More People Than Ever Are Trying to Lose Weight, to No Avail

Despite reportedly trying lots of different weight loss methods, adults in the United States have seen overall increases in weight and actual measured BMI, according to a new study published this week in JAMA Network Open. The research basically paints a picture of people spinning their diet and activity wheels, reportedly restricting their food intake, increasing exercise, and drinking a ton of water, all to no avail.

The most interesting data within the study is the table of things people say they’ve done to try and lose weight, and how those tactics have changed over the 17 years of the research period. The number of people who say they “ate less food,” for instance, increased by 11 percent, and there was a more than 26 percent increase in “drinking more water” as a weight-management strategy (a questionable method); while only seven people say they drank water as a weight loss tactic in 1999–2000, 1,370 said the same in 2015–2016. Steady increases can be seen each year, which is a nice way to trace the celebrity diet cliché to just “drink a lot of water!!!” through time.

Researchers don’t offer much in the line of why this is happening (or maybe more fair to say, not happening). The study hypothesizes people are over-reporting the efforts they’re making to lose weight (the study data comes from a nationally representative survey). Or the gap in weight loss efforts and weight gained could come from a previously observed trend that people who perceive themselves to be overweight are more likely to increase their weight over time. This would also make sense, given that the number of people who think of themselves as overweight also increased in the study’s timeframe.

Researchers ultimately conclude that even though more people say they were trying to lose weight, across the board, weights and BMI increased. Of course, higher weights and higher BMI doesn’t necessarily speak to poor health: It’s extremely possible to gain mass in a healthy way; having more weight doesn’t necessarily mean being less healthy. But the overall picture of how healthy the country is isn’t what’s on display in this study. If anything, this study shows that people are certainly more stressed out about their weight, which can have a loose connection to health. But they’re not getting the tools they need to feel equipped to live healthily, or accept their healthy bodies.

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