Weighing in on fad diets
Posted on January 22, 2008
Want uncontrollable bowel movements, an increased heart rate, kidney problems and constant food cravings? With a few payments you can get a bottle of over-sized pills, have pre-made meals sent to your home, or receive detailed instructions on how to maintain these symptoms.
Decrease your body fat by an average of 7.9 percent! Eat all you want and still lose weight! These statements made by Hydroxycut Hardcore and the European weight-loss supplement AKAVAR, are what consumers believe. There are thousands of diet supplements, products and treatments advocating quick and easy weight loss.
“If anything worked well, we’d all be thin, gorgeous and look the same,” said Holly Bailey, UREC’s coordinator of fitness and nutrition. “If it sounds too good to be true, it probably is.”
Our society is full of skinny models and celebrities who are plastered on billboards, magazines, computer and television screens. With the current male-to-female ratio at James Madison being 39:61, many young women on campus are scurrying to find the perfect weight loss solution. Males, on the other hand, are searching for the right protein supplement to gain muscle.
Not everyone can afford to get lipo a few times a year, multiple boob jobs and botox injections like celebrities. So a highly commercialized diet program will have to do. In a survey of 23 students at PC Dukes, 13 students of an average to thinner build, admitted to having been on a diet. Out of nine males, three have tried fad diets. Out of 14 females, 10 have tried fad diets. While the males were chomping down on burgers and burritos, the females were mostly eating salads and sandwiches. Some diets attempted included the Nutrisystem, South Beach, Atkins, High-Protein and Weight Watchers diets. Other participants confessed to cutting their calories in half.
The American Dietetic Association’s definition of food fads states that they are “unreasonable or exaggerated beliefs that eating (or not eating) specific foods, nutrient supplements, or combinations of certain foods may cure disease, convey special health benefits or offer quick weight loss.”
That sounds about right.
A study reported in the Nutrition Journal in 2005 found that 83 percent of college women diet no matter how much they weigh.
Kelly Thompson, freshman psychology major, confessed to having tried many of these fad diets. Being a slim girl, she decided to diet to keep her mom company while she fights hyperthyroidism.
“I like trying new diets; it is fun to see what works,” Thompson said. She and her mother lasted close to eight months on the South Beach Diet this past year. They began the diet by giving up carbohydrates for two weeks. This was hard, considering that bread is Thompson’s favorite food. “I felt successful not cheating, though,” Thompson said. “After a month I felt good, because I lost three pounds.” That number crept up to 20 pounds after eight months. After weeks of eating five small meals a day consisting of grilled chicken, fish, green beans, shaved almonds, hard-boiled eggs, yogurt, sliced turkey and lots of apples, Thompson grew tired of the diet.
With basketball, volleyball, five A.P. courses and work, Thompson was too stressed to stay on a strict diet regiment. By mid-summer after her senior year of high school, she was sick of saying “no” to foods she was craving.
She lost 20 pounds and her mother had lost 30 pounds. They were proud of their achievement, so they went off the diet. In a few months, they gained back the weight they had lost.
“All it took was that roll with dinner or sandwich at lunch for me to gain weight,” Thompson said.
Michele Cavoto, the nutritionist in the Office of Health Promotion at JMU, is concerned about students trying fad diets. “It’s all or nothing,” Cavoto said. It is destructive for the natural metabolic rate, when constantly going on and off diets. She refers to this lifestyle as, “yo-yo dieting.” They are called fad diets for a reason. They are short term.
Fad diets have been around since 1820, when the Vinegar-and-Water Diet came out. In 1934 there was the Banana-and-Skim Milk Diet, and who could forget the Cabbage Soup Diet that originated in 1950. Since then, there have been High-Protein, Raw Food, and even a Maple Syrup Diet created in 2006. Nowadays, there are thousands of commercialized diets, pills and drinks.
“Most people don’t know what a sensible diet is and spend money on this stuff,” Bailey said.
Popular fad diets such as the South Beach and Atkins diets that have an induction phase that cuts out all carbohydrates for two weeks are harmful according to Bailey.
Carbohydrates are needed in order to burn calories. “People should be consuming 12-15 grams of carbs a day,” Bailey said. She believes the maintenance aspect is good, though, for those who diet healthfully. The 13 students surveyed who have tried a fad diet, aren’t on one anymore, yet they said they would try to diet again.
When it comes to fad diets, maintenance is easier said than done. Along with handfuls of reasons why fad diet plans aren’t effective, this is the key one. Cavoto recommends that students exercise and eat healthy proportions of food instead. Despite her healthy lifestyle, Thompson admits to being willing to try another fad diet in the future.
“Students get upset if they don’t lose weight, but there’s nothing wrong with maintaining the same healthy weight,” Cavoto said.
Students want more.
When Winter Break is over, thoughts of Spring Break creep into the minds of students who gained a few pounds from too much home-made pie. With terrifying visions of squeezing into a tiny bikini or swim trunks, students search for the quick fix. Elizabeth Anderson, a sophomore history major, said she “pretty much cut calories in half.” According to Cavoto, cutting calories so dramatically is one of the worst things to do.
