The long-term effects of dieting are far more horrifying. Studies report that 20 million American women battle serious eating disorders, with each of those cases having acquired their roots from an obsession with diets. In times that are driven by weight and physical appearance, it is fairly easy to cross the thin line that exists between dieting and disordered eating habits.
The best way to combat this problem is to understand and acknowledge the emotional triggers and the reasons behind them that make you lean so heavily on your food. This can ultimately lead you to deal with your feelings better, so you can develop healthier eating patterns that make you feel healthy and good about your body. But dieting completely misses this point. It refuses to acknowledge our emotions that drive us to eat the way we do in the first place.
Instead, it teaches us to think that the real problem is with our bodies and that if we exercise strict control over our bodies, we can crush our emotional problems that translate to our problems with food. Sign in. Dieting implies restriction, limitation of pleasurable foods and drinks, and despite of having no benefits, the omnipresent dieting mentality remains to be the norm.
Most diets fail most of the time. Repeated diet failure is a negative predictor for successful long term weight loss. Chronic dieters consistently report guilt and self-blame, irritability, anxiety and depression, difficulty concentrating and fatigue. Dieting can be particularly problematic in adolescents and it remains a major precursor to disordered eating, with moderate dieters being five times more likely to develop an eating disorder than those who do not diet at all.
Diets imply restriction. One shudders to think about the odds of the less successful ones. The reasons for such failures are not always found in a lack of willpower. Our metabolic rate conspires against sustained weight loss by decreasing in response to reduced caloric intake so the body can still function.
Some experts suggest that a fortnight of dieting can lead to a 20 percent decline in metabolic rate. The difficulties of dieting are usually put to one side when compared to the alleged health benefits. But those who accept the evidence about the dangers of obesity, based on epidemiological studies, should also be aware that there is equally strong evidence from such studies that dieting is bad for you.
Dieters have double the risk of getting type-2 diabetes compared to those who are overweight but do not diet. In the follow-up to the American Cancer Society study, researchers found that healthy obese women were in fact better off not losing weight. Healthy women who lost weight had increased mortality risks from cancer, cardiovascular disease, and all other diseases when compared to healthy women who did not diet. A later study found comparable results for men.
Over the past 20 years, more than two dozen studies have found that weight losses of 20 to 30 pounds between nine and 13 kilos — the amount most dieters say they want to lose — lead to an increased risk of premature mortality. During the same period, only four studies have found that losing weight increases life expectancy.
Rather than lamenting our inevitable fall off the dieting wagon, perhaps we should resolve to take our slightly plump selves as a testimony not to bad health but good health.
You might call it the fad exercise diet. And this happens every day all over the country. Recently, I had an overweight customer who exercised every single day and even sometimes twice daily in order to lose weight. With his extreme regimen, he lost over fifty pounds in a period of just over two months. When it comes to the human physique, anything that is temporary in terms of how we move it or feed it will have a temporary result. Study after study corroborates that diets are ineffective in the long run, which is of course the only run that ultimately matters.
Still, ineffective or not, diets are popular because they do work in the short term, and that is good enough for many. It seems people would rather face temporary discomfort and enjoy immediate but temporary results, than face the more daunting task of looking at the hard truths of what has made them overweight or unhealthy.
The yo-yo always swings back up. Deep down, people know a result from a diet is merely a vacation visit to a goal that never lasts. Diets certainly appear to work, as people see quick transformations and feel better as a result. This up-and-down weight loss and gain is called weight cycling. Studies also show that not only is weight cycling ineffective, it is actually harmful to your health in the long run.
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