Angela Onwuzoo
A new study has warned of the negative consequences associated with dieting for beauty reasons instead of health.
The qualitative study recommends that people avoid dieting unless it is medically necessary.
It underscores how toxic dieting can be and how difficult it can be for people to break the cycle.
The researchers from North Carolina State University conducted in-depth interviews with 36 adults — 13 men and 23 women who had experienced weight cycling where they lost and regained more than 11 pounds.
The study showed that the participants did not start dieting for health reasons, but because they felt social pressure to lose weight, according to the researchers
They also reported engaging in a variety of weight-loss strategies, which resulted in initial weight loss, but eventual regain.
Regaining weight led people to feel shame and further internalize the stigma associated with weight — leaving study participants feeling worse about themselves than they did before they began dieting.
This, in turn, often leads people to engage in increasingly extreme behaviours to try to lose weight again.
Lead author of the study and an associate professor of communication at North Carolina State University, Lynsey Romo, said overwhelmingly, participants did not start dieting for health reasons, but because they felt social pressure to lose weight.
Romo said, “Based on what we learned through this study, as well as the existing research, we recommend that most people avoid dieting unless it is medically necessary.
“Our study also offers insights into how people can combat insidious aspects of weight cycling and challenge the cycle.”
Citing the dangers of desperation by some people to lose weight, Romo said many participants engaged in disordered weight management behaviours, such as binge or emotional eating, restricting food and calories, and memorizing calorie counts.
Other negative behaviours include being stressed about what they were eating and the number on the scale, falling back on quick fixes (such as low-carb diets or diet drugs), over-exercising, and avoiding social events with food to drop pounds fast.
Romo noted, “Inevitably, these diet behaviours became unsustainable, and participants regained weight, often more than they had initially lost.
“Participants referred to the experience as an addiction or a vicious cycle. Individuals who were able to understand and address their toxic dieting behaviours were more successful at breaking the cycle.
“Strategies people used to combat these toxic behaviours included focusing on their health rather than the number on the scale, as well as exercising for fun, rather than counting the number of calories they burned.
“Participants who were more successful at challenging the cycle were also able to embrace healthy eating behaviours — such as eating a varied diet and eating when they were hungry — rather than treating eating as something that needs to be closely monitored, controlled, or punished.”
Co-author of the study, Katelin Mueller, said almost all of the study participants became obsessed with their weight as participants referred to the experience as an addiction or a vicious cycle.
“Weight loss became a focal point for their lives, to the point that it distracted them from spending time with friends, family, and colleagues and reducing weight-gain temptations such as drinking and overeating”, Mueller said.
The researchers concluded, “Our findings suggest that it can be damaging for people to begin dieting unless it is medically necessary.
“Dieting to meet some perceived societal standard inadvertently sets participants up for years of shame, body dissatisfaction, unhappiness, stress, social comparisons, and weight-related preoccupation. Once a diet has begun, it is very difficult for many people to avoid a lifelong struggle with their weight.”
Speaking in an interview with PUNCH HealthWise, a Clinical Nutritionist at the Department of Biochemistry and Nutrition, Nigerian Institute of Medical Research, Yaba, Lagos, Susan Holbrook, says when teenage ladies starve themselves of healthy foods because they don’t want to add weight, they suffer from eating disorders like an anorexia nervosa.
Holbrooke said, “When you starve yourself, you are destroying tissues in your body and the body will continue to take the little that is available. Those starving themselves to look slim, skimpy, or trying to be a model are doing themselves more harm than good.
“For a woman that is depriving herself of little fat, the tendency for her to have a high level of estrogen is very low and when the estrogen level is low, the woman will have a problem with ovulation.
“A woman can also suffer from amenorrhoea – she will not be able to see her menses because of starvation. If you are not eating well, there will be a hormonal imbalance.”
She further said, “A girl can starve herself to the point of dying without knowing that she is starving the body tissues of food.
“Now, at the end of the day, she will be grossly malnourished.”
The nutritionist notes that the lack of fatty cells will lead to a disruption of the menstrual cycle and especially ovulation because it will affect the follicle-stimulating hormone.
She warned that there are immediate physical effects, as the body struggles to function without the nutrients and fuel that it needs.
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