“Your body just adjusts to that lower calorie intake and it gets harder for your body to lose weight,” Cavoto said. It’s not surprising that Anderson is willing to try another diet, because the calorie cutting stopped working. Cavoto emphasized that once you start eating more calories again, your body gains weight quickly. After being deprived of calories, your body will store anything it can get.
Next!
How about weight loss pills? Pop a few pills a day and lose some weight. That has to sound enticing to eager students who want fast results. Hydroxycut Hardcore is the No. 1-selling product at the local Harrisonburg GNC (General Nutrition Center). Roughly five bottles, holding 120 capsules each, are sold in a week for $59.99 a bottle. Since it is the holiday season, it was put on sale for $41.99.
When Brandon Berry, a salesman at GNC, was asked why this product is so popular, he said, “It is highly advertised and has spread through word of mouth.” If people take diet pills, they are urged to eat right and exercise on a daily basis.
“If people are beginning to eat healthy and exercise along with taking a diet pill, is it working?” Bailey said. “Or is it just the diet and exercise?” Bailey is wary of diet pills, because very few have had long-term studies done to determine if they are harmful.
Berry said that diet pill customers “complain about having an increased heart rate” and the jitters. As for the FDA-approved Alli, Berry said, “It has the most adverse side effects and is the strictest with what you can eat.” Uncontrollable bowel movement was one of the most common side effects. One anonymous student confessed to trying Alli for a week-and-a-half, but having to stop it due to indigestion problems. When asked if he uses any of the diet pills, Berry said, “Nope.”
Next!
Little hope is left for girls trying to lose those pounds fast. So, what about those guys who are trying to gain them? The High-Protein Diet is a favorite. Guys are consuming heavy amounts of protein through foods, pills and drinks. If healthy amounts of protein are consumed and a student is weight training and exercising daily, it can be beneficial. Only a certain amount of protein can be stored in the body and used for energy, though. Matthew Harrison, a junior health studies major, was on a High-Protein diet that he heard about from his sports coach. He said it successfully “helped muscle growth.” He would gladly do it again in order to accomplish athletic goals.
Students who aren’t so active and take supplements while eating enormous steaks and mile-high loaded burgers, need to be careful. Cavoto claims that, “too much protein turns to waste and can hurt your liver and kidneys.” She recommends that users only take as much as their body needs. Cavoto also is concerned about the mental aspect linked to protein supplements.
“They can be very addictive psychologically,” Cavoto said. When students use these supplements and see results, they think that they can’t get those results without it. When it comes to protein shakes and drinks, Bailey said, “Eat your food, don’t drink it.” She adds that people with existing kidney disease are at an even greater risk for problems.
Along with exercising on a regular basis, “you just need to learn how to be a person who can make good choices,” said Bailey. Moderation is the key. “You can eat cake, you can eat pizza, just balance it by eating healthier the rest of the day.” It comes down to watching television or going to the gym. It comes down to having late night beer and pizza or a late night bowl of Special K.
The majority of students have some sort of meal plan. So they make their eating choices at one of the many dining facilities on campus. The question is, are these dining facilities diet-friendly? According to the survey, 14 students said yes. “They can be,” Katie Dahlgren, a freshman nursing major, noted on her survey. “It all depends on what students choose to eat,”
The other nine students disagreed.
“Healthy options could be more available or even advertised,” noted Beth Strickler, a junior psychology major. Other students complained about the abundance of fatty foods, vegetables being doused with butter and the lack of variety of diet-friendly foods.
When Sherry Cox, a Dining Services representative, was asked about foods chosen for dining facilities, she responded through e-mail.
“Our offerings may or may not include ‘fad diet’ food, depending on how those foods contribute to a well-balanced menu and the appropriateness for our student community,” said Cox. She noted that vegetarian dishes, soy milk and well-stocked salad bars with fat-free dressings are offered.
“We stay on top of eating trends in order to provide delicious, healthy food options that will be popular with our students,” noted Cox. JMU benefits from research and testing done by ARAMARK, a dining services corporation. Dining facilities also conduct student surveys each semester and are open to suggestions regarding foods that are popular in students’ hometowns.
“We also meet regularly with the SGA Food Committee to ensure that we hear the ‘students’ voice,’” stated Cox. If students are still wary of getting proper nutrition at dining halls, they are encouraged to check out the kiosk at Festival. The kiosk has all of the nutrition facts for every item of food offered at all of the dining facilities. The dining halls offer burgers, pizza, french fries and several desserts with high-calories. It isn’t easy to resist those juicy meat patties, glorified golden sticks of goodness and moist triple-layered cakes coated in sweet creamy, frosting.
With fad diets being a short-term fix, though, students are advised to learn to live a healthy life day to day. “It is important to eat about every three or four hours to keep your metabolism at its peak,” Cavoto said. If students can eat in moderation and exercise on a regular basis they can get results.
Just not fast.
“Moderation is a one-page story,” Bailey said. “It just wouldn’t sell a lot of copies.”
