'Let Them Eat Cake - If They Want To': Consumer Experience of Self-Control in Dieting

Obesity in the U.S. has reached an epidemic level. Both consumers and society are trying to battle this problem; for consumers, the most common means is weight loss through dieting although the rate of achieving desired weight goal is discouragingly low. Lack of self-control is often recounted as the most common reason for consumer failure in successful weight loss. This paper reports on the phenomenological exploration into the dieters’ lived experience of self-control attempts with weight loss. Among the factors that undermine consumers’ self-control attempts are treating food as comfort and its omnipresence, whereas social support and relative freedom from family responsibilities seem to aid successful self-control.

Citation:

Mariam Beruchashvili and James W. Gentry (2006) ,"'Let Them Eat Cake - If They Want To': Consumer Experience of Self-Control in Dieting", in AP - Asia-Pacific Advances in Consumer Research Volume 7, eds. Margaret Craig Lees, Teresa Davis, and Gary Gregory, Sydney, Australia : Association for Consumer Research, Pages: 116-124.