Weight loss has become just another consumer product. The diet industry is a multi-billion-dollar business that constantly reinvents itself, creating new ways of eating, apps, products, and new obsessions around restricting different food groups in order to lose a few pounds. The goal? Beyond the serious issues of stigma, social pressure, and body shaming surrounding body weight, the underlying premise is simple: losing weight helps you achieve good health.
But is that really true? Do diets actually improve your health, or is there a better way to take care of yourself? We explain why—and how—to break away from this reductionist view of weight and health, let go of dieting, and protect your health in an effective and positive way.
The false promises of weight-loss diets
The first problem with diets is that most people are unable to maintain weight loss. But that’s not all.
For most people, losing weight can involve a wide range of negative side effects, such as highly restrictive diets, rebound weight gain, the development of malnutrition, or the loss of the ability to listen to the body’s hunger and fullness signals.
In addition, multiple studies show that, in the long term, dieting is rarely an effective or reliable method for improving health. The root of this issue is not willpower, but neuroscience. As neuroscientist Sandra Aamodt explains, metabolic adaptation is one of the tools the brain uses to keep the body within a certain weight range, determined by our genes and life experience.
When dieting causes our weight to drop below this range, the brain declares an energy emergency and activates mechanisms to stabilize it. For example, we burn fewer calories, produce more hunger-stimulating hormones, and reduce the influence of the brain’s weight-regulating system.
A heavy cultural burden
The obvious question that may arise is: why do we keep trying to lose weight through dieting if we already know it doesn’t work? Because diet culture is a massive sociocultural ship that is very difficult to turn. But it has already begun to shift—and one of the best ways to accelerate that change is to debunk the myths surrounding the relationship between weight and health.
When we try to move away from dieting, one of the biggest fears is gaining weight or not losing it. That is why, during this process, it is crucial to challenge our own assumptions about health and body weight.
We have been told across all areas of society that not being thin equals poor health. But how much truth is there to these assumptions according to research?
The myth of weight loss and health
Let’s start from the beginning. Being thin does not mean being healthy. Research not only shows that diets are largely ineffective—or only minimally effective—at improving overall health. In every study that considered lifestyle habits, those habits were a better predictor of future health than body size.
It is important to understand that health is a multifaceted concept, and that the cultural perspective of placing excess weight as the sole determinant of poor health is misguided. Lack of physical activity, smoking, alcohol consumption, low intake of fruits and vegetables, stress, and mental health are far more relevant factors when predicting serious health problems. As you can see, there are many ways to care for health that have nothing to do with weight, but rather with behaviors.
A person with overweight or obesity who exercises, does not smoke, and eats a healthy diet is far less likely to develop complications than someone with the same body size but less healthy habits. Ultimately, a person’s overall health cannot be determined by looking at their body, but by observing their habits.
From a diet mindset to a health mindset
Research findings on weight loss therefore point toward a radically different approach to healthy living. Adopting a health and well-being mindset—creating new habits and learning how to care for our bodies in the best possible way, rather than simply trying to lose weight, is a strong starting point for leaving diets behind.
However, we face a fundamental problem: not knowing where to begin when it comes to improving habits effectively. We often turn to diets or any kind of advice due to a lack of clear guidance on what to eat, what type of physical exercise to do, or how to care for ourselves in general. The divergence between expert opinions makes health care both controversial and confusing, leaving us feeling lost when trying to adopt a healthy lifestyle. All of this changes with personalized health.
Personalized health: the end of weight-loss diets?
What works for some people does not necessarily work for you. Understanding your body’s unique needs based on biochemical and genetic markers helps you learn how to change your habits to improve your health with scientific certainty. This information revolutionizes and transcends the way we take care of ourselves—and it is now possible to access it through molecular studies based on data provided by DNA tests.
These health assessments allow you to understand how to eat and manage your weight in the most effective way, what you can do to optimize your metabolism, whether you have intolerances or hypersensitivities, and which type of training is best suited for you.
This represents a profound advance in health care, as we move from generic recommendations to personalized, habit-based recommendations that you can easily apply in your daily life.
