The Jenny Craig programme consisted of meal plans, one-on-one talk sessions, and the option to purchase the company-approved meals and snacks. Like most commercial weight loss companies, it marketed itself with celebrity-endorsements and a promise of quick results.
Despite the negative aspects of commercial weight loss plans, there are a few nuggets of gold to the Jenny Craig programme: support from fellow dieters leads to better success, as might self-monitoring, self-weighing, smaller and more frequent meals, and snacks, increasing exercise, eating breakfast, eating meals at home instead of at restaurants and fast food, and reducing time in front of the television. In the academic world we often label these tactics as ‘behaviour change support’, which can help people achieve a healthy body and mind.
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Decades of research shows that behaviour change support can help weight loss, but that weight loss is around 10 percent lower than advertisers of the Jenny Craig programme promote. Not only is the initial weight loss less than many dieters are hoping for, but success is typically short-lived. The behaviours that helped people lose weight are difficult to maintain and weight regain is typical. Decades of research from multiple weight loss trials tells us that more than half of the lost weight is regained within two years, and by five years, more than 80 percent of dieters put back on any lost weight. Jenny Craig profited by appealing to yo-yo dieters.
Why is it so difficult to lose weight and keep it off?
Most weight loss diet plans involve a ‘good versus bad’ food mindset, requiring plenty of self-control from the dieter – often more than they have. Dieters tend to eat more delicious high-fat food after ‘breaking’ a diet, when in a bad mood or when drinking alcohol – when the mind is tested or challenged in some way.
Dieters often have an all-or-nothing, rule-based approach to dieting and must demonstrate restraint, and if they have blown any one small aspect of the diet (they eat a biscuit) the rest goes out the window (they might as well eat the whole packet). A more graduated approach to eating, where fattening, even indulgent, food can be eaten in small quantities without guilt, is likely to be more sustainable and therefore successful. According to nutrition researcher Ellyn Satter, competent eaters are “confident, comfortable, and flexible with eating and are matter-of-fact and reliable about getting enough to eat of enjoyable and nourishing food”.
Practitioners of the mindful diet ethos have long argued that taking a non-diet approach is more effective in the long term. Adopting a non-diet approach to health encourages the dieter and healthcare practitioner to look beyond weight and body size to determine the overall picture of one’s health; an acknowledgement that weight is not a proxy for every aspect of health. The health at every size (HAES) movement advocates for body acceptance, self-compassion, and reducing diet rules and the need for excessive restraint. While the HAES approach sounds utopian, the research is out on whether everyone would benefit from the body acceptance approach, or just some people.
Bear in mind we also happen to live in an environment geared towards weight gain with an abundance of highly processed, unhealthy, and cheap food which only makes maintaining a diet even harder.
The lack of proven success of most dietary programmes hasn’t stopped the burgeoning diet industry. The diet consumer of today craves novel and modern approaches that can be accessed anytime, anywhere. Popular programmes for 2023 include the Fast 800 by celebrity medico Michael Mosley, which is a structured fasting plan described by many as modern starvation. Research on the 800-calorie plan revealed that dieters following it lost more weight and saw more improvements than the comparator group in metabolic risk (HbA1C, cholesterol, blood pressure, etc.) But at the three-year follow-up, the 800-calorie group weight gain was more than the control group, despite having maintained some weight loss. The differences in cardiometabolic risk factors were not all that different between the two groups (except for blood pressure). That’s a lot of effort for the dieters to achieve very little benefit long term.
Another modern weight loss programme is called Noom, an online programme claiming to “create long-term results through habit and behaviour change, not restrictive dieting”. It incorporates personalisation, and attractive, structured education. In a review of Noom, registered dietitian Rachael Ajmera gave it a 3.7 out of 5, saying “The Noom diet encourages you to eat low-calorie, nutrient-dense foods and monitors your progress via a mobile app. Although its well-established methods are likely effective, it focuses mostly on increasing weight loss rather than improving overall health.” Sounds like another quick fix scheme.
How do we best move forward and navigate the desire to lose weight and the reality that dieting often leads to failure? Firstly, by acknowledging that weight gain is not caused by one factor, but myriad factors. And just as gaining weight is complex, a quick-fix novelty diet, whether it be a high-fibre, intermittent fasting, all meat and no carbs, is almost certainly unlikely to work in the long run.
