At any point in time, one in three women and one in five men in the United States are on some kind of diet. Most dieters opt for traditional programs that count nutrients or servings of food or actually specify which foods to eat. Those diets produce short-term weight loss, but two or three years later, 95 percent of traditional dieters regain the weight. But the diet industry manages to hold on because hope springs eternal in the human breast. 
Research shows that starvation, whether from natural causes or intentional dieting, increases the risk of overeating and binge eating disorder (binge eating disorder is a distinct entity and not the same as overeating.) On-again, off-again dieters regain lost weight by over-eating in-between periods of restrictive dieting. The human body is simply programmed to respond to starvation by hoarding food when it becomes available.
On-again, off-again dieters develop a “dieting mindset.” They lose touch with their thresholds for taste and fullness. For example, when normal eaters eat sweets or a meal, they cross over a threshold and lose their desire for more sweets or food. Chronic dieters, on the other hand, learn to ignore those signals. They decide when, what, and how much to eat based on whether they are on or off a diet. That leaves them susceptible to eating in response to external cues, like TV commercials and food pushers, and to non-food cues such as boredom and unpleasant feelings. (more…)
