don't mention the `d' word

`Diet' is now such a dirty word that even Weight Watchers are telling us to throw away the scales. Emma Cook on the new-look slimming industry

Fat may still be a feminist issue, but these days it's also a marketing paradox. While a growing number of men and women of all ages are desperate to lose weight, they're also more aware that straight dieting is probably not the best way to do it. Which is good and bad news for the slimming industry. Potentially they can reap the benefits of a rapidly expanding market, but only if they can convince the consumer that their method is a far cry from the rigorous diets that health gurus are so keen to dismiss. But trying to avoid the dreaded D word and promise weight loss is surely about as logical as convincing smokers they can give up their habit without cutting down on cigarettes.

Cue Weight Watchers's new TV commercial, which features three bright (and slim) young things who know what they want and aren't afraid to ask. "I want a diet where no food is a sin," asserts one, while another post- diet chick chucks away her kitchen scales and says: "I want a diet with no weighing and measuring." And the third insists on, "a hassle-free diet that really works". Finally the three young women clink their glasses of champagne (presumably another feature of dietary emancipation) and the voiceover enthuses, "There's never been a diet as easy as `l-2-3 Success' - start losing weight fast."

It may be Weight Watchers in a younger, zippier guise, but the promise is as old as the hills; if you come to us, we'll help you get slim quickly. What's changed is the packaging and the approach. Significantly, the method that initially characterised Weight Watchers' success are the very ones they now wish to drop - the fastidious weighing and measuring of food for each meal, rituals that seem too obsessional in an anti-diet climate. Linda Huett, vice-president of Weight Watchers explains: "It's a recognition that women's lives have changed - now they want to fit a diet around their life."

But it's also a recognition that to survive in the highly competitive slimming market, they've got to break from their traditional image. Mary Evans Young, founder of Diet Breakers, believes that such a move is bound to contain contradictions. "They want to be seen as a more reputable end of the market. Many of their clients will have said, `I've been reading that diets don't work', so they've got to reposition themselves. And yet they know that most of their clients still want to lose weight fast." Janice Bhend, editor of Yes!, a magazine for women of size 16 and over, agrees. "It comes back to the fact that things are changing; we know now that diets don't work. So they've got to alter their approach while still preaching that you have to be thin."

The move towards "healthy eating" rather than dieting is reflected in other areas of the market. According to Mintel market research, the growth rate for sales of slimming foods continued to slow steadily since 1993. This year sales reached pounds 88.4m - only an 8 per cent increase compared to 58 per cent in 1992. Which may explain why Lean Cuisine relaunched its range last year to shift the brand's focus away from dieting to a more general "low-fat" market niche.

It's a similar story in the publishing world where punishing diets like the Cambridge or the Scarborough would now be viewed as positively medieval. That doesn't mean books about weight-loss don't proliferate, but they're dressed up in a different way. Rowena Webb, editor at Hodder and Stoughton, explains: "It would be almost impossible to publish a straight diet book which gives you recipes or tells you how to lose 10lbs in 10 days because they're so thoroughly discredited. There's much more now coming from a psychological angle." This is mainly because the attitude towards dieting has shifted, although, as Webb says: "The message to be happy with the weight you are is a very slow one."

Others would argue it's non-existent, especially among younger girls. According to a recent survey carried out by Dr Andrew Hill from Leeds University, 41 per cent of 9-year-old girls he interviewed placed their preferred body shape at slimmer than their own. He also found that over half the 8-year-olds he spoke to were consciously eating less or missing meals, even if they weren't overweight.

The irony seems to be that while the message "thin equals happy" has never been so all-pervasive, the marketing of actual dieting has never been less popular. Balance this against recent statistics that nearly a third of all adults are trying to slim and that last year 39 per cent of women were on a diet and it's clear there's some large-scale denial going on. And this is the vein that advertisers, publishers and editors are tapping into - pretending a diet is anything but.

It's a dilemma that's reflected in the health and beauty pages of many women's magazines. Where there were once calorie-controlled diet tips, three-day de-tox regimes now take their place; nothing but water and lemon juice to "purify the system". It may sound like a severe weight-loss technique but nobody cares to admit it. Then there are the features on new-fad health diets like food-combining which typically consist of fruit for breakfast, baked potato for lunch and grilled chicken for dinner - surely the old- fashioned diet in disguise. Eve Cameron, editor of Zest, a health and beauty magazine, says: "We never publish diets - they have a naff image among younger women." But she admits: "Yes, it is a contradiction. People say, `Oh they're jolly bad for you' but everyone is on one."

Charlotte-Anne Fidler, Elle's health and beauty director, also says that diets are deeply unfashionable. "I never want to write about losing weight because I think it's unhealthy. I'd much rather give people exercise to firm up their tummy." In response, slimming product promoters approaching her for editorial are shifting their angle. "If people are promoting diets we won't talk to them", says Fidler. "If I say I'm not into diets, they'll argue, `Well actually, we're doing it as a healthy supplement.'"

The glossies may eschew calorie counting but it's hardly a credible message when their female readers are confronted with images of pre-pubescent- looking models within the same magazine.

As Mary Evans Young says: "It's the bind that women now face. Dieting is uncool but everybody still wants to be thin. How can you do it - get thin but not diet?" Slimming industry marketeers are asking the same question. Their solution is to call a diet by anything other than its rather naff name. That way, women can convince themselves that to be healthy - not super-thin - is their goal. And slimming clubs like Weight Watchers are able to offer the ultimate promise - weight loss without the pain. In reality, the unmentionable four-letter word has never been so popular.