Weight loss diets can lead to disordered eating
This week is National Eating Disorder Awareness Week. According to recent research from the University of Montreal, 10 to 15 percent of women may be affected by disordered eating. Women who suffer from eating disorders like binge eating and compulsive overeating as well as anorexia and bulimia often say their maladaptative behaviour all started with going on a diet.
Dieting is all about restricting what we eat in order to lose weight. People who diet so do because they believe that being thinner will make them not only healthier but happier and more socially accepted. Its restrictive nature classifies dieting as a Near Eating Disorder because it encourages an obsession with food and weight, and suggests that thinness is an ideal to which must be attained at all cost.
The effects of negative dieting that may preclude an eating disorder include:
- A preoccupation with food
- A strong impulse to binge
- Lowered self-esteem when diets inevitably fail
- Social withdrawal
- Decreased sexual interest
- Lowered metabolism (and thus weight gain)
- Increased use of salt, spices, coffee, tea, chewing gum, cigarettes
This week and year-round, the National Eating Disorder Information Center (NEDIC) is encouraging young women and men to celebrate their natural body size by focusing on health and well-being, no matter what size you wear. Talk to a Slimband consultant today for more information on how you can stop dieting, stop obsessing about your food intake - and lose weight permanently.
