What Are the Causes of Crash Dieting in Teens?

Between tattoos, piercings, dramatic haircuts, and bipolar shifts in wardrobe, teens subject themselves to drastic superficial changes perhaps more so than any other demographic. The teen years are a time of self-discovery and of forming your own identity, establishing independence from your parents and from society and toying with rebellion. Despite their attempts to be different, reports reflect a high level of teens engaging in a similar behavior: dieting. There are several factors that contribute to a teen's choice to diet.

The Media

• Teens are taught that achieving a certain body type will bring with it success.

  An enormous influence in a teen's desire to diet is the media, which tells young women that they should value thinness over all other qualities. As long as they achieve thinness, the media alleges, young women will have power, popularity and male attention. Likewise, the message it delivers to young men is that as long as they achieve stunning musculature and masculine features, success, money and women will naturally follow. Teens, because of their biological propensity for impulsiveness, are most susceptible to buying into these myths.

Athletics

• Wrestlers are highly susceptible to crash diet behavior.

  Different sports can have weight requirements for students wishing to make a team. Wrestlers, for instance, are weighed frequently to determine which weight class they fall into. A student not making certain weight requirements is in danger of not making the team. Even sports that do not require regular weigh-ins still might put particular emphasis on an athlete's body size and shape. Dancers, runners, gymnasts and cheerleaders are athletes whose performance is at least partially dependent upon achieving a specific ideal weight.

Body Consciousness and Budding Sexuality

• Teens are among the most body-conscious individuals.

  The teen years are a time when puberty is in full swing and hormones are raging. It is the time when teens begin to explore feelings of sexual attraction to others. It naturally follows that they will want to make themselves physically and sexually attractive to others. In the hopes of achieving sexual intimacy with potential partners, teens will attempt to alter, often drastically, their physical appearance. This includes, but is not limited to, dieting to achieve a certain standard of weight that is deemed appropriate by their peers and the media.

Eating Disordered Culture

• Eating disorders often take root during the teen years.

  Most adults with eating disorders first started experiencing symptoms of disordered eating while in their teens. One of the major components in disordered eating behavior is severe calorie restriction through extreme dieting. Because the very nature of diets is that they are short-term, these diets ultimately fail, with the person usually succumbing to temptations and crashing. Anorectics, in particular, will subject themselves to harsh calorie restrictions and self-starvation. Anorexia nervosa, like other eating disorders, is not just a vain attempt to achieve a body weight but a mental illness that manifests as extreme fear of weight gain.