- Strong and deliberate restriction of the amount of energy consumed with food (calorie intake). For example, it could be a known diet or just count calories and set fixed limits.
- Limit the variety of foods and eat the same way:
- low carbohydrate diets: protein diet, Atkins diet;
- low fat diet;
- Juice diets.
- Irregular meals:
- hourly diet;
- Diet 5: 2 (five days a week we eat normally and two days a week - we restrict ourselves considerably when eating);
- Skipping meals;
- "Fasting days", d. H. Refusal to eat on certain days.
Who is on the diet?
Diets are common and popular. It is believed that around half of women of normal weight have tried diet. One study found that nearly 70% of 15 year old girls are on a diet and 8% of them are on an extremely strict diet. Another study found that around 70% of women and 45% of dieters are not overweight and do not need to diet.
Dieting is preceded by dissatisfaction with your body and a desire to lose weight.
A UK study found that two-thirds of 14-15 year old girls and half of 12-13 year old girls want to shed a few pounds. Due to the associated stress, around a quarter of the young girls skipped at least one meal a day.
Nutritional risks
Diets increase the risk of an eating disorder. Scientists have found that the risk of developing an eating disorder increases five-fold with a moderate diet and eighteen-fold with a strict diet.
Frequent, strict diets contribute to obesity. 95% of those on a weight loss diet gain more weight than they lost from the diet over the next two years. This is due to the fact that while dieting, people severely limit the number of calories and the variety of dishes, and constantly feel hungry. Perhaps dieters can ignore hunger for a short time, but after long diets there is increased appetite and overeating. This in turn leads to feelings of guilt and failure, which can increase dissatisfaction with yourself and your body. Some people live on a similar eating cycle their entire lives - that is, the diet takes up a certain amount of their time and energy each day.
In addition, diets have been found to slow down your metabolism - the rate at which you burn calories slows down.
Normal metabolism is restored for some time after returning to a healthy and adequate diet.
A strict diet affects both mental and physical health. Bad breath, fatigue, overeating, headaches and cramps, constipation, trouble sleeping and possibly bone destruction can occur.
Diets can alter the body's natural responses to food, needs, and appetite. A person ceases to feel hunger and satiated, he may cease to distinguish his emotional needs from hunger.
Why do we diet?
Many people of normal weight consider themselves overweight and want to lose weight with a diet. Also, many obese people want to lose those extra pounds and believe diet will help them do this.
It is known that around 3/4 of the world's population is overweight, but around twice as many people want to lose weight.
You diet out of the desire to get leaner. The global quest for slimness has many reasons, one of which is the equally widespread fear of getting fat. It turned out that such fears can already arise in primary school children. For some reason, completeness is seen as something shameful and damned in our society.
Advertising encourages the desire to go on a diet in the people of companies that focus on everything related to dieting (diets, books, groceries, and other goods). Since we are in a very lucrative industry, the diet industry is unnaturally optimistic about diets. In fact, half of people who diet have been found to gain weight as a result - few of them are able to maintain the weight lost from dieting for five years.
The success of a strict diet depends on many physical and psychological factors and is highly ineffective for weight loss in obesity.