Diet Survivors™ newsletter November 2007
The newsletter for normal eaters
Cults and diets—
are they similar?
What is normal eating?
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About this issue
Have you ever thought about how cults operate? We may laugh at or marginalize the followers of these extremist communities as "gullible." But perhaps we Diet Survivors™ are not so different.
You might be surprised at the similarities between cults and diets. Find out why it hasn't been so easy to stop dieting and what you can do about it.
Is a community a cult? |
Jonestown and Heaven's Gate |
Traits of cults |
Sound familiar? |
The clincher |
Do-it-yourself deprogramming
Is a community a cult?
Let's first set the record straight. Humans long for community, and will find it one way or another, whether in their local church, neighborhood or in an alternative community consisting of folks with similar ideals or interests. Any of these associations can offer the love, support and emotional health that binds groups of families together.
Georg Koester, B.A., LMT, is a teacher and writer in Phoenix, Arizona. Koester believes that people grow spiritually in groups as well as individually. He takes pains in his writing, as do many supporters of alternative communities, to distinguish between community building and the less healthy traits of what are generally known as cults.
Koester writes, "By avoiding the pitfalls of cult behavior, we can achieve a sense of community that is one of the most deeply rewarding human experiences." Clearly, Koester believes that a cult and a healthy community are not the same.
Remember Jonestown and Heaven's Gate?
Some of our readers may remember the Jonestown murder-suicides. On November 18, 1978, more than 900 people died in the largest mass murder-suicide in American history. Members of a group called Peoples Temple lived in a utopian community and agricultural project known as Jonestown in Guyana, South America.
Most of the members died after drinking poison, and two members died of gunshot wounds. Some residents murdered a U.S. congressman along with three members of the media and a resident that was trying to leave. Another member of the group killed her three children and then herself. In all, 918 Americans lost their lives in one fateful day.
Our younger readers may recall the more recent mass suicide of the Heaven's Gate Community. Heaven's Gate came to public attention when thirty-nine members committed mass suicide on March 27, 1997.
Some traits of cults
Although most cults do not lead to such extremes as mass murder or suicide, cults do have certain characteristics that set them apart from healthy communities.
Corinne McLaughlin and Gordon Davidson have studied healthy alternative communities for many years. In their book, Builders of the Dawn: Community Lifestyles in a Changing World, these authors contrast healthy communities with the traits of cults. According to these experts, cults have some characteristics in common.
Let's look at some of those traits—specifically, the ones that may remind us of diets or diet memberships. Which of these touches a nerve for you?
- Decision-making
- Cults have strong leaders that make decisions for their members. Unsuspecting new members mistake the control for caring. In their desperation for a better life, members even feel a sense of relief that certain decisions will be made for them.
- Delusion of free will
- Members arrive willingly and are therefore unable to see that they're being controlled. They believe in their free will to leave.
- Extreme rebound
- Once members do manage to leave the cult, they are often angry with all religion or all organized alternative communities of any kind. In their departure, some adopt the notion that all such groups are bad. They make new rules about not joining anything.
- Fear
- Members feel a strong sense of belonging to the point where they fear the consequences if they leave. This fear takes over their ability to think clearly.
- Hunger
- Some cults welcome newcomers by encouraging its members to sacrifice part of their meal to the newcomer. In turn, once that newcomer has been around a while, he joins those who give up extra food. The result is long-term, subtle, calorie deprivation. Food deprivation is a well-understood means by which to leave folks vulnerable to suggestion.
- Shared beliefs
- Cult members are expected to share a strong set of beliefs. Those who dare to break the rules are made to feel that they are hurting the group and themselves. Members learn to follow the rules rather than their own reasoning.
- Willpower
- When cult members fail to comply, they feel remorse and failure. They are encouraged to redouble their efforts. They apply even more willpower.
Depending upon how strongly you followed your diet, even a seemingly harmless book such as The Atkins Diet could have become cult-like for you. A few more traits of cults that might ring a bell for former dieters:
- Extreme demarcation between good and evil
- Relinquish personal responsibility for actions
- Inhibit critical thinking so that "group think" predominates, and many subjects are taboo for discussion
- Restrict the ability to leave the group
- Demand absolute obedience
- Encourage over-dependency
- Appeal to greed
- Appeal to vanity
- Use guilt to control behavior
Sound familiar?
Do any of these traits sound like a diet you've been on or a diet group you've belonged to? Probably no further analysis is needed to show the parallels between diets and cults.
