New Study: Dieting Don't Work

Despite some obvious exceptions, a new study proclaims that by and large dieting does not work to reduce weight and in fact the yo-yo dieting experienced by most overweight people may be more harmful to the body than maintaining an overweight frame that your body can adjust to.

"Several studies indicate that dieting is actually a consistent predictor of future weight gain," said Janet Tomiyama, a UCLA graduate student of psychology and co-author of the study. One study found that both men and women who participated in formal weight-loss programs gained significantly more weight over a two-year period than those who had not participated in a weight-loss program, she said.

Another study, which examined a variety of lifestyle factors and their relationship to changes in weight in more than 19,000 healthy older men over a four-year period, found that "one of the best predictors of weight gain over the four years was having lost weight on a diet at some point during the years before the study started," Tomiyama said. In several studies, people in control groups who did not diet were not that much worse off — and in many cases were better off — than those who did diet, she said.

This of course raises the question of what DOES work, since obesity has been linked to so many health problems. The study's authors remain mute on this point.