Teenagers & Crash Diets

Teenagers that decide to go on a crash diet should realize that the weight loss is usually temporary. Drastically reducing your caloric intake by cutting out certain foods or even entire food groups will make you lose weight, but the weight loss will primarily be from water and muscle tissue; not from fat. Once you start eating normally again, you will gain the lost weight back.

Reasoning For Crash Dieting

• During your teens, your body undergoes many changes. You experience a growth spurt and your weight increases. These changes can effect your self-esteem. According to Kidsource.com, teenagers are more concerned about their physical performance and body image than they are about preventing diseases. Teens are influenced by the celebrities in the media who seem perfect in their eyes, and they feel pressure from their peers to look a certain way. They go on crash diets to lose weight quickly to fit into that prom dress or bikini without thinking about the health risks involved.

Risk of Crash Dieting

• To support all the changes that occur in your body during your teen years, you need more nutrition. If you go on a crash diet, you deprive your body of the nutrition it needs. This can lead to iron and vitamin B12 deficiencies. A lack of sodium and potassium, which regulate your heartbeat, can leave some in danger of a heart attack. Epigee.com states that organ failure is another risk of crash dieting. Due to the lack of nutrients, the body starts to use the muscle tissue of your organs. Your kidneys, liver, heart and brain can all be effected.

Yo-Yo Dieting

• Crash dieting can ultimately trap teenagers in a yo-yo dieting cycle. When you lose a large amount of weight in a short time, eventually your weight loss will plateau and it will get harder for you to lose additional weight. Your metabolism has slowed down, and you end up gaining the rapidly lost weight back. This may trigger the urge to lose the weight again. This cycle of losing and gaining weight is called yo-yo dieting. Yo-yo dieting can effect teenagers mentally. According to Epigee.com, depression can result, and lead to to an eating disorder such as anorexia or bulimia.

Healthy Diet

• Instead of going on a crash diet or any other kind of severe diet to lose weight, the National Institute of Health recommends teenagers to just eat healthily. They state that teens should eat plenty of fruits and vegetables, lean meats, poultry, beans, eggs, nuts, fat-free or low-fat dairy products and whole grains. To create a healthy, sustainable lifestyle, teens should replace unhealthy, sugary, fattening foods with healthier options and get regular physical exercise.