The Sad State of “Dieting”

The tragedy of the social diet scene is well described in Complementary Medicine: Jan. 1987. The following items are mentioned:

- Surveys indicate that 70% of 4^th grade girls are concerned about their weight. At eighteen years of age, 80% of women have been on a diet.

- 1/3 of female college athletes regularly practice such diet abuses such as self-induced vomiting and binging, or taking diet pills and diuretics.

- Over ¾ of medically “normal weight” American women believe they are “too fat”.

- In spite of consistent dieting, 95% of those who lose weight gain it back within 1-5 years. (Editor’s note: Most of them actually gain back more than their original weight.)

The reality is, everyone knows that: 1.) Diets don’t work, and 2.) They can actually be very unhealthy mentally, physically, and chemically.