Are we addicted to dieting?

I was thinking about this on the plane ride back from Rhode Island the other day after reading my US magazine whilst sipping on bloody Mary mix on the rocks, my favorite airplane beverage. Are we addicted to dieting? Do we diet just for the sake of dieting, or do we diet because every woman is "supposed" to diet? In my circle of peeps, I don't know one woman, girl, teenybopper, who is not on some kind of diet to lose weight, or is about to start some new diet "on Monday."

I just saw at iVillage that more than 80% of college women are on some kind of diet. I actually believe the number is higher than that. When I was in college, every single girl in my dorm was dieting either because we gained the freshmen 15, we wanted to be more attractive to the boys, or we just wanted to compete and be one of the pretty people. College is where the obsession to be thin, in my humble opinion, really gets ingrained into our psyches. Many will say it starts in high school, and I will agree with that to a degree, but when you're in high school you are still in a small bubble and living with your folks. Things are pretty predictable.

When you hit college, you are thrown into a much larger circle, and you are living with other coeds in the dorms or sorority houses. You are seeing other women's bodies 24/7, and thus the need to compete, fit in, or just get along increases monumentally. As well, feelings of not having any control over one's life increases when away from home, and the hometown. Your body is the one thing that you can always control no matter what. You also know that in 4-5 years after you graduate, you'll be "out there" in the world having to make it on your own.

When you arrive "out there", you are now entering the professional world where the competition is totally turned on. Again, you may not have any control of what's happening around you, but again, you can always control your body, and dieting is part of that process. So, because of all this craziness, perhaps the answer to the question is yes, we are addicted to dieting because we have to in order to compete in the world.