The Snare of Starvation Dieting
Some claim that 1 out of every 4 Americans is on a diet of some sort. Yet, did you know that over 90 percent of people who lose weight through dieting eventually gain it back again? What’s the problem?
Your body is like a furnace; and your brain is like a thermostat. When consume food, your body’s metabolism burns the food to release the energy that you need. When more fuel in the way of food is consumed than your body needs, it is placed in storage as fat. Now, if you starve yourself to lose fat, you will lose weight at the beginning. But your body will quickly shift into ‘crisis mode’ and your brain will lower your thermostat by slowing down your metabolism. As a result you will start to gain weight again, even if you are on a starvation diet. In most cases, you will gain back every pound that you lost and maybe even a little more. Out of frustration, you will try a different diet. But the more weight that you lose—the more you will gain.
Do Diet Pills Work?
Now you can understand why diet gimmicks never seem to work. Diet pills may cut your appetite down for a short while, but your body will quickly adjust to them and your appetite will quickly return. Or your brain will slow down your metabolism and you will gain the weight back anyway. We would be remiss if we did not mention the terrible side effects some have experienced, such as vertigo, high blood pressure, anxiety attacks, and addiction. Unfortunately, the same can be said for diet pills that decrease or eliminate water or that speed up your body’s metabolism. Dr. Lawrence Lamb succinctly put it this way: “There is no such thing as a safe, effective pill to cause you to lose body fat.”
Obsessed with Losing Weight
Many young people are obsessed with losing weight, especially girls. When a poll was taken from a group of school-aged girls, 58 percent of them thought that they were fat.
Did you know that according to one U.S. survey, 34 percent of overweight teenage girls have resorted to taking diet pills to lose weight? Sadly, about 1 in 4 have even resorted to vomiting! Commenting on another survey, The New Teenage Body Book says: “Shockingly, almost half of the nine-year-olds and about 80 percent of the ten- and eleven-year-olds were dieting. Some 70 percent of the girls aged twelve to sixteen were trying to lose weight—and 90 percent of the seventeen-year-olds were on a diet.”
What young people may not realize is that their bodies need a fairly good dose of calories and nutrients every day. A starvation diet can deprive you of those nutrients and literally stunt your growth. According to one doctor, young people who go on a starvation diet to lose weight can suffer from “fatigue, . . . depression, chilliness, poorer performance in school, constipation, anxiety, amenorrhea [abnormal suppression or absence of menstruation], and mental sluggishness.”
Medicine can not only cure, but it can also cause harm.
Obviously, a distorted body image can make some teenage girls become overly concerned about something that really is not a problem. “I have a friend who takes large doses of diet pills and I know a few girls who have anorexia,” says 16-year-old Kristin. She adds: “None of them are fat by any stretch of the imagination.”
