English
Introduction
In United States society, the majority of people want to be thin and fit. The diet industry in America sells billions of dollars' worth of products each year in order to help people to achieve this goal. Furthermore, there is a new diet popping up every day. From the Atkins diet to the South Beach diet, to the Low Glycemic Index diet, there are a number of diets for people to choose from. But many people still choose good old reduced calorie consumption and a reduced fat intake as a means of losing weight. The question remains, however, as to whether any of these diet methods actually encourage people to lose weight. In fact, there is a claim that dieting may actually make people fat. Throughout this paper, I will explore the claim that dieting makes people fat, explaining the arguments for the claim.
One of the primary claims that dieting makes people fat is that is thrown their body off balance. Dieting actually affects the way in which a person's metabolism works. Your metabolism mat slows down as a result of less food consumption. This is especially true with extremely low calorie diets. They often prompt your body to go into ‘starvation mode.' When the calorie consumption in your diet gets too low, your body starts to burn fewer calories in order to preserve so energy in the body as a mean of survival. In fact, dieting can cause you to hit a ‘plateau' at which you do not loss more weight even though your calorie consumption has been reduced to a level at which weight loss should occur in your body. At this point, your body has actually become resistant to losing weight through a reduced calorie diet. The article "5 Reasons Your Diet is Making You Fat" appearing on the Fox News website points out that many diets are "too strict, which can bring metabolism to a screeching halt" (Sass, 2013). The slowing of your body's metabolism can have a negative effect on the dieter once he or she goes off the diet. This can result in weight gain over and above the amount of weight lost in some instances. Therefore, in order for a person to have a chance to achieve weight loss that will last for a substantial period of time, he or she must try to ensure that his or her metabolism is functioning at optimal levels throughout the diet.
Another reason for the claim that dieting makes people fat is that it is not a normal way of eating that people can continue for a substantial period of time. People go on diets to lose a certain amount of weight, and when that weight loss is achieves, they often abandon the diet techniques that they used to lose the weight. In fact, many people return to regular eating patterns after they achieve the weight loss results that they desire. It was these original eating patterns that caused the person to gain the weight in the first place. So it makes little sense to believe that the end of the diet will not result in weight gain after a period of time has passed. People tend to return to old eating patterns because most diets do not incorporate the foods that you like to consume or the amount of food that the dieter would like to consume. The majority of people who can eat the foods that they like in the amounts that they like and not gain weight do not need to be on a diet. In fact, many diets, such as reduce carbohydrate diets and reduced fat diets, call for the reduction or elimination of certain foods in general for a sustained period of time. It is the fact that these foods have been eliminated for your diet that has caused the weight loss that a person achieves during the diet. Once these foods are reincorporated back into the dieters eating habits, they are bound to produce weight gain.
Additionally, there is a claim that "diets are filled with fake foods" (Sass, 2013). This claim is based on the fact that many people choose prepackaged diet foods that they would not ordinarily eat if they were not on a diet. Diets such as NutriSystem and Jenny Craig include prepackaged diet foods that may not be quite the same as foods that people ordinarily consume. They contain artificial additives and sweeteners to make the food more enjoyable. A dieter would need to keep consuming these ‘fake foods' once he or she has lost weight in order to sustain the weight loss. No one plans to stay on NutriSystem or Jenny Craig forever. Therefore, it makes be more important to construct and eating plan that includes foods one would normally find in his or her kitchen when planning a diet.
Additionally, as the article "Does Dieting Make You Fat?" that appeared in the British Journal of Nutrition point out, dieting or the anticipation of dieting, can cause a person to binge eat between periods of calorie or food restriction. The article points out that in a study in which female knew they were about to go on a reduce calorie diet were given forbidden foods along with female who were not planning to start this type of diet, the females planning to start a restrictive diet consumed nearly twice as much of the soon-to-be forbidden foods than their counterparts. The article termed the result, the ‘last supper effect' (Hill, 2004). It goes on to start that the anticipating of deprivation can cause people to eat more. This effect can occur when someone plans to start a diet that will restrict certain foods whether the person is successful in sticking to a diet or not. Thus, even the mere anticipating of dieting can cause a person to gain weight.
Works Cited
Hill, Andrew J. “Does Dieting Make You Fat?” British Journal of Nutrition. (2004), 92, Suppl. 1,
S15-S18.
Sass, Cynthia. “5 Reasons Your Diet is making You Fat.” FoxNews.com. February 21, 2013.
Web. 7 April 2014.
