Teenage dieting is a dangerous game. New research shows that teenagers who diet may be setting the stage for life-long weight problems.
A recent edition of the Arbor Clinical Nutrition Updates (June, 2007) reports on two unsettling aspects of teenage dieting.
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One American study, which studied the dieting habits of more than 4 000 teenagers between the ages of 14 and 18 years, found that 41% of the teenagers were attempting to lose weight.
In teenage girls, this figure was as high as 58% and many of these young people were using unhealthy methods to lose weight, i.e. starvation, purging, overuse of laxatives, use of diet pills, smoking etc.
These figures are cause for real concern. Imagine that nearly 60% or 6 out of every 10 teenage girls are trying to lose weight and that most of them are going about this in potentially dangerous ways.
A second series of studies, which followed-up on more than 2 500 adolescents, found that teenagers who had been dieting in 1999 were not only more likely to be indulging in binge eating and poor dietary habits five years later, but most distressingly, were much more likely to be overweight.
This new revelation that teenage dieting (especially inappropriate dieting when the person is not really overweight) can pave the way for overweight later on, is very worrying.
The South African picture
Dr Marjanne Senekal of the University of Cape Town recently presented a paper on "A continuum of weight-management-related problems: from classic eating disorders to obesity" at a symposium on sugar and health in Mpumalanga.
In her paper, Dr Marjanne Senekal reported that South African studies at universities have revealed that nearly 82% of white students 'feel they are overweight', but that only 11-16% are actually overweight.
In addition, many of these students are using inappropriate methods to try to lose weight – even when they don't need to.
So, the teenage dieting situation in South Africa is probably very similar to the US one.
Why teenagers starve themselves
The teenage years are usually turbulent and stressful as young people have to come to terms with their own developing bodies, hormonal changes, pressures of school, their peers and the outside world.
Open any fashion magazine and you'll see 'coat-hanger thin' models strutting their stuff and anorexic film stars touting the modern image of beauty.
Teenagers read these magazines and want to emulate these models and film stars, without considering that to achieve such an emaciated look they will have to diet to the brink of starvation.
Proof that fashion magazines have this fatal effect on young people was found in the second American study mentioned above. To quote the results, "One of the initial behaviours that strongly predicted being overweight and having unhealthy or extreme weight-control behaviours 5 years later (2-3x as likely) was reading magazine articles containing dieting advice, but only in girls" (Arbor Clinical Nutrition Updates, June 2007).
Reading magazines, particularly dieting advice and seeing the modern examples of beauty can therefore make teenagers, especially girls, go overboard with dieting, binging, popping diet pills, starving themselves, using harsh laxatives and purging and doing damage to themselves in the long run.
Keep in mind that these behaviours will not only ruin your present health and normal growth, but ironically your teenage dieting can make you fat in later life.
What's to be done?
At present, with nearly 60% of teenagers trying to lose weight and doing harm to their bodies in a vain attempt to look like their inappropriate role models, there seems to be few solutions to stop this epidemic of teenage starvation.
Parents can, however, play a pivotal role. Above all things, it's important for parents not to constantly tell their adolescent children that they are 'fat and ugly' and need to diet or to lose weight. If your son or daughter has a genuine weight problem, talk to them with understanding and love, don't denigrate them and break down their confidence.
Get expert assistance from a dietician (visit the Association for Dietetics in SA Website at: www.adsa.org.za and click on "Find a Dietician" to find a dietician in your area) and enrol your teenager at a good gym or Walk for Life to ensure that they get plenty of exercise.
Turning your teenager from a couch potato, who spends more than five hours a day hunched up in front of the TV or the PC, into a healthy, active young person who does more than 30 minutes of aerobic exercise a day, will do more for his or her figure than direct dieting. Using exercise for weight loss in teenagers is also less likely to cause eating disorders.
As a parent, you also need to be aware of the signs of harmful teenage dieting. If your son or daughter is not overweight and suddenly starts to get emaciated, picks at food, disappears into the bathroom after meals to vomit or purge, starts smoking or taking diet pills, get professional help immediately.
You will not only stop your child from doing harm to his or her body in the present, but also prevent future weight gain. You don't want your teenager to be doomed to a life of yo-yo dieting and obesity, so be proactive and get help right now.
Text copyright: Dr I.V. van Heerden
25 June 2007
References:
(Arbor Clinical Nutrition Updates (2007). Teenage Dieting. Issue 280, June 2007; M Senekal (2007) A continuum of weight management related problems: from classic eating disorders to obesity. Paper presented at the 'Nutrition: the sweet sense of it all. Sugar & Health Symposium, Malelane, 12 & 13 June 2007)
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