But perhaps just as striking is the opposite: the parallels between healthy communities and normal eating, both of which encourage:
- Disagreement
- Individuality
- Independent thought
- Balance
- Following nature's natural processes
- Personal responsibility (for example: you can't blame it on heredity anymore)
- Critical thinking
- Individual choice
- Applying reasonableness rather than rules
- Reduced distinction between "good" and "bad" foods
- Self-confidence
- Proper care of the body
- Self-restraint to achieve balance in all things
- Removal of guilt
- Self-awareness and emotional growth
The clincher
Koester sums it up this way, "It seems that cults in some form or another always deny or abuse the body. The denial of the body prevents listening to body signals which might indicate that something is amiss."
It's no wonder that at the heart of normal eating is the enormous effort required to learn when we're hungry and when we're full!
The similarity between cults and diets could not be made more clear than by Koester's statement. However, it is noteworthy that the goals of diet leaders and diet writers are well-intended. As with anything, the fault lies mostly in our willingness to surrender our thinking.
Do-it-yourself deprogramming
If any of these traits sound familiar to you, it may now be clearer than ever why normal eating, which is supposed to be the more "natural" way to eat, is hard to learn. You've allowed yourself to be programmed by well-meaning folks who have only been trying to help you. You've abandonded your own wisdom and autonomy.
And we have nobody to blame but ourselves. The people we've listened to probably didn't mean for us to stop thinking or to abandon all reason. The first step, then, may be to take responsibility for what we've done to ourselves.
Just as a former cult member may need deprogramming (sometimes done by a professional), so might you. Newly freed cult members often find, for example, that they are unable to make simple decisions such as what to wear or what to order for dinner.
To deprogram yourself from former diets, you probably don't need a professional deprogrammer. With a few guidelines and a little bit of reading, you can deprogram youself.
Begin by reflecting back on the ways in which you have allowed yourself to be manipulated by your diet. Then, over time, take steps to dispute what you've learned.
For example, is it okay to make your own decisions about portion sizes? Is it okay, or isn't it, to have a little sugar? Will something awful happen if you think for yourself about what and how much to eat?
Do fats really make you fat? No! Overeating makes you fat. Are certain foods your enemy? Is bread really at fault for your problems?
Here's one you probably made yourself believe with help from no one: "Once I lose the weight, I must become a better person, be kind to animals, start a charity, have better relationships, get my degree..." (you fill in the blank). To deprogram yourself from such beliefs, ask yourself, "Is this true?" "Can I lose weight and otherwise stay the same old me?" The answer is yes!
Below is a very brief outline of the ABCDEF method for disputing the faulty thinking of someone who can't seem to let go of low-fat dieting, but you can use this method for any faulty thinking:
- Activating event: Identify what's bugging you or holding you back. You're still on a low-fat diet, even though you know this hasn't worked for you. You can't understand why you're doing this.
- Belief: This is where you uncover the belief behind what you're doing. You're still believing that fats make you fat, and you're also believing that if you use the hunger and fullness method plus low-fat, you'll get the weight off faster.
- Consequence: Now you hone in on the consequence of these beliefs, which could be that you're stuck at your current weight, and not feeling satisfied by what you're eating. You're frustrated with normal eating and with yourself. You're even starting to think that maybe normal eating doesn't work for everybody.
- Dispute: When you take apart your beliefs about low-fat dieting, you realize there's no evidence of their truth. In fact, many studies now show that folks lose weight just as well on high-fat, low-carb diets. This is enough evidence to dismantle your faith in low-fat diets. You also realize that the hunger and fullness method is impaired if you're altering the taste of your food so as to be less than optimal. Thirdly, you realize that getting the weight off faster is not a good goal.
- Effective new beliefs: Now you replace your old beliefs with more accurate ones. You decide that you will no longer put your faith in low-fat living. You also start believing in your body's own timing for losing the weight, instead of your rebellious will.
- Feelings: Now your feelings are changed, as a result of new beliefs. You are less frustrated, more relaxed, and feel free to take your time learning to tune in to your body's hunger and fullness signals. You feel less overwhelmed. You resolve to learn more about normal eating.
Another tool that can help you deprogram yourself is a heathy community of people who are also deprogramming themselves from the diet mentality. You can talk about this newsletter or any other diet and food issues right now with other non-dieters. Visit our Diet Survivors™ group on Yahoo!
In addition, you can subscribe to the free Diet Survivors monthly newsletter.
What is normal eating?
Visit our Diet Survivors™ group on
Yahoo!
Subscribe to this monthly newsletter
Copyright © 2007, Linda E. Moran. All rights reserved.
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