The desire to get thin by any means possible starts innocently enough. A woman looks in the mirror and thinks, “There is no way I will get into this dress by my class reunion next month. I’ve got to do something, ANYTHING to get this weight off.” And so begins the spiral
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The desire to get thin by any means possible starts innocently enough. A woman looks in the mirror and thinks, “There is no way I will get into this dress by my class reunion next month. I’ve got to do something, ANYTHING to get this weight off.” And so begins the spiral into crash dieting. Despite having known about the reunion for some time, she waits until the last minute and then expects miracles. And she’ll do anything to get it.
While slow and steady wins the weight loss race, we all fall prey to the lure of crash dieting now and then, not wanting to spend the time or the energy to lose weight safely. Like Veruca Salt in “Willy Wonka,” we “want it now!” Despite being bombarded with information touting the dangers of crash dieting, we ignore the sensible in exchange for the fantasy, and it doesn’t take a psychology degree to figure out why: we want results, quick as we can get them. We rationalize our crash dieting with thoughts of “It’s just a couple of pounds.” Common sense leaves and emotions run high to lose those 5, 10 or even 20 or more pounds quickly.
A “diet,” though literally referring to the food we eat, is understood colloquially as a limiting of calories in order to lose weight or excess body fat, in the pursuit of a healthier body. A crash diet, on the other hand, is extreme. They forbid particular foods or entire food groups, and frequently cut off supplies of important vitamins and minerals that we need to thrive. Oftentimes, these crash diets are commercialized, and you can only eat at certain times, or drink specific shakes, eat cookies or call for “cleanses” of your body. Some crash diets can limit you to under 500 calories in a day. They take out the guessing work of eating less, and depend on an adherence to a ritual and loss of control.
It seems that the need to fit in and the need to be thin override the basic sensibility of maintaining one’s health. The drive to look the way society dictates is appropriate outweighs the body’s innate mechanism for health. Crash dieting causes the body to go into preservation mode while the mind continues to beg for “just another pound” to come off.
The urge to lose weight can come for all sorts of reasons, but for many women swimsuit season can spur the urge to drop a quick 10 or more pounds without stopping to think about the ramifications of the decision. Linda Bacon, Ph.D., a nutrition professor and author was interviewed by Health.com about this urge to look good in a swimsuit. She says that “Early June and January are the two times of year that people do crazy, desperate things to get thin fast. They go on fasts, yo-yo diets, detox programs and ‘cleanses’ without realizing that there are serious consequences to weight loss and nutrient restriction.” Dr. Bacon’s concern is echoed by other health professionals and dietitians.
Unfortunately, our desire to get the results without investing in a healthier lifestyle means that most of these diets set the dieter up for a short term fix, followed by weight gain when they return to old, bad habits, and will consequently return to the crash diet to find another quick fix. This yo-yo dieting can set a person up for a lifetime of failure. The dieter chases one fad after another in hopes of finding the final fix that works for good, because no crash diet is sustainable. If the weight loss from crash dieting were permanent, the companies responsible would go out of business, with no yo-yo dieters to return time and time again, with every inevitable five-pound gain.
Crash dieters frequently restrict calories to such a huge extent that their blood sugar crashes, which makes people fatigued. This is because your brain needs glucose to thrive, and when blood sugar levels drop that low, your brain is starved for nutrients.
In an article posted on CNN.com, cardiologist Isadore Rosenfeld, M.D. states that these extreme diets are based on the theory that the body needs help eliminating waste. What they do, instead, is weaken the immune system, cause dehydration and can cause cardiac stress as the heart is compromised by repeated nutrition deficits.
With a growing number of Americans considered overweight, it is understandable that dieting has become an obsession. Combined with the media-driven standard of perfection and our expectation of instant gratification, it seems that crash dieting has found its niche. As with any crash though, the best thing is to be able to walk away.
Allison Gamble has been a curious student of psychology since high school. She brings her understanding of the mind to work in the weird world of internet marketing
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