An astounding 77 per cent of Australian women think they are overweight –
so we are launching Australia’s Greatest Weight Loss Challenge.
The standard greeting to a friend was once, “Hi, how are you?” Now, the universal cry of welcome is “Wow … are you on a diet?” coupled with a furtive glance.
We are a nation obsessed with our figures – many of us are deeply unhappy with our weight, some dangerously so. It’s not a big leap to assume most of our friends are on some sort of diet.
The Weekly’s All Woman Talk survey questioned 3000 women about body image and found 59 per cent were actively trying to shed kilos at the time of the survey and an astounding 77 per cent of us consider ourselves overweight.
Some have gone to extremes to achieve the body perfect – almost a quarter admit to taking diet pills and laxatives, 12 per cent have smoked cigarettes instead of eating and more chilling is that 11 per cent told the survey they had vomited after a meal.
Of those women trying to lose weight, 53 per cent have been trying to drop a dress size or more for over a year and 14 per cent admit that they have been trying to lose weight “all my life”. “There are a lot of people who don’t like the way they look and want things to be different, but there is a lack of motivation to persist with lifestyle change,” says The Weekly’s Medical Practitioner, Professor Kerryn Phelps.
When we don’t succeed – just 8 per cent reported they had achieved and maintained their goal weight – we blame ourselves, with 58 per cent citing lack of willpower for their failure to lose weight. “The one thing people don’t do consistently is eat less and exercise more,” says Professor Phelps. “They try it for a while, but then, for whatever reason, it goes off the rails.”
No one understands these statistics better than Amy Smith, the CEO of Jenny Craig Australia, which helps more than 70,000 people a year to slim down.
“I was deeply in love with my husband and when he left, I was devastated. I lost my beauty and I lost my man,” Amy says, candidly. “I was a single mum and I was lucky to get my make-up and knickers on, let alone devise a diet and exercise plan. With kids and the business, somehow I lost me. I had given up,” recalls the 43-year-old mother of two, echoing the 26 per cent of respondents who revealed that “being too busy” caused their weight loss efforts to fail. “My kids were five and six, so I couldn’t fool myself it was baby weight anymore. I thought I should do the program, seeing I am the boss,” she adds, laughing.
She successfully shed her goal of 10kg and kept it off. “The real transformation?” says Amy, smiling. “It’s on the inside.”
It all adds up
53% More than half of respondents who are trying to lose weight currently have been trying for more than a year.
23% Almost a quarter have been trying to lose weight for more than six years. Almost one in five women have tried more than three different diets or methods.
34% say they want to drop a dress size – or several – because they are unhappy with how they look. Thirty per cent say they want to feel fitter and 18 per cent believe shedding kilos will make them feel “better in myself”. Just 4 per cent say their doctor advised them to lose weight.
44% lose weight and then regain most or all of it. Fifty-eight per cent say lack of discipline and willpower have sabotaged their dieting efforts. And 26 per cent blame a busy lifestyle and no time to exercise.
42% Almost half had been on an elimination diet (cutting out either carbohydrates or dairy foods).
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