- Severe and deliberate restriction of energy consumption for food (calorie intake). For example, it could be following a familiar diet or just counting calories and setting rigid limits.
- Restriction of foods and eating the same type:
- low carbohydrate diet: protein diet, Atkins diet;
- low fat diet;
- juice diet.
- Irregular meals:
- diet every hour;
- diet 5: 2 (five days a week we eat normally and two days a week - we limit ourselves significantly in food);
- skip meals;
- "Fixed days", ie. refusal to eat on certain days.
Who is on the diet?
Diets are common and popular. It is estimated that about half of women of normal weight have tried dieting. A study showed that almost 70% of 15-year-old girls are on a diet, and 8% of them follow an extremely strict diet. Another study showed that approximately 70% of women and 45% of those on a diet 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 showed that two-thirds of 14-15-year-old girls and half of 12-13-year-old girls will lose a few pounds. Due to the stress associated with this, about a quarter of the young girls skipped at least one meal a day.
Cost risks
Diet increases the risk of an eating disorder. Researchers have found that if young 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 obesity. 95% of those who follow a diet to lose weight increase more in the next two years than they lost as a result of diet. This is due to the fact that during the diet, people greatly limit the number of calories and various dishes and experience constant hunger. Perhaps for a short period of time, dieting can ignore hunger, but after long diets, increased appetite and overeating occur. This in turn leads to guilt and failure, which can exacerbate dissatisfaction with yourself and your body. Some people live in a similar diet cycle all their lives - that is, the diet fills a certain part of their time and energy every day.
In addition, diets have been shown to slow down metabolism - slowing down the calorie burning rate.
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 may occur.
Diet can alter the body's natural reactions 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 a diet?
Many people with normal weight consider themselves overweight and will lose weight by going on a diet. Many overweight people also want to lose those extra pounds and think 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 will lose weight.
They are on a diet 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 fears may already occur in elementary school students. For some reason in our society, completeness is considered something shameful and condemned.
Through advertising, the desire to go on a diet with people is supported by companies that focus on everything related to diet (diet, books, groceries and other items). Because we are in a very lucrative industry, the diet industry is unnaturally optimistic about diet. In fact, it has been shown that half of the people on a diet gain weight as a result - few of them are able to maintain the weight loss due to 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.