Is dieting healthy?
Faddy diets come and go. Remember the Atkins? The Grapefruit Diet? The Cabbage Soup Diet? One week they're the new miracle cure for those extra pounds. The next, they are being denounced by ministers and medics as the latest risk to our long-term health.
Which diet can you trust?
It's hard enough losing weight and keeping it off, without all the confusion of diet 'doctors' arguing whether low-fat or low-carb is the healthiest option. Then there are the point systems, the GI scores and the red and green days to keep count of...
If that wasn't enough to put you off, the newspaper headlines certainly will: The Evening Standard denouncing the Atkins diet as a "massive health risk"1 and The Sun reporting how very low calorie dieters had destroyed their health2.
So is dieting really healthy? Or should you give those heavily advertised weight-loss plans a wide berth? Perhaps the best way to put the health risks of dieting into perspective, is to look at the health risks of not losing excess weight...
Obesity is a common problem
More women are now obese than ever before. According to an NHS Information Centre study, 24 percent of women in England were classified as obese i.e. having a body mass index (BMI) of 30 or more3.
A whopping 41 percent of women were identified as having a raised waist circumference3. That's a waist measurement of 35 inches or more (a typical UK women's clothes size 18). This indicates a level of fat around your middle that actually increases your risk of developing serious health problems.
The health risks of being overweight
Based on the BMI and waist measurements, the report identified that 14 percent of women are at increased risk of developing health problems, while 16 percent are at high risk and 23 percent are at very high risk3 due to being seriously overweight.
Without wanting to be doom and gloom about it, these figures show that losing weight is more important than simply wanting to fit into a slinky dress, or look good for a school reunion.
The types of health problems associated with obesity include cardiovascular disease, type two diabetes, osteoarthritis, obstructive sleep apnoea and certain kinds of cancer. As a result, obesity on average reduces life expectancy by about 3 years4.
References:
- The Evening Standard (London) 12 August 2003
- http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/woman/article2040852.ece
- http://www.ic.nhs.uk/webfiles/publications/opan08/OPAD Jan 2008
final v7 with links and buttons - NS
logo removed 20112008.pdf - (SOURCES: Gary Whitlock, Ph.D., Clinical Trial Service Unit, University of Oxford, U.K.; David L. Katz, M.D., M.P.H., director, Prevention Research Center, Yale University School of Medicine, New Haven, Conn.; March 18, 2009, The Lancet, online)
Slender Bear 30/04/09
This is great - I was expecting to read all about diet drinks and sweeteners which are really not good for you and nobody really knows what effect they have on the body in the long term. Sensible healthy food and diet is the way forward and not ‘diet foods’