- 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 just counting calories and setting hard limits.
- Limit the variety of foods and eat the same type:
- low carbohydrate diets: protein diet, Atkins diet;
- low fat diets;
- juice diets.
- Irregular meals:
- hourly regime;
- 5: 2 diet (five days a week we eat normally, and two days a week - we significantly limit ourselves in food);
- skip meals;
- "Fasting days", that is, refusal to eat on certain days.
Who is on a 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 diet and 8% of them are on extremely strict diets. Another study found that about 70% of women and 45% of dieters are not overweight and do not need to diet.
The diet is preceded by dissatisfaction with your body and the desire to lose weight.
A UK study found that two-thirds of girls aged 14 to 15 and half of girls aged 12 to 13 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.
Food 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 five-fold, and with strict diet, eighteen-fold.
Frequent and strict diets contribute to excess weight. 95% of those who diet to lose weight gain more in the next two years than they lose 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 the variety of dishes, constantly suffering from hunger. Maybe for a short time dieters can ignore hunger, but after long diets appetite increases 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 diet cycle their entire lives, meaning that the diet consumes a certain amount of their time and energy each day.
Also, dieting has 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 bone destruction can occur.
Diets can alter the body's natural responses to food, needs, and appetite. A person stops feeling hunger and fullness, he can stop distinguishing his emotional needs from hunger.
Why are we dieting?
Many people of normal weight consider themselves to be 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 do so.
About ⅓ of the world's population is known to be overweight, but about twice as many people want to lose weight.
They are on a diet out of a desire to lose weight. There are many reasons for the worldwide pursuit of weight loss, including the equally common fear of putting on weight. It was revealed that such fear can already appear in elementary school students. For some reason in our society completeness is seen as something shameful and doomed.
Thanks to advertising, the desire to diet is supported in people by companies focused on everything related to dieting (diets, books, groceries and other goods). Because we are in a very lucrative industry, the food industry is unusually optimistic about diets. In fact, it has been found that half of people who diet gain weight as a result - few are able to maintain the weight lost through the diet for five years.
The success of a strict diet depends on many physical and mental factors, and in obesity it is very ineffective for weight loss.