- Serious and deliberate restriction of the amount of energy consumed with food (calorie intake). For example, it could be following a well-known diet or just counting calories and setting strict limits.
- Limiting the variety of food and consuming the same type:
- low carb diets: protein diet, Atkins diet.
- low fat diets.
- juice diets.
- Irregular meals:
- hourly diet;
- 5: 2 diet (five days a week we eat normally and two days a week - we are significantly limited in food).
- Skipping meals.
- "Fasting days", ie refusal to eat on certain days.
Who is dieting?
Diets are common and popular. It is believed that about half of normal weight women have tried diet. One study found that almost 70% of 15-year-old girls are on a diet and 8% of them follow an extremely strict diet. Another study found that about 70% of women and 45% of dieters are not overweight and do not need to follow any diet.
Diet precedes dissatisfaction with your body and the desire to lose weight.
A British study found that two thirds of 14-15 year old girls and half of 12-13 year old girls want to lose a few pounds. Because of the stress associated with it, about a quarter of young girls skipped at least one meal a day.
Nutritional hazards
Diets increase the risk of eating disorders. Scientists have found that if adolescent girls follow a moderate diet, the risk of developing an eating disorder increases fivefold and with a strict diet - eighteen times.
Frequent, strict diets contribute to overweight. 95% of those who follow a diet to lose weight gain more in the next two years than they lost as a result of the diet. This is due to the fact that during the diet, people greatly reduce the number of calories and the variety of dishes, experiencing constant hunger. Perhaps for a short time, diets can ignore hunger, but after long diets, there is an increased appetite and overeating. This, in turn, leads to feelings of guilt and failure, which can exacerbate dissatisfaction with yourself and your body. Some people live in a similar diet all their lives - that is, the diet takes up a certain amount of their time and energy each day.
In addition, diets have been shown to slow down metabolism - slowing the rate at which calories are burned.
Normal metabolic rate is restored shortly after the person returns to a healthy and adequate diet.
Strict diet affects both mental and physical health. Shortness of breath, fatigue, overeating, headaches and cramps, constipation, sleep disturbances and possibly bone damage may occur.
Diets can change the body's natural reactions to food, needs and appetite. A person ceases to feel hunger and satiety, may stop distinguishing his emotional needs from hunger.
Why do we diet?
Many normal weight people consider themselves overweight and want to lose weight by dieting. Also, many overweight people want to lose those extra pounds and believe that diet will help them in this.
It is known that about ⅓ of the world's population are overweight, but about twice as many people want to lose weight.
They are on a diet out of a desire to be leaner. There are many reasons for the global pursuit of weakness, one of which is the equally common fear of gaining weight. It was revealed that such a fear may already appear in elementary school students. For some reason, in our society, fullness is considered something shameful and doomed.
Through advertising, the desire for diet is supported by people from companies that focus on anything related to diets (diets, books, groceries and other goods). Because we are in a highly lucrative industry, the food industry is unnaturally optimistic about diets. In fact, it has been found that half of people who go on a diet gain weight as a result - few of them are able to maintain the weight lost as a result of the diet for five years.
The success of a strict diet depends on many physical and mental factors, and in obesity, it is extremely ineffective for weight loss.