Men Don’t Like Dieting—and Apparently the Word “Salad” Has Hurt Their Feelings
Why the way we sell weight loss to men may be nearly as unhealthy as the habits we are trying to change I have discovered the one thing powerful enough to make a grown man suddenly distrust science, arithmetic, and the waistband of his own pants: the word diet . Say “training plan,” and he is ready to wake up at 5:00 a.m., drag a tire across a parking lot, and drink something the color of wet cement. Say “performance protocol,” and he will buy a smartwatch capable of monitoring seventeen biological functions he cannot define. Say “diet,” however, and watch him recoil as if you have asked him to spend the weekend alphabetizing kale. That reaction would merely be funny if it stopped at language. It does not. A recent study suggests that some men view conventional weight-loss programs as restrictive, joyless, and primarily designed for women. They are more interested when the same goal is framed as a challenge, a competition, or a shared project with a partner. In other words, a man may r...
