Reasons not to go on a diet

The general goal of dieting is to lose weight or to become healthier. However, some researches don’t back this up. In fact, an article published by researchers at UCLA reviewed studies of calorie-restricting diets and found that up to two-thirds of dieters actually re-gained more weight than they lost on their diets. They also found that none of the dieters gained any health benefits as a result of their diets.

Another study, which followed nearly 17,000 pre-adolescents and adolescents (boys and girls), found that “dieting to control weight is not only ineffective, it may actually promote weight gain”. In addition, dieters in the study were more likely to engage in binge eating.

Not only can dieting cause you to regain more weight than you initially lose, going on diets repeatedly can actually increase your risk of becoming overweight or obese in the long term. This occurs when someone continues to regain more weight than he or she lost, over and over again. A study of 4,000 twins in 2012 found that this is true, independent of genetic factors that could predispose someone to weight gain.

When someone restricts the food they eat, either by the number of calories that they eat or by the type of food, it puts him or her at an increased risk for binge eating. Simply put, when your body isn’t getting enough food, you’re more likely to overeat when given the opportunity. As many dieters will tell you, if they’re restricting intake of a specific type of food, they begin craving it.

One of the most important reasons not to diet is that dieting can lead to the development of an eating disorder in someone who otherwise would not have an eating disorder. One study that followed almost 2,000 students (male and female) for three years found that “adolescent females who diet at a severe level are 18 times more likely to develop an eating disorder”. Those who only diet moderately, were five times as likely to develop an eating disorder.

Although there seems to be a general assumption that the majority of people need to lose weight, there is actually little research to support this. In fact, an article published in 2013 that reviewed almost 100 research studies found that being overweight is actually associated with a lower mortality rate, and that grade 1 obesity was not associated with any higher mortality.