Dieting to Death essay
One of the most acute problems of our time medical professionals and scientists call various diets and dietary restrictions; diets and weight loss may be called the threat of 21st century.
Since the late 20th century fashion for slim figures and symmetry led to the emergence of many diets, based on dietary restrictions. These are low-calorie diet, diet without carbohydrates, vegetable and fruit diets, and even starvation. According to statistics, up to 80 per cent of adult women sometimes or usually keep to some diets, and so get less nutrients than the amount recommended by EU health organizations. (The Telegraph, 2010)
It is important to say about the effectiveness of diets, as most of them do not guarantee the result of weight loss, so people have to return to dieting over and over again. First of all, specialist stress the fact that these diets are not correct, because they are not made by doctors but amateurs, so we can’t talk about their benefits for the body, like of special medical diets and special dietary nutrition recommended by doctors, that may be useful for the organism, though only under the supervision and advice of a dietitian. And all the other new-fangled diets and fasting have no medical justification, and are not sound, so that they can be harmful and lead to health problems.
It is important to note that most people who are keeping to dieting in an effort to lose weight, later they gain their original weight and can even gain extra pounds. Moreover, these “games” with weight loss and weight gain are extremely dangerous to health. This conclusion made American psychologists – Associate Professor Traci Mann and his colleagues at the University of California at Los Angeles (UCLA), who have spent, they argue, the most comprehensive and rigorous analysis of 31 long-term (2-5 years) research on dieting. (UCLA 2007)
Scientists, physicians and even many ladies who keep to diets noticed that the stricter and longer is the diet, the less positive results it brings, and even harmful to health.
there are several reasons why strict diets are harmful for health:
• Diet is a stress to the body, and it requires special reaction from organism;
• Regular and rigorous diets lead to bad mood, apathy, and sometimes to depression.
• Diets can be harmful to health: diseases of the gastrointestinal tract, heart, kidneys, etc., especially if it is done without consulting a nutritionist. (Strychar 2006)
Severe restriction in the nutrition of the body, which requires certain amount of nutrients (food), are often very stressful for organism. Typically, 75% of people who keep to a strict diet, sooner or later do not stand and break it. Severe restrictions lead to a change of food attitudes and tastes, which in turn significantly affects the well-being of the organism and often cause negative changes in it. Even at first glance, the seemingly simple fruit and vegetable diet already on the fourth day can cause weakening of attention, and malaise, this indicates that organism can’t work on the monotonous food only. (Strychar, 2006
In addition to diets in recent years the media are actively advertising slimming pills, calling not to leave a chance to the “hateful overweight”. But the flip side of this struggle until recently was kept in silence, resulted in that now more and more women have the terrible diagnosis: anorexia.
Anorexia is a mental illness and is based on an irresistible desire of patients to lose weight. Patients with anorexia try all possible methods: a strict diet, intense exercise, laxatives, enemas, etc. Fear of gaining weight makes these people completely refuse to eat. Food is perceived by anorexic as the greatest evil. Being thin, these people still see themselves as fat, and lose weight in spite of the obvious health problems. Over time, in such extreme conditions, the body stops to digest food, and patients can die from starvation. (Attia, 2010)
Most often from anorexia suffer young girls, and the causes of the disease have social roots. Prevailing in our time the cult of thinness makes teenagers practically deprive themselves of food, to be like actresses or fashion models with slim figures. But such restrictions lead not only to weight loss but also fatigue, dysfunction of the sexual sphere, mental changes. As a rule, most patients with anorexia do not worry about dramatic weight loss or absence of menstruation, and more often girls’ relatives turn to doctors for help. Great importance in the prevention and treatment of anorexia nervosa has the correct behavior of relatives and friends. It happens that it is remarks of friends and relatives about imperfect shapes of a teen provoke the beginning of the process of losing weight. With the progression of anorexia it is important to understand that the cure of the disease at home is impossible and the best thing that can make family members is to consult a doctor.
The danger of anorexia and strict diets is that great weight loss leads to a change of metabolic processes, decrease in the concentration of potassium in the body, which leads in turn to cardio-vascular disorders. There is also a decrease in the protective function of the body, and this is the reason for the high mortality rate from infectious diseases among patients with anorexia nervosa. According to statistics, mortality of patients with anorexia nervosa is 15 to 20%. That is why in many countries it is often practiced an involuntary treatment of such people. (Attia, 2010)
Currently, scientists are seriously studying the nature of this disease. Recognizing the important role of social factors in causing anorexia, experts stress that any strict diets are not good and even dangerous for health.
