Men Have the Edge in Never-Ending Battle of the Bulge : Dieting: Despite the female obsession with fat, men are often more successful in losing weight, experts say.
Lise Gladstone knows from experience that life is not fair. She has always been short and on a diet. Her husband, Robert St. John, has always been tall, thin and able to eat anything he wants.
She’s just trying not to be fat; he’s worried when his pants get just a little too tight. And under stress, laments Gladstone, a graphic artist who runs a design company here with St. John, he loses weight. She gains it. “I’m standing in the kitchen eating and he’s pacing around drinking coffee.”
When it comes to perceptions about nutrition--and in particular, losing weight--men and women “couldn’t be more different,” says Katherine Tallmadge, a local dietitian who specializes in weight loss.
There’s not a great deal of research on the war between the sexes in the battle of the bulge, but according to government figures, 27% of all women and 24% of all men are overweight.
Yet despite the fact that there are only slightly more overweight adult women than men, twice as many women as men are trying to lose weight. According to MarketData Enterprises, 50% of all women say they are on a diet, while only 25% of men are. And when they diet, women are more likely than men to use low-calorie, sugar-free products, reports the market-research firm.
These statistics seem to jibe with a recent Gallup poll that found that women tend to be more interested in and knowledgeable about nutrition than men, and that they feel guiltier about eating the foods they like and worry more about gaining weight. And this anxiety will likely get worse since a study published recently in the New England Journal of Medicine reported that 40% of all heart disease in women is due entirely to being overweight.
“Women have started thinking about dieting from the time they started wearing clothes,” says Nancy Goor of Bethesda, Md., co-author of “The Choose to Lose Diet” (Houghton Mifflin, $17.95).
Yet in contrast with the ubiquitous societal pressure on women to be thin, it seems quite acceptable for men to carry extra baggage. “A lot of people think a fat man with a belly hanging over his belt is normal,” said co-author Ron Goor.
If men with those jelly bellies are trying to slim down, it’s more likely that they’ll try to do it on their own. When women try to lose weight, they are more likely to seek help, according to Kelly Brownell, co-director of the Obesity Research Clinic at the University of Pennsylvania, who said women tend to outnumber men eight or nine to one in organized weight-loss programs.
Women are “the health gatekeepers in the family,” says Brownell. “They are more likely to decide what foods come in the house. They are more likely to take the children to doctors, to buy medicine. Because of this, they’re more likely to get help for weight problems. They’re also likely to read about it more. There’s an awful lot more articles on weight loss in Family Circle, Redbook and Glamour than there are in Field and Stream, Car and Driver and Sports Illustrated.”
Yet despite the female obsession with fat, men who enroll in supervised programs are often more successful in losing weight, according to anecdotal comments from local weight-loss experts.
“I have a much higher success rate with men,” says Virginia Inglese, a nutrition consultant from Arlington, Va., who runs individual and corporate weight-management programs, adding that there are nonetheless many women who are “very committed.”
Men may have the edge simply for physical reasons. For one, says C. Wayne Callaway, an endocrinologist and clinical nutritionist who specializes in metabolism, men have a higher metabolic rate because they have more lean muscle mass. (Muscles burn calories faster than fat tissue.)
For another, women’s extra weight tends to be on their thighs and hips, whereas men gain extra weight more often in the belly. The thighs and hips do not “release fat” as readily as the belly.
In addition, Callaway said, there is growing evidence that the more people diet, the more slowly they will lose weight and the more quickly they will gain it back. Since women are more likely to diet, they are more likely to yo-yo.
But weight-loss experts such as Callaway are beginning to believe that there are biological limits to what people can do to change their bodies, and that it is more important to be at a healthy weight rather than constantly striving for an ideal weight. (This is particularly true for women, whose role models are models in magazines, with weights averaging 20% below normal.)
“People come in different sizes and shapes,” says Callaway. “Biological variability is not a disease.”
