- Severe and deliberate limitation of the amount of energy consumed with food (calorie intake). For example, it could be following a well-known diet, or simply counting calories and setting rigid limits.
- Limiting the variety of foods and eating the same type:
- low carbohydrate diets: protein diet, Atkins diet;
- fat-poor diets;
- juice diets.
- Irregular meals:
- hourly diet;
- diet 5: 2 (five days a week we eat normally and two days a week - we significantly limit ourselves in food);
- skipping meals;
- "Fasting days", i. e. refusal to eat on certain days.
Who is on the diet?
Diets are common and popular. It is believed that about half of women of normal weight have tried dieting. 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 approximately 70% of women and 45% of dieters are not overweight and do not need to follow any diets.
Diets are preceded by dissatisfaction with your body and the desire to lose weight.
A UK 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. Due to the stress associated with this, about a quarter of young girls skipped at least one meal a day.
Diet risks
Diets increase the risk of an eating disorder. Scientists have found that if adolescent girls eat a moderate diet, the risk of developing an eating disorder increases fivefold, and with a strict diet - eighteenfold.
Frequent, strict diets contribute to excess weight. 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 very much limit the number of calories and variety of dishes, experiencing constant hunger. Perhaps for a short time, dieters can ignore hunger, but after long diets, increased appetite and overeating occurs. 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 cycle of diets all their lives - that is, the diet takes up a certain part of their time and energy every day.
In addition, diets have been found to slow down metabolism - the rate of calorie burning slows down.
The normal metabolic rate is restored some time after the person returns to a healthy and adequate diet.
A strict diet affects both mental and physical health. Bad breath, fatigue, overeating, headaches and cramps, constipation, sleep disturbances, and possibly destruction of bone tissue may appear.
Diets can change the body's natural responses to food, needs, and appetite. A person ceases to feel hunger and satiety, he may stop distinguishing his emotional needs from hunger.
Why do we go on diets?
Many people of normal weight 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 with this.
It is known that about ⅓ of the world's population is overweight, but about twice as many people want to lose weight.
They are on a diet out of a desire to be slimmer. The worldwide pursuit of slimness has many reasons, one of which is the equally common fear of getting fat. It was revealed that such fear can already appear in primary school students. For some reason, in our society, completeness is considered something shameful and condemned.
Through advertising, the desire to go on a diet is supported in people by companies focused on everything related to diets (diets, books, groceries and other goods). Because we are in a highly lucrative industry, the diet industry is unnaturally optimistic about diets. In fact, it has been found that half of the people who are 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 for obesity, it is highly ineffective for weight loss.