When people say they have lost weight on their own, it does not mean that they have lost weight without assistance. In general, women are more likely to seek support from friends, the media, and books. Men, on the other hand, look to their spouse as their main source of support. Why do women often rely on such a variety of resources for help with their weight-loss efforts? Part of the reason revolves around the fact that women have a tendency to be bottom-up thinkers,
seeking information and feedback from a variety of sources, so they need sup- port for their weight-loss progress from a variety of sources—from a number of people. If the consensus of friends and colleagues is that they’re looking thinner, most women will consider that they are receiving supportive feedback and that others think they are doing well, and they will conclude that they should continue.Another reason for the female approach to seeking motivation and encouragement from several sources, especially other women, may be traced to gender-specific language barriers on the subject of weight loss (see chapter 4). It’s also not uncommon for a woman to view her mate as unsupportive. According to Weight Watchers research, one of the main reasons why many women abandon their weight-loss effort is that they feel their spouse or partner is sabotaging them. This is an interesting finding because in the same survey, when men were asked why they abandoned their weight-loss effort, the concept of sabotage was never mentioned. What did women view as sabotage? Examples of men’s sabotaging behavior that the women in the study mentioned include not complimenting the woman on her weight-loss achieve- ments, not expressing pride in her weight-loss effort, and insisting on having fattening foods in the house, which was an especially vexing problem for many women because it violates one of their favorite weight-loss strategies.
seeking information and feedback from a variety of sources, so they need sup- port for their weight-loss progress from a variety of sources—from a number of people. If the consensus of friends and colleagues is that they’re looking thinner, most women will consider that they are receiving supportive feedback and that others think they are doing well, and they will conclude that they should continue.Another reason for the female approach to seeking motivation and encouragement from several sources, especially other women, may be traced to gender-specific language barriers on the subject of weight loss (see chapter 4). It’s also not uncommon for a woman to view her mate as unsupportive. According to Weight Watchers research, one of the main reasons why many women abandon their weight-loss effort is that they feel their spouse or partner is sabotaging them. This is an interesting finding because in the same survey, when men were asked why they abandoned their weight-loss effort, the concept of sabotage was never mentioned. What did women view as sabotage? Examples of men’s sabotaging behavior that the women in the study mentioned include not complimenting the woman on her weight-loss achieve- ments, not expressing pride in her weight-loss effort, and insisting on having fattening foods in the house, which was an especially vexing problem for many women because it violates one of their favorite weight-loss strategies.
Men, on the other hand, are more likely to look to a single source, most often their mate, as a primary source of support. Men tend to be more top-down thinkers or big-picture guys. Consequently, they are less inclined to look to others for comment on their progress. They’re more concerned with what the experts think, and men often consider their partner to be an expert. In a study of this topic, men said that they relied on their partners as a source of information about their bodies and that they were more likely to lose weight if their partner thought they needed to. When Weight Watchers asked men in the United Kingdom about losing weight, the men stated that encourage-ment from and the involvement of their spouse or female partner was critical to their weight-loss success.What are the take-away lessons for men and women? For women, seeking weight-loss support from other people and other places is fine, but they want to get support from the men in their lives as well. Where men are concerned, it’s great that many of them feel that they need only the women in their lives for weight-loss help, but they need to be aware that there are other resources for motivation and advice out there that can help them achieve success.
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