Women Spend 21 Years Of Their Life On A Diet

Fad diets and trends may come and go, but a new study reveals that on average British women spend 21 years and 8 months of their lives on a diet of one kind or another.

According to new research by weight loss company Voy, over the past 12 months alone the average British woman spent 5 months and 1 week dieting. The response also revealed a worrying rise of ‘Perma-Dieting’, with over one-in-ten (11%) women permanently on a diet for the full year.

Of those women who have been on a diet in their lifetime, the most common they have tried are a Low-Fat Diet (69%), Intermittent Fasting, such as the 5:2 Diet (41%), Keto (27%), Mediterranean Diet (26%), and the Atkins / Low Carb Diet (24%). Many women also tried adopting vegetarian (30%) or vegan (17%) diets specifically to lose weight.

Yet, for all this effort counting calories and experimenting with the latest diet trends, almost half of women (42%) say they always put the lost weight back on. Meanwhile, just one in three women are happy with their current weight (36%) and their current body shape (34%).

The study also revealed how the on-off-on diet doom cycle and worry about weight is having a massive impact in the relationships and sex lives of British women.

Over one in five women (21%) confess to not feeling relaxed having sex because of their weight, while one in four (24%) say that losing weight and then putting it back on has driven down their libido, as has regularly eating take-aways (16%) and crash dieting for a significant number of women (8%). Related to diet, nutrition and wellbeing, an alarming one in four women (24%) report that a poor sleep has impacted their libido too.

In fact, a worrying one in 10 (11%) of women have even postponed embarking on a new relationship because they were not happy with their weight. Yet, over half (51%) of women said they would change their diet and nutrition habits if they knew it would improve their sex drive.

Emily Wood, coach and nutritionist at Voy commented on the research:
“Many of our client's have struggled with body image and weight fluctuations across their life, often stemming from childhood and adolescents. Clients may have found this impacted their confidence in all walks of life and being intimate with their partner can be difficult to navigate. Here at Voy, we believe that your journey to improving your relationship to food and your body is far from the traditional approaches, and requires more than sustainable changes to diet or exercise but also empowers clients to feel more confident in themselves throughout their journey as they find the right weight for them.

“Voy aims to be the last weight loss programme its customers will ever need. By combining effective medication, behavioural change techniques and one-to-one coaching, Voy builds sustainable habits that end the cycle of weight-loss and regain.”

The company's programme combines breakthrough weight loss medication with tailored programmes and one-to-one coaching from a team of experts and clinicians. The approach is holistic, with lifestyle changes across nutrition, fitness, sleep, mindset and stress all brought together to break the cycle of weight loss and regain. Voy requires visual evidence as well as ID, BMI and past medical history and liaises with customers’ GP’s to ascertain eligibility. Every customer is also reviewed by a clinician individually.

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