Jenny has just weighed in with an impressive 2 stone weight loss over the last 2 months. She’s been awarded “Slimmer of the Week” for the 3rdconsecutive week. She has a stream of fellow group members come and congratulate her after the meeting, and ask her for her tips on how they can match her success. Then she goes home and her family tell her she’s amazing.
Jenny (not real) is a typical Slimming World success. Slimming World has been around since 1969, and claims to produce sustainable weight loss without needing to count calories or give up any food types. At its core is group support with regular meetings held around the country. And while they’re nothing new, slimming clubs are big business at the moment – Slimming World is currently the biggest trending search within Weight Loss on Google. Weight Watchers is perhaps the best known of these slimming clubs, which also doesn’t count calories, though it does use a points system to monitor what you eat.
So do they really work? With so many fad diets around at the moment telling you the right way to lose weight, do you really need to pay money to join a group? What do people get out of it?
Certainly, there are plenty of success stories like Jenny. A glance at the websites for any of these clubs will quickly reveal stories of people whose lives have been turned around and who are much happier and confident as a result. They’re often prefaced by comments about being initially sceptical but pleasantly surprised. After all, for those who’ve never done it, it can seem like a strange world. Isn’t it all a bit like an AA meeting? A little bit shameful?
Well, actually the great strength of these clubs is the social and support network they provide. Dieting, like exercise, can be a lonely business. When you monitor yourself, there’s no-one there to help you over the hurdles, and equally no-one (but yourself) to let down. It’s easy to cheat because no-one sees. But as part of a group, you naturally have more motivation to achieve noticeable results. You won’t get frowned on for bad behaviour – these groups are all about positive reinforcement, which has been shown in many psychological studies to be much more effective than punishment in changing behaviour.
Jenny has just had a whole heap of reinforcement. Not only has she seen the results of her dieting in the numbers on the scale, but she has received an award for her work, she has felt the pride of being congratulated by the rest of the group, she has been elevated to the status of guru by those same people who now want her advice, and she has felt an extra bubble of love from her family who share in her pride. All of this gives her a genuine psychological high. She’s going to feel extra motivated to continue after that, and moments of temptation or hunger are more easily dealt with in the expectation of receiving more gratification at the next meeting.
She’s also found new friends at the meetings. She feels extra confidence from looking and feeling better, but also from suddenly having a whole extra social circle to mix in. She’s meeting up with people outside of the group and because their relationship is based on support and reinforcement, she feels more positive generally.
Even those who choose not to join groups will often sign up to forums and online support networks, or else have the benefit of a personal trainer or nutritionist who provide that service for them. So it’s clear that there is so much more to a successful diet than just watching what you eat.
Indeed, since 2007 the NHS has made it policy to refer people to commercial slimming clubs. The alternative was for the GP to offer nutritional advice, but several recent studies have suggested that commercial clubs can achieve as much as double the weight loss compared to those who relied on the GP’s advice.
Yet there are those who are not convinced. These studies don’t take into account whether the weight loss is maintained long-term. In fact, Dr Carl Heneghan, director of the Centre for Evidence-based Medicine at Oxford University, looked at the figures for Weight Watchers over 5 years. He found that after 2 years only 20% of those who had shown success had managed to maintain their new weight; after 5 years that figure was only 16%.
Richard Samber, former finance director of Weight Watchers from 1968-1993, has suggested that Weight Watchers relies on that failure: "It's successful because the other 84% have to come back and do it again. That's where your business comes from".
Cynical or just an honest appraisal of a successful business model? It seems like it’s not so much the diet that you’re paying for as the support network. The news only last week was telling us that the type of diet that works is the one you stick to. And it’s clear that sticking to a diet relies on the right support and reward system. Whether you get that from a group, a forum or your friends and family doesn’t matter, just don’t try and do it on your own.
Wherever you get your support, and whichever diet you choose, we can provide the food, all freshly prepared and delivered to your door to your own specifications. That takes a lot of the temptation out of your way since you don’t even need to do the shopping.
Contact us 7 days per week on 020 8626 9360 between 9.00am and 21.00pm or via www.totaldietfood.com
Get our daily menus plus other food and diet based insights on our website here or via Twitter and Facebook
Slimming Clubs and the Support Network | Total Diet Food - London's Fresh and Personalised Diet Delivery Service
No comments:
Post a Comment