Aside from physical differences, however, weight-loss advisers believe that psychological-societal differences put women at a disadvantage when trying to take off unwanted pounds.
“Men don’t seem as emotionally tied to food,” says Ann Litt, a local dietitian and weight-loss counselor. As a result, Litt said, men approach dieting more as a project.
Indeed, for many women, food is a pacifier, a stress-reducer. “Food was always my comforter even though the problems were there after I ate,” said Raye Anne Harris, a 33-year-old training specialist with a government contracting firm in Reston, Va. Harris, who recently lost 20 pounds, said she is learning to stay out of the kitchen when she’s tense and take a walk instead.
Stress-related eating is certainly not the sole purview of women, however. “I have a real emotional and financial attachment to food. Stress-related eating was very big with me. I would inhale my food,” said Joel Slocum, corporate director for food and beverage for Sheraton Hotels in Northern Virginia. Slocum, who said he has tried to lose weight on everything “from Stillman to Scarsdale to the Airline Stewardess Diet,” recently lost 60 pounds by totally revamping his eating habits rather than going on a diet.
Indeed, while it may be easy to lose weight initially, it is extremely hard to keep it off; about 90% of people who lose 25 pounds in a diet program regain the weight within two years. But some weight-loss experts believe that this lack of success is more related to how people lost the weight in the first place, not the lack of willpower on the part of the dieter. Drinks, pills, special foods and restrictive eating doom the return to a normal eating regime.
And although there are no studies to corroborate this, interviews with local dietitians as well as dieters of both sexes indicate that men may be more malleable when it comes to learning to eat for a lifetime, rather than learning to diet for the short term.
Samuel Brown, an accountant at the Department of Energy who recently lost 50 pounds, said his wife is “under the impression that you’re on a diet. It’s not a diet. It’s an eating-modification plan.” Dietitians say men are easier to mold, too, because they haven’t had as many negative diet experiences and because they don’t know as much about food and nutrition. “They haven’t had years of dieting. They’re not like women who can reel off the calories of everything,” says dietitian Litt. In this case, it seems, knowledge is not power.
“I never understood nutrition,” said Paul Flaherty, director of software-development operations at Honeywell in McLean, Va., who recently lost 75 pounds. “I stayed away from bread, rice and potatoes but found out that I should be eating them the most.” Flaherty said when dietitian Inglese provided him with nutritional data, he was able to apply it.
Inglese said men seem to be more motivated to lose weight because of health concerns, while women are more motivated because of looks.
“I didn’t do this for appearance. I did it for longevity,” said Slocum, who said he had high blood pressure before he dropped the 60 pounds.
“I want to feel good about myself. I want to look in the mirror and say, “there’s a good-looking woman,’ ” says Glenda Fritz, an accountant who said her doctor told her to lose 50 pounds. “In the long term, the health will come,” said Fritz, who has thus far lost 20 pounds.
Like many women, Fritz likes to weigh herself every day, even though she tries not to. Flaherty said he weighs himself once a week. The natural variations in weight, such as water retention, “can be de-motivating,” he said.
As different as men and women may be, cooperation and support between spouses can be an important factor in successful weight loss for either, or both. Of course, men who lose weight faster than women can turn a joint project into a frustrating one. By the same token, women who lose weight may be threatening to husbands who feel their wives are suddenly more attractive to other men.
Yet couples can sabotage one another unknowingly. “We’re terrible for each other,” said Greg Ward, who runs the public-affairs program at the American Institute of Architects. His wife, lawyer Deborah Steelman, had much better eating habits before they were married, he said.
“My eating habits have prevailed. We’re so stressed out from work, that we think we have earned a lack of discipline in food.” When the two come home from work, instead of eating a meal, they frequently indulge in a dinner of peanuts, popcorn, ice cream or cheese. As a result, they’ve gained 10 pounds each in five years of marriage.
“I am not overwrought that I am 10 pounds (too) heavy,” says Ward. As for his wife’s weight gain, he said, “I think she’s more concerned about it.”
