Each year over 10 million people in the UK and 40 million people in the USA begin a new diet; within five and a half weeks 50 per cent have given up, having wasted collectively, on average, £335 million (on products, gym memberships etc.) in the process.Of those who succeed in losing weight in the short term, 95 per cent have put all the weight back on within a year.It is estimated that over 80 per cent of adults have been on a diet at one time or another.Approximately 55 per cent adults have bought products to help them lose weight - from pills to patches, miracle cures and detoxes (excluding books and videos).Eighty per cent of women and 45 per cent of men are unhappy with their appearance.In the UK and USA combined, approximately 12 million people suffer from eating disorders, such as anorexia.Twenty-six per cent of ten-year-old girls feel they aren't thin enough.It's been estimated that on average, women in the UK and USA spend ten years of their lives trying to be slimmer than they are, but end up fatter.
Most of us want to be thin, even if we pretend otherwise. Ask most women in their forties to sixties, and you'll find that they've spent most of their adult years fretting about whether they were thin enough.
But this is not a recent phenomenon. Many people cite the growth of the food industry after the Second World War as the beginnings of obesity and the need to diet. But read this:
'A new craze in women's fashion [has] burst upon the community. They call it "slimming". Many who practise it succeed in resembling famine victims - those who could become the most like living skeletons being the envy of their sisters.'
This was written about women - in one of the earliest diet books published in the UK-in 1926. While in 1929, a well-known theatrical impresario in London said of chorus girls: 'Many of them ruin their digestions by crazy dieting to keep slim.'
Research today, however, shows that men are almost as obsessed. The number of males on diets and/or getting body reshaping and retouching is rising steeply (for example, there has been an increase of over 50 per cent year on year in Botox for men and 200 per cent in two years for some types of cosmetic surgery), while the latest figures show that 25 per cent of people with eating disorders are now male.
And, horrifyingly, our children - even pre-school-aged children - are showing signs of being similarly body conscious. It doesn't help that dolls like Barbie and Bratz and cartoon females (such as Princess Tiana in The Princess and the Frog, whose waist is half the width of her head) are all size zero, without a doubt. And the Government's anti-obesity campaign, which includes allowing education authorities to weigh pupils and send warning letters to parents if a child is overweight, may actually be compounding this increasing childhood obsession with not being fat.
Losing weight is important if we are over weight - but not to the extent that it makes us look and feel unhealthy. Michelle teaches people how to get rid of belly fat the healthy way, so that it stays off for good, and doesn't cost you your health in achieving your weight loss goals.
A simple way to get started is to include some foods that burn fat into your diet. These work by balancing your hormones, which makes your weight loss journey a whole lot easier.
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