Races Differ on Dieting

A small Philadelphia study found that black women didn't seek out weight loss advice as often as white women. This is, of course, a big problem for... uh... what was the reason again?

"Community-based approaches appear to be promising vehicles for promoting weight loss in ethnic minorities; however, there is much work to be done in terms of developing programs that improve both weight loss and successful maintenance of weight loss," [study lead author Rachel] Annunziato said in a prepared statement.

Oh, right, weight loss. If black women don't feel the need to lose weight, how can the gigantic diet industry possibly stay afloat?

One interesting thing from this article:

Obesity-related health concerns were not cited by either black or white women in the study as a primary motivation for losing weight.

The reasons aren't outlined in this brief article but, given it points out that both races had "concerns" about body image and said concerns were indeed a motivator for white women to seek out weight loss advice. But those black women... sheesh, what can we do?

Modifying weight-loss programs to better address the needs of black women and other minorities may be an important step.

In marketingdroid: "Companies need to adjust their marketing budgets to tap the so-called 'urban' market and make media buys within low-income areas in order to promote 'healthy' lifestyles using (diet x/y/z)." In essence, because black women aren't dieting, we need to make them diet. Got it.