Anxious eaters: why we fall for fad diets

"We have all had that experience with the friend who has a new diet, one that he's following enthusiastically. Or maybe we've been that friend, adopting a new diet because we learned about it from another friend, or read about it online, in a magazine, or heard a compelling celebrity endorsement. Most such diets promise the same things: weight loss, better health, better sleep, mental functioning and a general improvement in mood and affect - in other words, self-transformation. Many convince us that certain foods or food ingredients cause ill health, and avoidance will improve a wide range of physical and mental capacities. These diets promise radical transformation in our lives, if we just follow a few "simple" rules. Both authors of this book have professionally encountered such diets in their research, clinical work, and with the general public. Janet Chrzan is a nutritional anthropologist who teaches courses in food and culture, nutrition, nutrition evolution, and other related topics. Kima Cargill is a professor of clinical psychology who teaches the psychology of food and culture, as well as consumerism and its effects on well-being. In Anxious Eaters, they explore how food beliefs and practices are shaped by cultural norms, by what we know. More than a simple solution to rectify one's health, fad diets, Chrzan and Cargill assert, are a cultural practice that channels our wishes for easy, seemingly cost-free solutions. Fad diets not only help users manage anxiety about food choices, but they also flow from desires for self-transformation and provide relief from food-related anxiety often outside of our awareness. The authors examine popular fad diets from the perspectives of anthropology, psychology, and nutrition to explain why these diets are popular at this particular time. While studies of dietary practices usually examine the content of the diet and how it affects the bodies and social lives of adherents, this book instead explores the cultural and economic contexts of the diet and their psychological appeal for the individual. Diets do not appear and become culturally salient in a social vacuum; rather these nutritional belief systems are built by culturally determined narratives, often designed to effect self-transformation through rituals such as purification. As such they meet psychological yearnings and rationales, operate through cultural systems that legitimize their practice, and affect biological bodies individually and collectively. Chrzan and Cargill focus on food removal diets, food addiction, clean eating, and Paleo in order to trace the popular or cultural contexts expressed through each diet and study the psychological and anthropological reasons underlying its popularity."