A recent study has pointed out the negative impact of dieting for beauty purposes rather than for health reasons. The research suggests that individuals should refrain from dieting unless it is essential for their medical well-being.
It highlights the harmful effects of beauty-driven dieting and emphasizes how challenging it can be for individuals to break away from this cycle. Researchers at North Carolina State University conducted detailed interviews with 36 adults, including 13 men and 23 women who had undergone weight cycling, experiencing fluctuations of more than 11 pounds in weight.
The study revealed that the participants did not initiate their diets for health concerns but rather due to societal pressures to lose weight.
Furthermore, the participants tried various weight-loss methods, resulting in initial weight reduction followed by regaining the weight over time.
The process of regaining weight caused feelings of shame and increased internalization of weight-related stigma, leaving participants with lower self-esteem compared to before they started dieting.
Consequently, individuals often resort to more extreme measures in attempts to shed the regained weight.
Lead author Lynsey Romo, an associate professor of communication at North Carolina State University, emphasized that the majority of participants did not embark on their dieting journeys for health considerations but due to external pressures to conform to societal beauty standards.
Romo mentioned, “Based on what we learned through this study, as well as the existing research, we recommend that most people avoid dieting unless it is medically necessary.
“Our study also offers insights into how people can combat insidious aspects of weight cycling and challenge the cycle.”
According to Romo, people’s desperation to lose weight can lead to harmful behaviors, including disordered eating habits like bingeing or restrictive dieting, obsessing over calorie counts, and excessive exercise.
Additionally, they may experience stress and anxiety about food choices and weight, resort to quick fixes like fad diets or diet pills, and avoid social gatherings that involve food in order to achieve rapid weight loss.
Romo noted, “Inevitably, these diet behaviours became unsustainable, and participants regained weight, often more than they had initially lost.
“Participants referred to the experience as an addiction or a vicious cycle. Individuals who were able to understand and address their toxic dieting behaviours were more successful at breaking the cycle.
“Strategies people used to combat these toxic behaviours included focusing on their health rather than the number on the scale, as well as exercising for fun, rather than counting the number of calories they burned.
“Participants who were more successful at challenging the cycle were also able to embrace healthy eating behaviours — such as eating a varied diet and eating when they were hungry — rather than treating eating as something that needs to be closely monitored, controlled, or punished.”
Co-author of the study, Katelin Mueller, highlighted almost all of the study participants became obsessed with their weight as participants referred to the experience as an addiction or a vicious cycle.
“Weight loss became a focal point for their lives, to the point that it distracted them from spending time with friends, family, and colleagues and reducing weight-gain temptations such as drinking and overeating”, Mueller mentioned.
The researchers summarized, “Our findings suggest that it can be damaging for people to begin dieting unless it is medically necessary.
“Dieting to meet some perceived societal standard inadvertently sets participants up for years of shame, body dissatisfaction, unhappiness, stress, social comparisons, and weight-related preoccupation. Once a diet has begun, it is very difficult for many people to avoid a lifelong struggle with their weight.”
According to Susan Holbrook, a Clinical Nutritionist at the Nigerian Institute of Medical Research, teenage girls who restrict themselves from healthy foods to avoid gaining weight are at risk of developing eating disorders, specifically anorexia nervosa.
Holbrooke highlighted, “When you starve yourself, you are destroying tissues in your body and the body will continue to take the little that is available. Those starving themselves to look slim, skimpy, or trying to be a model are doing themselves more harm than good.
“For a woman that is depriving herself of little fat, the tendency for her to have a high level of estrogen is very low and when the estrogen level is low, the woman will have a problem with ovulation.
“A woman can also suffer from amenorrhoea – she will not be able to see her menses because of starvation. If you are not eating well, there will be a hormonal imbalance.”
She further stated, “A girl can starve herself to the point of dying without knowing that she is starving the body tissues of food.
“Now, at the end of the day, she will be grossly malnourished.”
The nutritionist warns that insufficient body fat can disrupt menstrual cycles and ovulation by impacting follicle-stimulating hormone production.
She highlights that severe nutrient deficiencies can have immediate physical consequences, as the body struggles to function without essential fuel and nutrients, leading to potential long-term damage.
