When a Bad Diet Becomes Dangerous

The warning signs of a dangerous diet often go unnoticed by the one dieting.  Often family and friends, concerned for your safety and your health will have to intervene and wake you up.  Sometimes rational thinking is thrown out the window in an effort to lose weight, at any cost.  Extreme dieting doesn’t just have short term consequences, but you can wind up in the hospital or even worse, dead.

Last year, Lady Gaga, an extreme dieter, ended up in the hospital 6 times.  During the last two years, among pressure to be thin, it was reported she would binge and then starve.  More recently however, she has been known to participate in the “baby food diet”.  The Baby Food Diet, made popular by Hollywood, includes the stars only eating baby food all day!  The only thing they are eating is pureed vegetables and fruits, with very few calories, which is not enough sustenance for truly healthy living.  Binging, starving, and extremely limited food choices are all instances where a bad diet has become dangerous.

Before you find yourself damaging your heart, liver, and digestive system, there are a few things you should watch out for in evaluating a diet.  In any case, no matter how desperate you are to drop the weight, you should never try any diet that has components that severely restrict food groups or essential nutrients.

BAD DIETS

Liquid food only diets: We all remember Oprah’s attempts at a liquid only diet.  She absolutely dropped weight, but at what cost?  The extreme drop in weight, followed by a return of weight is dangerous on your circulatory system.   Plaque builds up in your arteries as you put fat on, but when you lose weight, the plaque does not go away.  When you regain the weight, more plaque is added.  Yo-yo dieting, as is common with liquid only diets, increases the plaque build up in our arteries.  Unmedically supervised liquid diets are also devoid of fiber, vital nutrients, calories, and they are a not a permanent method for losing weight.

Completely Fat Free: Low fat may be fine to maintain good health, but a diet completely void of any fat is not healthy.  Fat is critical in our bodies.  We use it for cell membrane structure, transportation of fat soluble vitamins; brain functioning, body temperature regulation and growth and development.  We literally could not survive without dietary fat.  Fat from plant based sources, nuts, seeds, legumes, and even animal sources are all used to coat our cells membranes and facilitate in vital mechanisms for life.

Sodium Free Diets:  Sodium has a bad reputation, and certainly in excess it can increase the risk of hypertension. However sodium itself is critical to sustain life.  The most important thing sodium does is help us to maintain fluid balance.  Too much fluid is harmful, too little fluid is also harmful.  Someone who drinks a lot of water, and sweats a lot, needs sodium or will be at risk for  hyponatremia, too much fluid outside of the cells.

Deficient in major nutrients or calories Very few calories or very few nutrients put’s a person at risk for vitamin deficiencies as well as major energy deficiencies.   The list for consequences of deficiencies literally fills entire textbooks, and at worst are life threatening. Some more common problems include, low bone density, low fertility problems, heart problems, anemia, electrolyte imbalances, neurological problems and hormonal issues.

Laxatives/ purging- Whether someone chooses to purge a large meal or take laxatives, both methods are dangerous and life threatening.  Electrolyte imbalances, tooth erosion, water retention, irregular periods, stomach distress, and mental issues are all consequences of this extreme method of weight loss.

Dangerous dieting is not worth the life threatening risks.  Many young women and teenagers are vulnerable to quick weight loss attempts to get the thinner body they perceive as good.  The typical attitude of “It will never happen to me”, prevails in this underground world of girls dying to get thin.  They assume they can just try a dangerous diet for a short time, and then return to normal, healthy living.  The problem with such attitudes is that damage can be done in a short amount of time.  Dangerous diets are not the answer for permanent weight loss.

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