Their solution: They'd pay her to write about her experiences, dieting and taking nutritional, fitness and psychological counseling, for the magazine.

A daily routine of two workouts and 1,000 calories helped Poulton meet her goal in six months. Eventually, though, she realized that she hadn’t solved her obsession with food and began to put the weight back on. This caused her to panic.

"Little by little, I withdrew from my family and friends and plummeted from being a famous writer with millions of readers into existing as a near hermit," Poulton later wrote in her 1997 book "No Fat Chicks: How Big Business Profits by Making Women Hate Their Bodies – and How To Fight Back."

"I was on the run, subconsciously trying to escape the feeling that I had made a colossal mistake," she wrote of her decision to diet in front of an entire country.

In 1990, Poulton moved to Louisville, Kentucky to live with relatives. She freelanced for magazines until she was approached by a publisher to write the book on the diet industry. She has been a fervent anti-diet advocate ever since.

"I still talk to women who have a blank look in their eye when I talk about these things," says Poulton. "The vast majority alive today never lived in a time when it was different…they have nothing to compare it to."

Poulton, now 54, says she has sworn off diets for good.

"Since I was four, I felt horrible about myself," she says. "I will never go back into that world of shame again."