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The diet business is fat and healthy. Anyone who swigs diet
soda, works out regularly or subsists on fat-free food, is
feeding this multi-billion dollar industry. Annual diet industry
revenues have grown from an estimated $100 million in the
1950s to $50 billion in the 1990s. The industry encompasses
all products and services that claim to change the body, including
diet plans and products, exercise equipment and gyms. It has
grown exponentially over the past four decades and shows no
signs of declining.
Notions
of the ideal body are linked with the economy. There are a
wealth of businesses that depend upon the American desire
for thinness to survive.
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order to create a market for their product, they attempt to
make people feel inadequate about their own bodies. Their product
or exercise equipment will get us on the way to the "real"
us, the thinner, better, more popular us. We are given the message
that our value depends on our physical appearance. We are told
that we must be sexually attractive to be successful and happy.
An ideal weight is presented as a requirement for being sexually
attractive.
However,
diet failure rates hover between 90 and 95 percent, according
Jeanine Cogan*, a congressional science fellow for the American
Psychological Association. But many of the major companies
don't disclose their statistics on success. This shows that
the real focus of diet companies is in making money, not on
helping people live healthier lives.
*From
the article "Diet Inc." at Body
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