Dieting Makes People Fat - Report Example

Dieting makes people fat Dieting makes people fat Introduction Dieting is the practice of eating regulated foods in an attempt toreduce or increase body weight and maintain a certain body weight. With the world’s recording higher incidences of obese people, dieting is seen as the way to reduce the excess body weight alongside physical exercises. Dieting is all over the world prescribed to people as a medically approved way of managing weight. Due to the popularity of dieting, many people have taken to it oblivious of the dangers that come with dieting. Further, medical practitioners shy away from giving the facts behind dieting. While dieting is beneficial to those considered unhealthy like obese people, it is not in any way beneficial to people in the long run. Observations and research have pointed to the fact that dieting makes people fat. Dieting makes people fat The argument that dieting makes people fat is true. First, dieting is unhealthy and ultimately leads to weight addition and not reduction. It is evident that dieting is a regulated from of eating where a person refrains from using some types of foods. The other fact about dieting is that, it only prescribes some certain types of foods, mostly the types that are unpopular to those who are dieting. Most of these food types lack in one way or another. Most types of dieting require individuals to take foods that lack some ingredients that are required in the body. For example, most diets require people to take foods low in low-fat, low-carbohydrates, and low or very-low calorie diets. It is scientifically proven that the body requires carbohydrates, vitamins and proteins for a healthy and functional body. This implies that when one adopts a certain type of a diet, they knowingly reduce the amounts of the ingredients that are required by the body. On the other hand, dieting also increases the amount of a certain ingredient needed in the body. For example, low-fat diet does not mean that you take low-carbohydrate foods. Thus, dieting introduces an unhealthy way of eating that increases the weight of an individual. Studies have found out that all the prescribed dieting that are aimed at reducing weight have no difference. The number of kilos lost by a person on a low-calorie diet and those lost by a person on low-carbohydrate diet did not differ. This implies that dieting is just an unhealthy way of eating. Whether it is true or not that dieting leads to reduction of weight, dieting remains an unhealthy practice, which ultimately leads to people becoming fat (Strychar, 2006). Secondly dieting makes people reckless with their eating, which on the long run leads to people becoming fat. Just like people visit hospitals and clinics to have medicinal prescriptions, people approach dieting as a cure to their weight problem. But unlike medicinal prescription that takes away temporary bodily ailments, dieting is supposed to deal with a permanent body condition. While people on medicinal prescriptions rely totally on the medicine to cure them, people on diets also rely on the diets to control their weight problems. Oblivious of the fact that dieting is not a cure; people on diets become reckless with checking on their health, with the hope that dieting will sort the problems (Kirby & Goodpaster, 2007). People usually use in excess other types of foods that have not been prohibited to them. Dieting provides an excuse for the people to consume other types of foods in excess, jeopardizing their health. It is not unusual for people on low-fat diet to consume carbohydrates or calorie rich foods in excess and vice-versa, with the notion that they cannot be detrimental to their health. However, scientifically consumption of excess carbohydrates or calorie increases the amount of sugars in the body, which may cause low insulin levels and consequently diabetes. Further, these types of foods increase the body weight irreparably. Thus, dieting promotes recklessness in the way people consume different types of foods, which ultimately leads to increase in body weight (Ogden, 1992). Thirdly, dieting is a short-term solution to weight-related problems and ultimately leads to weight gain in the future. One of the contrasts in dieting is between the type of solution it offers and the type of condition it is supposed to cure. Body weight is a life time condition, while dieting is a short-time solution to the problem. Studies conducted on the long-term effects of dieting among obese people suggests that dieting only offers a solution of around two years, and then ceases to be the solution. The studies found out that more than 75% of the people on diets lose weight for the first initial two years then regain it, irrespective of whether they are still on the diet or not (Bacon & Aphramor, 2011). The studies also found out that many people gain more weight that they were before being put on a diet. Scientists have suggested that while dieting is beneficial to people with medically proven weight problems, it may increase the death rate for individuals who are healthy. This implies that dieting is only a short-term solution and may be detrimental to one’s health. This is due to the documented increase of weight after two years even after maintaining the dieting and exercises. Ultimately, dieting leads to people being fat compared to the way they appeared before dieting prescriptions. It appears that dieting is a prerequisite to becoming fat. The short-term solution provided by dieting acts as a decoy to the real problem and seems to invoke more weight problems for the dieter in future (Stuart, 2007). Fourthly, dieting is psychological and not a medically proven solution to weight problems, which eventually leads to weight gain. According to Ogden (1992), many myths surround dieting as a solution to being fat. The author observes that many women diet because they are not unhealthily overweight but because they feel fat. Others diet because of peer pressure from their friends or role models. The result is that people who diet eventually find themselves more fat than they were before they started dieting. The psychological feeling that one is fat may encourage people to diet not due to medically proven or tested unhealthy weight, but due to their lack of self-confidence in their weight. Ogden (1992) observes that, while people diet to control their weight, dieting becomes the problem and not their weight. Dieting seems to go hand in hand with over-eating and weight gain. When an individual starts dieting, they experience weight loss for the first two years, and then go back to their over-eating routine. The individual usually adds more weight than they had originally. The individual then goes back to dieting, which in turn leads to more weight gain. The vicious cycle goes on and as time goes by every dieting exercise the individual adds more weight. It is possible that many people who diet are not unhealthily overweight. The pressure from friends, peers, lack of self-confidence in one’s weight and low self-esteem leads many people to adopt dieting as a way of managing their weight. In the current world where women stereotypes are used openly and without being criticized, many women and girls may be prompted to diet so as to conform to the stereotypical representation. Further, women in different cultures are required to present themselves in a given manner, which does not entertain them being fat. This cultural expectation may force women to perceive themselves as fat and thus encourage them to diet. According to Ogden (1992), there is no evidence that slim people enjoy life more than the fat people. This is a psychological problem and not scientific. As the problem escalates, dieting leads to more weight gain (Ogden, 1992). Conclusion It is evident that dieting makes people fat. Dieting is a form of eating where individuals refrain from using some types of food. It may be for medical or individual reasons. However, studies have shown that dieting is unhealthy in the fact that it only increases the chances of people becoming fat and not the other way round. Dieting leads people to adopt a reckless behavior that involves over-eating of certain food stuffs in the notion that it will solve their weight problems. Dieting is only a short-term solution to the life time weight problem. Dieting has been observed to be successful for the first two years after which individuals regain and add more weight. This invokes a vicious cycle of dieting and weight gain. Dieting has also been ob served to be a psychological problem. Dieting is psychological in the fact individuals are driven to dieting by lack of self-confidence and low self-esteem. This sets the stage for dieting and over-eating sessions that occur one after the other. The result is more weight gain and more weight problem for the individual. Overall, there are no real benefits gained by dieting as it only makes people fatter. References Bacon, L. & Aphramor, L. (2011). Weight science: evaluating the evidence for a paradigm shift. Nutrition Journal, 10(9): 1-13. Ogden, J. (1992). Fat channel: the myth of dieting explained. New York, NY: Routledge. Stuart, W. (2007). Dieting does not work, UCLA Researchers Report. UCLA Newsroom, April 3rd, 2007. Retrieved from, http://newsroom.ucla.edu/portal/ucla/dieting-does-not-work-ucla-researchers-7832.aspx Strychar, I. (2006). Diet in the management of weight loss. CMAJ, 174(1): 56-63. Kirby, G. & Goodpaster, R. (2007). Thinking. (4th ed.). Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall Inc. Read More