You wake up to your stomach growling. But before you can unwrap the Wild Blueberry Poptart by your bed, you remember that new bathing suit you just bought. You want to look good in it so you decide to go on a diet and skip breakfast. Is this really the best way to stay in shape and look good in a bathing suit?
Many of us have been there in some way. Whether we’re thinking, “I wish I could have smaller thighs,” “I want to fit into my old jeans,” or “I need to look hot for Spring Break,” our missions often become I’ll-do-anything-and-everything-to-lose-weight kind of diets. In a culture centered on how we look, dieting has become commonplace among college women.
More often it has been shown that when women do diet they use unhealthy weight-control behaviors such as fasting and diet pills rather than increasing exercise or decreasing fat intake. This form of unhealthy dieting is primarily because of the ‘thin’ ideal that is now held in American society. “I think society has unfortunately shaped a lot of women’s beliefs that skinny is better,” Lisa Kwon, a junior Social and Decisions Science major, told me. “I actually know of articles that claim that women are happier being skinny than being in a relationship.”
As we try to attain the thin ideal that American society portrays we need to ask, How healthy are these diets and cleanses? Do they really help us to lose the Freshmen (or Sophomore, or Junior, or Senior) 15? Or are these diets actually dangerous?
Experts have described fasting, the use of diet pills and purging as dangerous diet tricks that can seriously harm your body. “When you decide to go on an extreme diet where you significantly restrict your food intake or don’t eat at all, you are putting your body in shock,” explained Deborah Sermet, Senior Public Health Educator for Suffolk County Department of Health Services who focuses on nutrition for young adults, especially those in college. “Your body then goes into starvation mode,” Deborah said, meaning your metabolism slows down. This may actually cause you to gain weight in the long run. Another dangerous effect of extreme dieting is that as you are restricting your food intake, your body begins to break down muscle, and soon vital organs may begin to fail. This can lead to kidney failure or heart attacks!
Though extreme diets that require you to eat nothing are no good doesn’t mean that all diets are bad. When asked for her thoughts on the college diet fad, senior Information Systems and Human-Computer Interactions major Amanda Gobaud said, “I think restrictive diets are rather silly. I think that if you want to lose weight or be healthy, you should just make more long term changes to what you eat.” As Amanda says, there are healthy diets out there for us college girls to follow.
Paula Martin, dietician at Carnegie Mellon University Student Health Services, gives us 5 tips for getting and staying in shape:
- Don’t skip meals. Eat Breakfast. This will make your metabolism more efficient and you will be able to burn calories more effectively.
- Eat every 3-5 hours a day. By eating frequent meals, your blood sugar and energy levels will remain steady.
- Be a mindful eater. Eating should be satisfactory and pleasurable. You can achieve this satisfaction by paying more attention to what you are eating. You will be more likely to stop eating at the first sign of fullness instead of overeating.
- Don’t leave out any food groups in your meals. Include sources of carbohydrates, protein, and fat in all your meals and snacks.
- Reduce sugar, salt, caffeine, and alcohol intake. While having these things in moderation is not bad, try to reduce the use of them since they can prevent you from reaching your ultimate goal of being fit.
If you must go on a diet to lose weight you don’t have to go to extremes. Eat balanced meals, exercise, and drink plenty of water. To put it simply, not all dieting is bad. You just have to be smart about it.