Health & Medicine
Dieting at Young Age Leads to Poor Health Outcomes Later in Life
Benita Matilda
First Posted: Jul 31, 2014 04:54 AM EDT
Females who take up dieting at a young age may suffer from poor health outcomes later in life, a new study reveals.
Dieting is a very common unhealthy weight loss strategy followed by girls and young women. While practicing these weight loss diets, people - especially yound ones - fail to consider its long term consequences.
In the study, researcher Dr. Pamela Keel from Florida, State University, claims that younger women faced worse health outcomes when they began dieting at a young age. The finding was based on the interviews of young college women in 1982, 1992, 2002 and 2012. The participants were made to report their dieting and weight history. The participants were followed for 10 years after that and the impact of dieting history on long term health outcomes was examined.
The researchers found that younger the woman was when she started her first diet, the more likely she was to adopt extreme weight control behaviors like self-induced vomiting, misuse alcohol and be overweight or obese when she reachd her 30's.
"While the cause of these outcomes is not determined here, discouraging weight loss diets in young girls may reduce risk for eating, alcohol, and weight-related problems in adulthood," researchers explained.
The researchers suggest that public health initiatives should promote behavior that boosts wellness in girls, such as increasing activity, decreasing leisure time watching TV and on computers, and increasing the intake of fruits and veggies. And, these interventions are needed to be implemented at an early stage such as in elementary school to support girls as they reach puberty. It is during puberty that their bodies experience natural experience rapid growth, weight gain and increase in body fat.
The finding was presented at the Annual Meeting of the Society for the Study of Ingestive Behavior.
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First Posted: Jul 31, 2014 04:54 AM EDT
Females who take up dieting at a young age may suffer from poor health outcomes later in life, a new study reveals.
Dieting is a very common unhealthy weight loss strategy followed by girls and young women. While practicing these weight loss diets, people - especially yound ones - fail to consider its long term consequences.
In the study, researcher Dr. Pamela Keel from Florida, State University, claims that younger women faced worse health outcomes when they began dieting at a young age. The finding was based on the interviews of young college women in 1982, 1992, 2002 and 2012. The participants were made to report their dieting and weight history. The participants were followed for 10 years after that and the impact of dieting history on long term health outcomes was examined.
The researchers found that younger the woman was when she started her first diet, the more likely she was to adopt extreme weight control behaviors like self-induced vomiting, misuse alcohol and be overweight or obese when she reachd her 30's.
"While the cause of these outcomes is not determined here, discouraging weight loss diets in young girls may reduce risk for eating, alcohol, and weight-related problems in adulthood," researchers explained.
The researchers suggest that public health initiatives should promote behavior that boosts wellness in girls, such as increasing activity, decreasing leisure time watching TV and on computers, and increasing the intake of fruits and veggies. And, these interventions are needed to be implemented at an early stage such as in elementary school to support girls as they reach puberty. It is during puberty that their bodies experience natural experience rapid growth, weight gain and increase in body fat.
The finding was presented at the Annual Meeting of the Society for the Study of Ingestive Behavior.
See Now: NASA's Juno Spacecraft's Rendezvous With Jupiter's Mammoth Cyclone